Television Flashcards
Frederick Winslow Taylor
scientific management; the theory of management that analyzed and synthesize workflows
• Main objective was improving economic efficiency
Taylorization
1936 comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin
• Remediated silent movies when sound already emerged
• What is the relationship between technology, media, and human possibility?
Modern Times
Examination of Modern Times by Chaplin
Take note of the title “modern”:
• Associated with the notion of time (opening scene with ticking clock)
• Herd of sheep fade to workers
o Equates the sheep with workers all under the clock of time
• All communication is through media/sound (big boss on the screen)
o Humans are dependent on technology; maybe even foolish to do so bc it break down (i.e. the feeding machine)
o Disconnecting
o Surveillance (the boss in the bathroom)
• Chaplin goes through the machinery, the gears
o We become part of the machine
• 1% boss in the beginning reading a comic book
• We become it!
o Trained to be machine-like → Insanity
• So trained by TIME that we become SHEEP
• Economics/Efficiency which drives Innovation
• The use of humour
• critique of Taylorization
Modern Times Remediated in Lucy – Candy Scene
What does this example of remediation reveal about the nature of television?
• Both convey:
o Dehumanization
o Taylorization
o Humour
• Quantity over quality
• We can’t keep up to what technology is doing to us
• Function of Television:
o Critique in 1930s to being sold by the television to be consumers
Example of taylorization
i.e. Powerpoint as a point of taylorization
• closing down possibilities rather than opening them
• university system is dehumanizing us
• students are paying more
- To entertain
- To disseminate news and information
- To market products *
Three Primary Roles of TV
Escape
Social comparison
Satisfaction of keeping up with what is taking place in the world; to gain cultural capital
Reasons why people watch tv
Television competes successfully for time with other activities because
Undemanding nature and convenience of access
- Book called Keywords and gives their history
* Television (1974)
Raymond Williams
Williams critiqued McLuhan’s technological determinism
• Suggests that consideration of intentions is the way out of the technological determinism trap
Technological Determinism
- Invention of tv was not a single event or series of event
- There is no way the tv is creating a new society or new social conditions
i.e. European Inventions: Development of Television
Social History of Television as Technology
objectives and consequent technologies to meet those objectives operate within an already existing system
• This dictates to some extent the development of technology
Examples of this:
• expansion of tv was rapid c the patterns already est in radio business
• basic structures of national networks and local stations in place
• wide appeal of entertainment
• commercial advertising
• government licensing and regulation established
Social History of the Uses of Television Technology
Operational communication
Technology of specific messages to specific persons (telegraphy) vs sending varied messages to general public
Point-to-Point VS Broadcasting
- Radio and tv as “mass communication”
- Characterizes many people as “the mass”
- Means of cultural power
The Concept of Mass Audience
- Statistical thinking
- Audience measurement
- New science of sociology
i.e. Neilson boxes monitoring what and when you watch to gather stats
Requirements of Mass Audience
- Obsolete – no such thing as mass audience
- Simplistic –issues of taste and class, “taste segments” might be more accurate
- Self-serving – study of audiences works further; mass audience is a commodity
- Social character of the audience –
Criticisms of Mass Audience Concept
Criticisms of Mass Audience Concept
Audience Profile
• Your demographics are being sold
In television, the audience is the product
of having to do with television, especially the visual aspect of television program or broadcast
televisual
• Immediacy
• Transparency – concept of televisual news, particularly within the newsroom, is that is offers “a window on the world” (Walter Cronkite and that’s the way it is); Fiske and “The Transparency Fallacy” it is not transparency
o Examples: news/political coverage which raises issues about television’s complicity in the events portrayed
- Flow – defining feature of broadcasting is planned flows (Raymond Williams)
- Hybridity – tv is a “super-text”
What makes tv tv?
- The Nuclear Family
* Utopian promise of increased social life and dystopian outcome of social seclusion
Audience Behaviour
The Honeymooners “TV or not TV”
Making room for TV
Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message 1977
• MEDIUM is more important (i.e. print)
• Content is not important
• i.e. where the content is more important/just as important as the medium: The Bible
• the message is absolutely vital in some cases
• a search for identity through “violence” (disruptive)
o i.e. little girl saying she wants to be bionic woman (a media product)
Videodrome
• We are colonized by our devices
• Social manipulation and mind control
• About losing our bodies; putting devices into himself
• We take media forms (Prof Oblivion; we have different names; how we present ourselves on media such as our email addresses)
• “Tv is reality and reality is less than tv”
• How much of an emotional relationship are we building with the media form?
David Cronenberg
What is the message of TV? →
The Televisual
flow; something only the tv can do
Televisual
What is the message of movies? →
The Cinematic
What is the message of gaming? →
The Ludology
the larger category of gaming
Ludology
• What makes a video game a video game?
