63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, September
18, 2011
Watch on YouTube
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
Television’s Apartment Building, 63rd Annual
Primetime Emmy Awards, September 18, 2011
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
Television’s Apartment Building, 63rd Annual
Primetime Emmy Awards, September 18, 2011
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad) Delivers to
Creed Bratton (The Office)
Television’s Apartment Building, 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards,
September 18, 2011
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
Television’s Apartment Building, 63rd Annual
Primetime Emmy Awards, September 18, 2011
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
Film Studies
2002
The Un-dead Auteur
Chair: Peter Krämer
 J. W. Briggs: Unaired Pilot or Bad Quarto:
Textual Problems in Buffy and Shakespeare
in an Internet Age
 J. Gray: Resurrecting The Author: Joss
Whedon’s Place In Buffy’s Textual Universe
 D. Lavery: A Religion in Narrative: Joss
Whedon and Television Creativity
Film Studies
2006
Film Studies
2007
Film Studies
2009
Film Studies
2010
Film Studies
2010
Freaks and Geeks
The Simpsons
Film Studies
2011
Film Studies
2013
Film Studies
 University of California,
Berkeley
 Fordham University
 University of Wisconsin
 2006. Watching with The Simpsons:
Television, Parody, and Intertextuality. New
York: Routledge.
 2007. Fandom: Identities and Communities
in a Mediated Era. New York: New York
University Press.
 2008. Television Entertainment. New York:
Routledge.
 2009. Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the
Post-Network Era. New York: New York
University Press.
 2010. Show Sold Separately: Promos,
Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New
York: New York University Press.
 2011. Television Studies. London: Polity.
 2013. A Companion to Media Authorship.
Boston: Blackwell.
Film Studies
Professor Gray now holds a
position at the University of
Wisconsin which once
belonged to John Fiske.
Film Studies
Film Studies
Film Studies
Art explains; entertainment exploits. Art is
freedom from the conditions of memory;
entertainment is conditional on a present that is
conditioned by the past. Entertainment gives us
what we want. Art gives us what we don't know
we want.—Gene Youngblood, Expanded Cinema
activated text: A television program which generates buzz.
adaptation: Transforming a story conceived for another
medium (a novel, a play, movie) so that it may be retold in a
television series or movie.
allusion: A conscious, meaningful reference to another work
of art or indeed to anything outside the television text.
ancillary text: Both secondary (criticism, publicity) and tertiary
(discussion and commentary occurring at the fan level) texts.
beat: In a television episode, an emotional or dramatic miniclimax punctuating the larger story.
boutique television: A new, 1990s concept of television
programming in the cable era in which programs are
developed for small niche audiences with ideal demographics.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
break: The process of plotting out a single episode of a
television series, positioning beats, act breaks, etc.
buzz: Cultural talk, at the water cooler and elsewhere, about a
television series or other pop culture phenomenon.
cliffhanger: A dramatic, episode-ending or season-ending,
event intended to bring viewers back next week/next year and
to inspire media buzz between episodes/seasons. The most
famous cliffhanger in TV history was, of course, the "Who Shot
JR?" ending on Dallas (1981).
commodity intertext: Both official and unofficial fiction and
non-fiction produced to satisfy the often cultic needs of
television fans to know more—much more—and imagine
more about their favorite programs.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
continuous serial: "The storylines of most 'continuous serials' .
. . [are] deliberately left hanging at the end of each episode;
nearly all plots initiated in a continuous serial were designed
to be infinitely continued and extended. . . . the individual
episodes of a continuous serial have much more of a linear
feel, leading regular viewers to believe they 'could not miss an
episode.' . . . in a continuous serial, narrative change is all"
(Dolan).
couch potato: "A person who spends much time sitting or
lying down, usually watching television" (Dictionary.com).
