rely on professional camera crews and actors maneuvering nonprofessional performers into embarrassing
This reminds me of how producers of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette manipulate people into making a fool out of themselves on TV. It has ruined some of the contestants' lives, like Luke P.
“extreme” or abject lifestyles (Hoarding: Buried Alive, 2010–2013; My Strange Addiction, 2010– ; Extreme Cougar Wives, 2012).
I think that these shows almost allow for us to get an inside look at different inter-American cultures and issues. For the show "Buried Alive," it gives us examples of how to help those in our lives who are hoarders. (We all know at least one person). Because of America's "bigger is better" mantra, we see communities of hoarders struggle with abundance.
Yet may well serveasadecJIIilln to that enormous and anti-natural ·::: ... :.:.: .. ~~,··7.-,;~ ,~·t· storedJtl! .in PU[Inachinery
I thought this was interesting because it was another way of saying how technology stores up our information as a source of power for others.
What h-· ened is that aesthetic production I<J(iav has become integrated into commfdditJL..!1.roduction ~.:erwnillv:
This is so true - I feel like this idea plays out in many different industries. Our culture holds a lot of value in aesthetic and almost seems like a necessary entity.
postmodernism.
Interesting way to define postmodernism and how the last few years have shaped this definition.
Representations of tele-vision continually addressed women as housewives and presented them with a notion of spectatorship that was inextricably intertwined with their useful labor at home.
Media portrayals like this still implicitly affect women's lives today. In our media history, women were portrayed in TV and radio shows as staying in their roles in the house, which still makes it harder for women to combat those cultural norms when media was perpetuating those ideals for many years.
As feminists have argued, this separation has justified the exploita-tion of the housewife whose work at home simply docs not count.
This reminds me of how I Love Lucy shown light on how difficult and important housework can be when the gender roles were reversed. The episode provoked new ideas on how to view and value a woman's work in the house.
Rather, its invention should remind us of the concrete sociaL economic and ideological conditions that made this contraption possible.
It's interesting to note that inventions like this were used as constructs to keep women in the roles society has put them in, but making it a more "enjoyable" experience for them.
It is obvious that the social-psychological norms should not dic-tate 'vVhat television must do.
This is a sad realization, but I have hope that as a generation who is typically more "woke," that when we become the front-running content creators, this idea will not be a reality. Currently, producers are making safe content they "know" (or historically know) what their audience wants to see, and what content pays the bills as the content is circulated and becomes more popular.
widespread is the stereotype of the artist as an abnormal weakling, unsuited for and somewhat ridiculous, or an emotional cripple. Today's overaccentuated popular art appropriates all this: it glorifies the man, its image of the man of action, and insinuates that artists are in fact homosexuaL
This is so true and a frustrating idea that is perpetuated in most storytelling. As an artist/creator, I have seen how these stereotypes have affected society's view of artists, and how that affects an artist's view of themselves.
Nevertheless, of the standardization of the entire production process as well as the uniformity of the evaluated scri~ts, it may be expected that an investigation along the lines ot <ln American corztei1t wuuld add supplementary categories to those <1lready developed but would not produce any fundamentally new results: investigations by W. Smythe have made this supposition even more plausible.+
I didn't know how rigorous the content analysis for scripts was, and that it's a practice wildly adopted across the industry. I figured that writing the script is the part of producing a show that requires the most detail, but I thought it was interesting when it was compared to the art of acting. In acting on a TV show, you get a few takes and then you're done. With writing, your final copy has to be perfect, as it would be hard to go back and re-write it in the middle of filming.
Anything that is served up by the culture industry, simply by virtue of the function of advertising avowed in America, offers itself as a commodity, an art consumption.
It's really interesting to consider how product placement in TV shows (and in movies) has been highly commercialized and is now a considered a very effective way to advertise. In an episode of Game of Thrones, they accidentally left a Starbucks cup in one scene and was shown for about 10 seconds. Advertisers speculate that if Starbucks paid for the product placement, it would have cost close to a half a million dollars.
but the social influence also depends upon the explicit and implicit messages television programs convey to their viewers.
It would be interesting to do a study on the influence of the implicit and explicit messages on varying audiences, and see the different ways the two different types of messaging socially influence us.
Only interaction all processes, working together though differing from one another in terms of technique and dfect, constitutes the climate of culture industry. That is why it is so difficult for the to say what to people*
This idea is interesting because of all of the factors that go into television. Because it's a converging field in many ways, where do you give the credit of influence?
