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.