The History of the Present

It's always difficult to write the history of the present. However, if you were attempt to look at television today through the lenses used in this course, how would you describe it?  Take one example of a current trend in television and analyze it.  

Convergence Television

Discuss how you see two of John Caldwell’s five elements of convergence television (outlined on page 46 of his essay) applying to the television you consume today. 

It's Time

Hi everyone, Cortney Smalley here! So I decided to post this video that was assigned to my IGR Dialogue class. The topic is on marriage equality and I believe this commercial/PSA was aired in Australia and other countries around the world. While you watch the video, pay attention to the several different camera angles, the short takes, and explain why the video was constructed this way. Since we spent a great amount of time talking about sexuality in the media, I thought this would be a great way to tie together what we learned in class and how powerful television and the internet can be. Would you consider this video a "first"? Explain your reactions about the film and how do you think others reacted while watching this short clip. Compare and contrast the opinions of others to citizens of this decade to others who were just being introduced to sexuality on television.

Webisodes & Clips

Please post a webisode or youtube video that's entertained you lately.  Don't worry about commenting much on it in introduction, but please use your 200 words to comment on a clip that another class member uploads.  Last blog post due anytime before course final exam.

Live Television Spectacles Today

As I’m sure many others did this Thanksgiving, I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade last Thursday morning. An interesting thing I noticed, though, was the repeated commercials for an upcoming NBC special event, a production of the Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood in the starring role of Maria Rainer. For those who didn't see the parade or haven’t heard about this event, here’s a helpful link that sums up most of the general info quite nicely (NY Daily News). I couldn't help but think about the Peter Pan production that we talked about earlier in the semester after seeing these commercials since the premise of both these TV spectaculars are so similar. For one, they are both televised productions of popular musicals. They also were and will be broadcast as a live TV event. More coincidentally, both are produced and presented by NBC. From here, though, there are some major differences. For example, most of the spectacle of the Peter Pan production came from the fact that not only was it the first Broadway musical to be broadcast live on TV, but it was also one of the first color TV events. The upcoming Sound of Music production will also be shot in color of course, but now the spectacle really revolves around the liveness of the broadcast. In much of the promotion and talk surrounding the production, NBC and Carrie Underwood stress this aspect of the program and the unique challenges and difficulties that they've faced in preparation for the event. When reading the article from the link I posted, many of the contributors stress how nobody does live TV in the industry, but 50 years ago there were basically no other options. I just wanted to point this out as an interesting parallel of almost the same exact type of event happening in the 1950s and happening now and how the dialogues surrounding the two have become very different. I guess from here it’d be interesting to see how different people perceive the use of live TV today. What are some other examples of live TV today? Do people enjoy them or not and why do you think this is? Personally, I feel like live TV is used primarily as a gimmick to garner attention from the public and the media today, but there is also that kind of special feeling knowing everything on the screen is happening right there, right now that you can’t help but enjoy as a viewer.

Effects of the Telecommunications Policy of 1996 (due by section meeting Wed.)

Discuss one or more of the major effects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 on technology, content, or industrial policy.  Why do you think the FCC enforced more regulation on content at the same time that they ushered in less regulation on media corporations?  

Every Single Week (due by section meeting Wed.)

According to Anna McCarthy, ABC’s president, Robert A Iger, said of Ellen that it “became a program about a character who was gay every single week, and… that was too much for people.”  McCarthy describes this perspective as maintaining the “fantasy of queer identity as something that can be switched on for special occasions” along with a “fear of a quotidian, ongoing lesbian life on television.”  Since Ellen’s coming out episode in 1997, a number of queer characters, generally secondary characters, have appeared on both broadcast and cable television.  Choose a program with a queer character from the 2000s that you are familiar with and examine whether or not that character’s relationship to their sexuality is truly serialized or only focused on during “special occasions,” whether to play up a particular stance on sexual identity or for eroticizing reasons.

Take-aways

Now that we're near the end of the semester, what have you learned or taken away from the study of Television History?  Feel free to focus on one topic or provide a short summary of various points. 

Deconstructing the Simpsons

Analyze two examples of postmodern style in the Simpsons episode "The Front" (April 15, 1993; available on Paley) using terms from John Caldwell's essay.  (Responses of 200 words will count as one blog post, 400 words as two blog posts; due 11/25):

https://www-paleyicollection-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/Library.aspx#/Details/T:45330

Synergetic Practices (Extended Deadline--Due before Section 11/20)

What is synergy?  How does it operate within a contemporary media environment primarily run by large conglomorates?  Give one example of synergy (you can use an example from the present if you wish). 

Class in 1980s TV (Worth 2 blog posts)

Watch one of the three 1980s television episodes linked below and write 400 words on the representations of class within Roseanne, LA Law, or COPS.  This post will count as two blog posts.  

LA LAW, s.1, ep.1

Roseanne, s.1, ep. 1

COPS, pilot (please watch all of the parts on youtube)

Yuppie Guilt

Based on your viewing of our screening of Thirtysomething as well as Feuer's analysis of the program--what role do you think yuppie guilt plays on the show and how is it represented?  