Ironically, during this period of prolific expansion in the form, function, and spectrum of television, broadcasting steadily diminished in importance.
This is so true in today's world! A lot of this can be attributed to advertisers wanting to spend their dollars to reach the exact audience they want to reach, rather than paying to hopefully reach a few people in their target audience. That is why advertisers only run ads on specific content (such as podcasts) that will appeal to their audience that they are reaching to reach.
Disney later admitted that he was "never much interested" in radio, but television, with its ability to display the visual appeal of Disney products, was another matter entirely.
This is funny to read about because Disney radio became a huge enterprise of the company; it was even something I listened to growing up.
Unlike virtually every other telefilm producer .in H~llywood, Disney harbored no illusions about dominating TV producnon; his modest production plans initially encompassed only the Disneyland ser~e~.
I found it interesting to know that Disney had a niche and specific direction in its earliest years, because comparing to what they are now, they are one of the largest content producers, media players and entertainment providers.
This passive and non-discriminating viewer is clearly r~lated to the_ image of t~e mass audience in classical mass culture theory, where, m some versions, the abil-ity of the mass media to 'inject' opinions and attitudes directly into people's
In a few of the past articles we read this week, it has mentioned this idea a number of times. Early television had a much more influence over its viewership because it was hard for people to know to be media literate when the technology and messaging was so new. Everyone believed everything to be true. This is obviously not the case today.
Graphics and other elements deciding the 'look' of television have on the whole gained a qualitatively new importance over the last 15 years or so. John Caldwell (1995) has recently argued that television is more and more becoming a medium not about outside 'events' but about style: 'In short, style, long seen as a mere signifier and vessel for content, issues, .and ideas, has now itself become one of television's most privileged and showcased signifieds' (5). Caldwell warns that television theory which 'continues to overestimate the centrality of liveness in television -even as it critiques liveness -... will also underestimate or ignore other modes of practice or production: the performance of the visual and styl-istic exhibitionism' (30).
This is interesting to read about since there has been a cultural shift more and more towards valuing the aesthetic and visual appeal of something. This has aided in Instagram's rise in popularity.
Broadcasting' originally meant sowing (spreading seeds) broadly, by hand. It is in other words not only an agricultural metaphor, it is also one of optimistic modernism. It is about planned growth in the widest possible circles, the pro-duction, if the conditions are right, of a rich harvest.
This is a really wholesome definition to apply to broadcasting on television today. I think this communicated the original intent for broadcasting on television in its earliest stages, which was to create a rich harvest of knowledge and to inform others. However, its perceived intent has been tainted in today's society.
It then had unforeseen consequences. not only on other entertainment and news media, which it reduced in viability and importance. but on some of the central processes of family. cuJturaJ and social life.
This is so true, especially when you think about the social implications it has had on family time. Growing up, it would be a family tradition to eat by the television and watch a show together, rather than sitting at the table and discussing our days. This takes a big toll on family dynamics.
The breeds of cat, in the cat-food commercial, are shown as in animal interest films.
This piece of knowledge acknowledges the shift in advertising on how the industry became more and more narrowed in on strategically picking your audience, rather than advertising to everyone, and also tailoring content to feel more native to the viewer (ex. saying the same breed of cat in the commercial that was also in the program).
Indeed most commercial television 'programmes' are made, from the plaillring stage, with this real sequence in mind. In quite short plays there is a rationalised division into 'acts'.
This piece is interesting because it shows how the original form of entertainment (theater) influenced the television's programming and how it still influences it today.
The decisive innovation was in services financed by commercial advertising. The intervals between programme unitswere obviousplaces for the ··· . ing to be included.
As someone who is studying advertising, it is interesting to note that this has stayed the same through television's history, although the advertising industry has innovated ways to make sponsored content feel more native and natural to the consumer through paid sponsorships on shows and such.
Movies
I thought it was interesting to read that it specified here that movies are defined to be "originally made for distribution in cinemas and movie theaters." Today, movies are distributed on so many streaming platforms rather than premiering in theaters, and businesses like Netflix create their own content and intentionally do not distribute it to movie theaters. By this definition, there would be a lot of cinematography that could not be called "movies."