credit sequence: That segment of a movie or television
episode's beginning in which the credits appear, either as
titles overlaying the action or separately, outside the diegesis.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
crossover: When the characters ordinarily appearing on a
television series put in an appearance, crossing over to,
another television series.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
Detective John Munch
(Richard Belzer)
1. Homicide: Life on the Streets—122
episodes
2. Law & Order—4 episodes
3. The X-Files—1 episode
4. The Beat—1 episode
6. Law & Order: Trial by Jury—1 episode
7. Arrested Development—1 episode
8. The Wire—1 episode
9. 30 Rock—1 episode
10. Jimmy Kimmel Live!
11. Sesame Street—A Muppet
representation of Detective Munch
appeared in the Sesame Street sketch
"Law & Order: Special Letters Unit”
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
cult tv: Television which attracts and sustains a usually small
but rabid audience, the members of which begin to use the
show in cultish fashion. According to Reeves: "By the 1990s,
there were generally two types of cult television shows. The
first type, in the tradition of Star Trek, is comprised of primetime network programs that failed to generate large ratings
numbers, but succeeded in attracting substantial numbers of
avid fans. Twin Peaks is the most outstanding recent example
of this category. Shows of the second type first appear on
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
cable or in fringe timeslots and are narrowly targeted at a
niche audience. Comedy Central's Mystery Science Theater
3000 (MST3K) and MTV's Beavis and Butthead (B&B)
exemplify this category of cult programming that was never
intended to appeal to mass audience."
cumulative narrative: "Like the traditional series and unlike
the traditional 'open-ended' serial, each installment of a
cumulative narrative has a distinct beginning, middle, and
end. However, unlike the traditional series and like the
traditional serial, one episode's events can greatly affect later
episodes. As Newcomb puts it, 'Each week's program is
distinct, yet each is grafted onto the body of the series, its
characters' pasts'" (Reeves).
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
episodic serial: "[A] hybrid narrative form, combining the
dramatically satisfying finitude of the episodic series with the
linear narrative development of the continuous serial,"
presenting "narratives that were limited in length but multiepisodic in form . . ." (Dolan). Tulloch and Alvarez identify a
closely related narrative form which they deem the episodic
serial. Episodic serials exhibit continuity between episodes but
only for a limited and specified number (ix). The subject of
their study, Doctor Who, serves as an example, as does
another famous British series, The Prisoner. Horace Newcomb
uses a different designation for essentially the same narrative
manifestation: "cumulative narrative.”
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
episodic series: In an "episodic series" (e.g., I Love Lucy or Star
Trek), an individual storyline almost never stretched beyond the
limits of a single episode. To a certain extent, routine viewers of
an episodic series watched in the secure knowledge that,
whenever something drastic happened to a regular character like
Lucy Ricardo or James T. Kirk in the middle of an episode, it would
be reversed by the end of the episode and the characters would
end up in the same general narrative situation that they began in.
. . . The individual episodes of an episodic series tends to have a
circular feel to them, always returning back to their given
comedic or dramatic 'situation' . . . . in an episodic series,
narrative change is minimized . . ." (Dolan). Each episode tells an
independent, discrete, stand-alone story that adds little or
nothing to the cumulative memory of the show over
seasons/years.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
fan fiction: Stories written by viewers (and often posted on
the web) which make use of a television’s show’s characters in
new, sometimes improbable situations. See also slash fan
fiction.
fan-scholar. Matt Hills' term (Fan Cultures) for a fan whose
interest/enthusiasm for the work he/she obsessively follow
exhibits the kind of academic rigor ordinarily expected of an
academic scholar. See also scholar-fan.
flashforward: Jumping ahead to events which will happen in
the diegesis' future tense.
flashback Jumping backward in time to an event that
transpired before the story's current diegesis.
grazing: See surfing.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
homage. A spoof, "send-up" of another work of art, usually
done in admiration of the original rather than for purposes of
ridicule.
interpretive community: The idea, pioneered by Stanley Fish,
that "[s]imilar readings are produced . . . because similarly
located readers learn a similar set of reading strategies and
interpretive codes which they bring to bear upon the texts they
encounter" [Radway].
intertextual: The tendency—typical of postmodernism—of
texts not merely to allude to other texts but to depend upon
the similarities, differences, and contrasts between texts in
order to establish their own signification. "Intertextuality
should not be, but frequently is, used to refer to the intentional
allusion (overt or covert) to, citation or quotation of previous
texts in literary texts" [The Literary Encyclopedia].
