4th article
4th Article
Ellis, J. 1992. “ Broadcast TV as Cultural Form.” Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video. (Revised Ed.), (pp. 111-126). London & New York: Routledge.
Levine, M. 1996. Viewing Violence: How Media Violence Affects Your Child’s and Adolescent’s Development. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
Objective Summary
The article is about how broadcast television is a cultural tool in contemporary culture. The focus on the article is on how the domestic life is fixated around the television. It also focuses on the characteristics of broadcast television and how it affects the domestic life in contemporary households.
Subjective Summary
I think that the article’s idea of broadcast television as a cultural tool in domestic life is very significant and useful. It helps us reflect on how the television affects our daily lives and how much of our attitudes and social values are learnt from the television. It is also very interesting to note that as viewers, we do not contemplate on whether the television is segmented or even the notion of flow. Thus, learning these ideologies increase my understanding of broadcast television.
Five Quotes/Points and Their Subjective Analysis
1. “ The broadcast images depend upon sound to a rather greater degree than cinema’s images. The image is characteristically pared down, and appears as though it is immediate or live. This generates a kind of complicity with the TV viewer, a complicity that tends to produce the events represented as an ‘outside world’, beyond the broadcast TV institution and the viewer’s home alike.” (pg 112)
The point claims that the images that appear on broadcast television present a view that the events occurring outside the domestic space is foreign and unwelcoming. It gives the viewers an illusion that the domestic space is comfortable and safe. For example, the viewer is watching news on the television and a segment on ‘disturbing news’ appears showing footage of accidents and bloodshed (Levine 1996: 9). This image causes the viewers to perceive the events on broadcast television as an “outside world” precisely because it is dangerous and foreign. Foreign because you think that it would not happen to you. This concept has enabled me to have a deeper understanding of humanity’s thoughts.
2. “ It is one of Jean-Luc Godard’s characteristic throw-away lines to inquire why it is that we divide cinema and TV so rigidly into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’, when we do not regard this distinction as fundamental to other means of representation.” (pg 112)
Jean-Luc Godard’s perception on the division between ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ in cinema and television is very accurate. In today’s contemporary culture, especially in our daily lives, we always regard television as an accurate and factual point of information. Therefore, causing our view on television to be ‘fiction”. Going to the cinema to see a film is clearly ‘non-fiction’, because we know that the film is commercial and is meant for entertainment purposes. We are paying money to be entertained. Accessibility is also a factor in the whole experience of watching a film, thus we view the cinema as ‘non-fiction’.
3. “ The TV set is another domestic object, often the place where family photos are put: the direction of the glance towards the personalities on the TV screen being supplemented by the presence of ‘loved ones’ immediately above. Broadcast TV is also intimate and everyday, a part of home life rather than any kind of special event.” (pg 113)
The point states that domestic life in households evolve around the television. The arrangement of furniture and the placement of photographs all indicate that the television is a domestic object. It is interesting to note that even some family dinners are orientated towards the television. The family eating their dinners in front of the television together, engaging in the television, rather among themselves. Perhaps it is the reason as to why people say that society is ‘dumbing down’. TV dinners are invented purposely for this sort of domestic trend. The article further supports this argument by stating, “broadcast TV assumes that this is the basis and heart of its audience.” This re-emphasises the notion that broadcast TV is normal and ordinary and is part of the cultural lifestyle of the household.
4. “ Williams describes flow as a liquid and even confusing process by which broadcast TV tends to average out the various programme forms that its formal organizations of production claim to keep separate. According to William’s model of flow, then, everything becomes rather like everything else, units are not organised into coherent single texts like cinema films, but form a kind of montage without overall meaning: ‘like having read two plays, three newspapers, three or four magazines, on the same day that one has been to a variety show and a lecture and a football match. And yet it is not like that at all, for though the items may be various the television experience has in some important ways unified them’ (ibid., p. 95)” (pg 117)
The notion of flow is very important in order to understand the concept of broadcast television as a cultural form. Flow is when you switch on the television, and you see an on-going show. The show does not just stop and goes back to the beginning for you. It continues on and it is the viewer, which has to catch up with the show in order to understand what is going on. Advertisements appear to disrupt the television programme, and hence disrupting the flow. This is not the case. In fact, advertisements are part of the notion of the flow. It is an order, in which the viewer must go through to attain that broadcasting experience on television. Hence, although it may seem segmented, broadcasting television is actually continuous and unified by the programmes and advertisements connecting them.
5. “ Programming, the art of scheduling, appears in this context as the deliberate policy of TV organizations of ensuring that segmentation does take place. Scheduling determines the way in which an evening’s TV will be organised so that one class of segments does not dominate, yet the series will find a permanent ‘slot’, a place where its particular pattern of repetition can take place.” (pg 125)
It is rather ironic that scheduling is meant to avoid the domination of a particular show, yet it puts that show in a permanent “slot” causing it to be permanent. This concept of scheduling and programming is not credible, as there are conflicting ideas. Although putting a show at a permanent slot attracts the audience and achieves sky-high ratings, the idea that it does not dominate is a sham. I agree with the author’s statement, but disagree with the concept of it.
Question
What impact does programming and scheduling have on us in our daily lives?
This question will help me understand why I need to know and understand this concept.