Shop-at-home television progTams and stations that have emerged in the course of the past decade can be analyzed as a limit or test case in this regard.12 In shop-at-home television the programming is sales-a flow of products offered directly to the viewer for purchase, one at a time, twenty-four hours a day. The programming provided by television shopping sta-tions is not differentiated from the commercial appeals of advertisements. Instead, programming is a continuous segmented sales pitch.
As a strategic communication major, it has been interesting to study the differences between these two forms of marketing to people and its effectiveness. It is an interesting thought to think of shop-at-home programming is a long sales pitch that is B2C rather than B2B. I never thought of it that way before.
The absurdity of Webster's dream image of wealth helps soften the blow of not winning the lottery, as does the repeated dictum that love, especially familial love, itself constitutes wealth.
This is an interesting idea. It somewhat goes back to the other article when it talks about denotative meanings and connotative meanings. Wealth can be defined by many things besides money.
A rather simple example of rl11Ssical Marxism applied to television might argue that(the mass audien~e believe~ that television is harmless enter-tainment, offering a pleasant way to relax at the end of a hard work day. But in actuality the medium lulls the mass audience into passive inaction and indeed instills bourgeois aspirations and values, promising that per-sonal fulfillment can come through the practices and products of current consumer society. Thus, this mass audience exists in a state of false con-sciousness; by failing to recognize how their ideas and values are formed for them to serve the interests of others, they are dupes of ideology.
This is often a common critique of advertising (essentially saying that it is a manipulative business model). I often wonder (as someone who is preparing to go into the advertising industry after college), if there is a way to advertise that isn't manipulative in this sense, while also driving profits for the brand, or if we do have to exploit people's insecurities and desires for fulfillment by promising it in a product that will deliver that for perhaps a short amount of time, but not forever.
"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on ' TV?' He is not "really" a medical authority but establishes credibility by· acknowledging this from the outset.
Perhaps a fundamental example of how authenticity is becoming a more valued concept by shoppers, and appreciate when advertisers reflect their values in being authentic when crafting a message. More and more, brands are developing their voice to be transparent and authentic.
This "fade to black" is part of the tone of Knots Landing; it is used for the connotation "serious drama'' or "high-class show" (suggesting that the audience needs a moment to collect itself emotionally, to think over the scene before going on to the . commercial).
This is an interesting idea on how this simple part of the show communicates something much more than just a pause in the show or end of the episode, and how the meaning of the "fade to black" can be translated into multiple meanings across different feature films or episodes.
Barthes devoted much of his work to the distinction between denotation and connotation in aesthetic texts.
This idea has made language extremely tricky, and even affects us so deeply on a social sense. It seems like there is little/no shared meaning between words, which is typically what the denotative meaning of words does. In America, we pride ourselves on being individualists, which perhaps influences us moving to a connotative understanding of words. It's all about, "what does this word mean to me," rather than the original, or even shared meaning of a word.
In the iconic sign, the signifier structurally resembles its signified. We must "learn'' to rec??1ize this resemblan~~iust as we learn to rJ!adm-;; o~Tl
This idea is so interesting; that these signals are learned. It would be interesting to know which exercises in early childhood learning aid in gaining the skills to understand these signals.
Each nar-rator has a choice between the singulative, the repetitive, and the itera-tive. That is to say, a narrator can: tell once what happened once (one shot of the quarterback's brilliant pass); tell n times what happened once (re-playing the shot of the pass n times); or tell once what happened n times (using one shot of one brilliant pass to stand for all the brilliant passing the quarterback did in that game.)
This is a really interesting and methodical way to think about storytelling with discourse frequency; I wonder in certain situations of storytelling, which of these would be most useful, or even persuasive, when thinking about a specific niche of television storytelling like advertising.
Note that the commercial links these two scenes merely by an indicator of temporal succession, but the advertisers know full well that the viewer will make a causal connection: the wife is sleeping peace-fully because she took NyQuil.
This is an interesting example, especially as someone who wants to work in the advertising industry. Advertising is a highly anthropological, psychological field.
But what kind of storyteller is it? In what ways are stories presented on television similar to those transmitted through other media? How can ap-proaching television as a narrative art deepen our understanding of indi-vidual shows or of the medium as a whole? How can looking at television help us with our research on narrative itself?
This is a question I often have to ask myself in my field of study today (advertising). I think this is an interesting note about what aspects of television aid in it being a powerful storytelling tool, but it is also important to think about how this medium falls short when compared to other types of mediums like books, social media, etc.