MTM vs. Lear

From your viewings of All in the Family, Good Times, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show and your reading of Kirsten Lentz’s essay, how do you think Norman Lear’s shows differed from MTM’s?  Why do you think the term “quality” was often used to refer to MTM’s shows and “relevance” to label Lear’s programs?  How does Lentz see these productions as differing?  

Why did CBS censor The Smothers Brothers? How did The Smothers Brothers respond to CBS’s attempts at censorship?  How did questions of what constitutes appropriate content for network TV play out in the late 1960s and early 1970s and how do they play out today?  

Responses to Julia

Discuss the range of viewer responses to Julia described by Bodrohkozy's article.  Based on your viewing of the pilot and our discussion of television and race in the 1960s, why do you think the show was interpreted so many different ways? Why, for example, would some critics refer to the show or the character Julia as “white?”

Blue Skies

Why do you think that Thomas Streeter titles his essay the way he does?  What do “blue skies” and “strange bedfellows” have to do with 1960s discussions about the possibilities of cable television?  Does the language used around cable at that time sound similar to the way new media technologies are discussed today? Explain. 

'Low Brow' Genres

How does Horace Newcomb's essay complicate Newton Minow’s assessment of television as a “vast wasteland”? Why does he believe that 'low brow' genres such as the western can be more complicated than they seem?  Do you agree?  Perhaps give an example of a contemporary 'low brow' show and explain why it might or might not have social relevance. 

Socially Relevant Coverage in the 1960s

Why did the networks begin to lengthen their news coverage, broadcast presidential debates, and program more socially-relevant documentaries like Crisis during the 1960s?  How did this material illuminate civil rights issues and inflect the way that people understood national politics? 

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

We can see subculture beginning to be featured in Dobie Gillis. How was this evidenced in the episode we viewed?  How might either Dobie's or Maynard's masculinities be considered non-normative? Feel free to compare the two characters.

Intense Anxieties

Based on your viewing of The Outer Limits episode “The Bellaro
Shield” and understanding of Jeffrey Sconce’s essay on the show,
explain how The Outer Limits expresses and potentially
intensifies particular anxieties prevalent during the early 1960s.

Extra Credit--Counts as TWO Blog Posts

Extra Credit--Counts as TWO Blog Posts:

View one of the following films: Quiz Show (1994) OR Good Night, and Good Luck (2005).  Both are available at Askwith Media Center or on reserve at the Donald Hall Collection.

Keeping in mind that both of these films offer fictionalized renderings of historical circumstances, write a minimum of 400 words explaining how either the quiz show scandals (as depicted by Quiz Show) or Edward R. Murrow’s exposé of McCarthyism (as portrayed in Good Night, and Good Luck) had political results during the 1950s and shifted ideas about the medium of television and its specific genres (quiz shows or news programs). 

The Kovacs Way

Using this advertisement or the screening from class as an example, discuss how Ernie Kovacs’ artistic experiments with television sound (or silence), aesthetics, and timing dialogue with growing concerns about television’s noisiness and commercialism? 

NY vs HW, Live vs Telefilm

1950s television critics characterized New York-based live broadcasts as superior to Hollywood-based program forms for a variety of reasons.  Considering these reasons (discussed in lecture and in "Live Television"), compare a live program to one of the telefilms we've viewed in class, to make an argument with or against the critics. 

Amos 'n' Andy

Based on Thomas Cripps’ article and your viewing of Amos ’n’ Andy this Thursday, how did the television show portray middle class African Americans?  Discuss why the sitcom became the center of a hot public debate as well as the arguments offered by each side.  

On Liveness

What are some of the advantages of live television and why do you think it was the prevailing format during TV's first decade?  What are its disadvantages?  How is "liveness" (or the illusion thereof) used by TV today?

Consumerist Morals

What does George Lipsitz mean when he suggests that working class ethnic sitcoms of the 1950s put the borrowed moral capital of the past at the service of the values of the present?  Based on his essay and your viewings this Thursday, how did these sitcoms demonstrate how "wise choices enabled consumers to have both moral and material rewards"?  

Window on the World

How was television figured as a “window on the world” during the period of 1948-1955, according to Lynn Spigel?  Do you think television fulfills (or is portrayed as fulfilling) a similar role today? 

Clues from the Past

In the last paragraph of Lynn Spigel’s “Installing the Television Set,” Spigel quotes historian Carlo Ginzburg, who writes: “Reality is opaque; but there are certain points—clues, signs—which allow us to decipher it.”  Why do you think Spigel closes her analysis of post-war television’s role in American domestic spaces with this quote?  How does she describe her historical approach/methodology? What types of “traces” of the past does she examine in this essay and how does she use them?  Do you agree with her approach to history?

SAC 355: American Television History

SAC 355 offers a historical survey of American television from the late 1940s to today.  Taking a cultural approach to the subject, this course examines shifts in television portrayals, genres, narrative structures, and aesthetics in relation to social and cultural trends as well as changing industrial practices.  Reading television programs from the past eight decades critically, we interrogate various representations of consumerism, class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, lifestyle, and nation in the smaller screen while also tracing issues surrounding broadcasting policy, censorship, sponsorship, business, and programming.