Ellis, J. 1992. “ Broadcast TV as Cultural Form.” Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video. (Revised Ed.), (pp. 111-126). London & New York: Routledge.
Levine, M. 1996. Viewing Violence: How Media Violence Affects Your Child’s and Adolescent’s Development. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
Objective Summary
The article is about how broadcast television is a cultural tool in contemporary culture. The focus on the article is on how the domestic life is fixated around the television. It also focuses on the characteristics of broadcast television and how it affects the domestic life in contemporary households.
Subjective Summary
I think that the article’s idea of broadcast television as a cultural tool in domestic life is very significant and useful. It helps us reflect on how the television affects our daily lives and how much of our attitudes and social values are learnt from the television. It is also very interesting to note that as viewers, we do not contemplate on whether the television is segmented or even the notion of flow. Thus, learning these ideologies increase my understanding of broadcast television.
Five Quotes/Points and Their Subjective Analysis
1. “ The broadcast images depend upon sound to a rather greater degree than cinema’s images. The image is characteristically pared down, and appears as though it is immediate or live. This generates a kind of complicity with the TV viewer, a complicity that tends to produce the events represented as an ‘outside world’, beyond the broadcast TV institution and the viewer’s home alike.” (pg 112)
The point claims that the images that appear on broadcast television present a view that the events occurring outside the domestic space is foreign and unwelcoming. It gives the viewers an illusion that the domestic space is comfortable and safe. For example, the viewer is watching news on the television and a segment on ‘disturbing news’ appears showing footage of accidents and bloodshed (Levine 1996: 9). This image causes the viewers to perceive the events on broadcast television as an “outside world” precisely because it is dangerous and foreign. Foreign because you think that it would not happen to you. This concept has enabled me to have a deeper understanding of humanity’s thoughts.
2. “ It is one of Jean-Luc Godard’s characteristic throw-away lines to inquire why it is that we divide cinema and TV so rigidly into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’, when we do not regard this distinction as fundamental to other means of representation.” (pg 112)
Jean-Luc Godard’s perception on the division between ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ in cinema and television is very accurate. In today’s contemporary culture, especially in our daily lives, we always regard television as an accurate and factual point of information. Therefore, causing our view on television to be ‘fiction”. Going to the cinema to see a film is clearly ‘non-fiction’, because we know that the film is commercial and is meant for entertainment purposes. We are paying money to be entertained. Accessibility is also a factor in the whole experience of watching a film, thus we view the cinema as ‘non-fiction’.
3. “ The TV set is another domestic object, often the place where family photos are put: the direction of the glance towards the personalities on the TV screen being supplemented by the presence of ‘loved ones’ immediately above. Broadcast TV is also intimate and everyday, a part of home life rather than any kind of special event.” (pg 113)
The point states that domestic life in households evolve around the television. The arrangement of furniture and the placement of photographs all indicate that the television is a domestic object. It is interesting to note that even some family dinners are orientated towards the television. The family eating their dinners in front of the television together, engaging in the television, rather among themselves. Perhaps it is the reason as to why people say that society is ‘dumbing down’. TV dinners are invented purposely for this sort of domestic trend. The article further supports this argument by stating, “broadcast TV assumes that this is the basis and heart of its audience.” This re-emphasises the notion that broadcast TV is normal and ordinary and is part of the cultural lifestyle of the household.
4. “ Williams describes flow as a liquid and even confusing process by which broadcast TV tends to average out the various programme forms that its formal organizations of production claim to keep separate. According to William’s model of flow, then, everything becomes rather like everything else, units are not organised into coherent single texts like cinema films, but form a kind of montage without overall meaning: ‘like having read two plays, three newspapers, three or four magazines, on the same day that one has been to a variety show and a lecture and a football match. And yet it is not like that at all, for though the items may be various the television experience has in some important ways unified them’ (ibid., p. 95)” (pg 117)
The notion of flow is very important in order to understand the concept of broadcast television as a cultural form. Flow is when you switch on the television, and you see an on-going show. The show does not just stop and goes back to the beginning for you. It continues on and it is the viewer, which has to catch up with the show in order to understand what is going on. Advertisements appear to disrupt the television programme, and hence disrupting the flow. This is not the case. In fact, advertisements are part of the notion of the flow. It is an order, in which the viewer must go through to attain that broadcasting experience on television. Hence, although it may seem segmented, broadcasting television is actually continuous and unified by the programmes and advertisements connecting them.
5. “ Programming, the art of scheduling, appears in this context as the deliberate policy of TV organizations of ensuring that segmentation does take place. Scheduling determines the way in which an evening’s TV will be organised so that one class of segments does not dominate, yet the series will find a permanent ‘slot’, a place where its particular pattern of repetition can take place.” (pg 125)
It is rather ironic that scheduling is meant to avoid the domination of a particular show, yet it puts that show in a permanent “slot” causing it to be permanent. This concept of scheduling and programming is not credible, as there are conflicting ideas. Although putting a show at a permanent slot attracts the audience and achieves sky-high ratings, the idea that it does not dominate is a sham. I agree with the author’s statement, but disagree with the concept of it.
Question
What impact does programming and scheduling have on us in our daily lives?
This question will help me understand why I need to know and understand this concept.
posted by jolene at 1:01 am
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