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
jumping the shark: The "defining moment" when a television
program "has reached its peak" and begins to go downhill.
Named after a moment in Happy Days when its most
memorable character (The Fonz) takes part in a shark jumping
contest. See the Jump the Shark website:
http://www.jumptheshark.com.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
megagenre: A large, all encompassing, umbrella genre, having
little or no distinct subject matter or style or iconography or
formulae. The megagenres of television, for example, might be
thought of as drama, comedy, animation, reality television.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
miniseries: A miniseries is a narrative drama designed to be
broadcast in a limited number of episodes. If the distinction is
maintained between "series" (describing a group of selfcontained episodes) and "serial" (a group of interconnected
episodes), the term "miniseries" is an acknowledged
misnomer, for the majority of broadcast material presented in
the genre is in fact produced in serial form. There are, of
course, exceptions. Boys from the Blackstuff (1982), for
example, consisted of five narratively independent, but
interlocking, episodes which culminate in a final resolution.
The miniseries may also be seen as an extended telefilm
divided into episodes" (Encyclopedia of Television). See
episodic serial.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
mobisode: "[A] term first coined by Daniel Tibbets then
trademarked by his employer, Fox Broadcasting Company, for
a broadcast television episode specially made for viewing on a
mobile telephone screen and usually of short duration (from
one to three minutes)" (Wikipedia). A new factor in multiplatform storytelling.
narrative redundancy: The tendency, common to serial
narratives like soap operas, to repeat/review previous kernel
events in the story.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
Netflix adultery: Watching ahead of a partner (thus being
unfaithful) an item—typically an episode of a television
series—in a Netflix streaming cue.
netlet: Any of the newer, smaller networks (UPN, the WB, now
the CW) which do not yet offer a full schedule of daily
programs.
niche audience: A carefully targeted demographic with narrow
interests likely to be attracted to a particular kind of
programming and easily targeted by advertisers.
nighttime soap: Melodramas like Dallas (1978-1991) and
Dynasty (1981-1989) which attempted to translate the
previously daytime-only genre of the soap opera into
primetime.
non-synchronous sound: Sound that does not have a visible
source in the film's diegesis.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
pay-off: A satisfying return at a later point in the story,
offering some sort of closure, to a narrative crux/conundrum
introduced earlier.
pilot: "[A] sample episode of a television show, [which] acts as
a model for new programming which may be chosen by
networks for the following fall's schedule" (Encyclopedia of
Television).
podcast: "[A] series of digital-media files . . . distributed over
the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable
media players and computers" (Wikipedia). Many television
shows inspire their own official (Ron Moore's podcast
commentaries for each episode of Battlestar Galactica for
example) or unofficial/fan-produced podcasts.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
previously on: A recollective montage, ordinarily preceding
the teaser and the credit sequence, of moments from already
aired episodes of a television series relevant to the episode to
follow, intended to get viewers caught up on the narrative so
far.
prime-time: The major, evening television viewing hours,
ordinarily 8-11 p.m., ET or 7-10 p.m., CT.
producer's medium: Characterization of television in the
1970s and 80s, a period in which powerful producers like
Steven Bochco were seen as the individuals primarily
responsible for the creation of television.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
producerly: John Fiske's designation (Television Culture) for a
text which "does not produce a singular reading subject but
one that is involved in the process of representation rather
than a victim of it," treating its "readers" "as members of a
semiotic democracy, already equipped with the discursive
competencies to make meanings and motivated by pleasure to
want to participate in the process" (95-96).
quality television: A new concept in 1970s programming,
often credited to Grant Tinker and MTM Enterprises, that held
that intelligent, well written, sophisticated programs, not LOP,
would be most likely to retain viewers.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
RCD: A remote control device, any gadget used to control a
television set (or other electronic device) at a distance.
reality television/reality programming: any program which
makes use of real people as performers in (usually) contrived
situations or scenarios.
remote control device: See RCD.
scholar-fan. Matt Hills' term (Fan Cultures) for an academic
whose interest/enthusiasm for the shows he/she investigates
exhibit certain fannish behaviors. See also fan-scholar.
season: A single "year" of a television show or series,
ordinarily stretching, in the US, from September to May. In the
UK and elsewhere abroad, known as "series."