• The academic study of videogames
• Deriving techniques from literary and film theory
• GTA and EverQuest as cultural artefacts
*look at narratology and ludology slideshow
anything related to the narrative = study of the narrative
• Stories
• Russian fairytales
• What is consistent across a genre
• Unspecific to one story
• In televisual and cinematic realm – argued that it works in different ways
Narratology
Three major historical developments in tv’s early years helped shape it
technological innovations and patent wars
wrestling control of content away from advertisers
sociocultural impact of infamous quiz show scandals
based on radio waves
analog standard
until 2009, analog signals were replaced by
digital signals
digital signals offer highest resolution and sharpest image
HDTV
features segments - news, talk, comedy, and music - similar to content found in a general interest or news magazine of the day
magazine program
hours bt 8 and 11 pm where networks traditionally draw their largest audiences and charge their highest advertising rates
prime time
1950s to 1970s when networks gained control over TVs content
network era
first small cable systems; originated where mountains or tall buildings blocked TV signals
CATV (community antenna television)
providing of specialized programming for diverse and fragmented groups; provided access to certain target audiences that cannot be guaranteed in braodcasting
narrow casting
includes 100+ channel lineup composed of local broadcast signals, access channels (local government, education, general public use), regional PBS stations, and a variety of cable channels, such as ESPN, CNN, MTV, USA, Bravo, Nickelodeon, Disney, Comedy Central, BET
basic cable system
independent TV stations uplinked to a satelittle
superstations
wide range of special channels besides basic programming which lure customers with the promise of no advertising
premium channels
first
offering recently released movies or special one-time sporting events to subscribers who paid designated charge to cable company, allowing them to view th eprogram
Pay-per-view (PPV)
service that enables customers to choose among hundreds of titles and watch their selection whenever they want in the same way as video; pausing and forwarding if desired
video-on-demand
transmits its signal directly to small satellite dishes near or on customers’ homes
direct broadcast satellite (DBS)
began during VCR era; occurs when viewers record shows and watch them at a later, more convenient time
time shifting
computer screens are the third major way we view content; online viewing experiences
third screens
prior to day so f videotape, was through a technique called _____
a film camera recorded live TV show off a studio monitor; quality was poor, and most series that were saved in this way have not survived
kinescope
shot comedy skits’ resurrected essentials of stage variety entertainments and played to noisy studio audience
sketch comedy
features recurring cast, each episode establishes narrative situation, complicates it, develops increasing confusion among its characters and then usually resolves the complications
situation comedy or sitcom
characters and setting more important than complicated predicaments; personal problems or family crisis
i.e. Modern Family
domestic comedy
brought live dramatic theatre to tv audience; influenced by stage plays, teleplays (scripts written for tv)
served the more elite and wealthy
anthology dramas
first used in radio in 1929
main characters continue from week to week, sets and locals remain the same
two general types:
chapter shows and serial programs
episodic series (abandoning anthologies)
self-contained stories with recurring set of main characters who confront a problem, face, conflict, and find a resolution
often function as window into the hopes and fears of American pysche
i.e. The Big Band Theory, Star Trek, CSI
chapter shows
open-ended episodic shows
story lines continue from episode to episode
cheaper to produce than chapter shows
i.e. daytime soap operas
serial programs
stations that contract with a network to carry its programs
affiliate stations
reduced the networks’ control of prime-time programming from four to three hours
Prime Time Access Rule (PTAR)
constituted the most damaging attack against the network TV monopoly in FCC history
fin-syn
required all cable operators to assign channels to and carry all local TV broadcasts on their systems
ensured that local network affiliates, independent stations, and pulbic tv channels would benefit from cable’s clearer reception
must-carry rules
required cable systems to provide and fund a tier of nonbroadcast channels dedicated to local education, government, and the public
access channels
citizens could buy time on these channels and produce their own programs or present controversial views
leased channels
electronic publishers
fill in
services that do not get involved in content
common carriers
bringing cable fully under the federal rules that had long governed the telephone, radio, and TV industries
Telecommunications Act of 1996
programs are funded through _____
production company leases the show to a network or cable channel for license fee that is actually lower than the cost of production; the company hopes to recoup this loss later in lucrative rerun syndication
deficit financing
pay broadcast networks to carry network channels and programming
retransmission fees
network-owned-and-operated stations
O & Os
leasing TV stations or cable networks the exclusive right to air tv shows
critical component of the distribution process
syndication
popular old network reruns such as I Love Lucy
evergreens
programming immediately before evening’s primetime schedule (early ____) and following the local evening news or network late-night talk show (late ___)
fringe time
commonly called reruns; older programs that no longer run during network prime time
off-network syndication
any program specifically produced for sale into syndication markets
producers of these programs usually sell them directly to local markets around the country and the world
first-run syndication
distributors retain some time to sell national commercial sports in successful syndicated shows
cash-plus
new, untested, or older less popular programs
barter deals
statistical estimate expressed as percentage of households that are tuned to a program in the market being samples
rating
statistical estimate of percentage of homes that are tuned to a specific program compared to those using their sets at the time of the sample
share
corporations like Comcast and Time Warner Cable that own many cable systems
multiple-system operators (MSOs)
the industry’s major players
multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs)