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
sequential series: Once the continuous serial broke free from
its daytime prison, migrating to prime-time first in the form of
night-time soaps like Dallas, the sequential series was born:
television schedules were quickly populated by shows “that,
had they been made a decade earlier, would almost certainly
have been constructed in almost purely episodic terms,” series
which “could very often not be shown in an order other than
their original one, since events in one episode clearly led to
events in another” (Dolan).
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
serial: "[A]ny narrative with an open-ended story" (Dolan).
Existing contemporaneously with the episodic series,
ghettoized, however, in the very different mediacosmos of
daytime television, continuous serials told stories that “were
by contrast, deliberately left hanging at the end of each
episode; nearly all plots initiated in a continuous serial were
designed to be infinitely continued and extended” (33). Linear,
as opposed to the episodic series’ inherent circularity, the
continuous serial makes narrative change its raison d’etre.
sitcom: A television-specific form of comedy in which the
main characters (often members of an ensemble cast) become
involved in a "situation" or situations from which they will be
extricated by the end of the episode.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
slash fan fiction: Fan fiction which links together, usually in sexual
situations, pairs of characters who are not so involved in the
diegesis. In slash fan fiction, Mulder and Skinner might become
lovers, or Spock and Kirk.
spec script: A script, customarily for a different show, submitted as
part of an application to become a member of the writing staff for
a television show.
spin-off: "The spin-off is a television programming strategy that
constructs new programs around characters appearing in
programs already being broadcast. In some cases the new venue is
created for a familiar, regular character in the existing series (e. g.
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. from The Andy Griffith Show). In others, the
existing series merely serves as an introduction to and promotion
for, a completely new program (Mork & Mindy, from Happy Days)"
(Encyclopedia of Television)
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
Bellisario v. CBS
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
Bellisario v. CBS
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
Bellisario v. CBS
‘Verses: The Creation and Destruction of Television’s Imaginary Worlds
spoiler: Information, avidly sought by some fans, available in
advance of airing, about narrative developments in an ongoing
story.
spoiler whore: A fan who actively seeks out and/or
propagates spoilers.
spreadable: Media dispersed widely on a variety of formal and
informal platforms.
sticky: Old-model media aggregating in centralized locations
(like networks).
super-narrator: The voice, usually, speaking for the network
and outside any particular program, whose voice-over gives us
directions about "staying tuned."
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
surfing: Using an RCD to move back and forth across the cable
spectrum looking for something of interest. Sometimes called
grazing.
syndication: "[T]he practice of selling rights to the
presentation of television programs, especially to more than
one customer such as a television station, a cable channel, or
a programming service such as a national broadcasting
system" (Encyclopedia of Television).
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
tabloid television: Any exploitative program, usually in the
form of a talk show, dealing with sensational subject matter.
target audience: The demographic group a network/channel
and its marketers presume will show up for a certain series or
show.
tease/teaser: The opening segment of a television episode,
customarily coming after the previously on and before the
credit sequence, offering an introduction to/setup for the
story to follow.
telephilia: A love for television.
television culture: Culture (high and low) created and
sustained by television’s circulatory system.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
TV I—["A] short-hand term for the broadcasting system that
emerged in the 1950s, triumphed in the 1960s, and was slowly
displaced in the 1970s, the term "TV I" refers to what has also
been studied as "network era television." A period dominated
by a three corporation oligopoly, TV I played a central
ideological role in promoting the ethic of consumption,
naturalizing the nuclear family ideal, selling suburbanization,
sustaining Cold War paranoia, publicizing the Civil Rights
Movement, and managing social upheaval." [Reeves, Rodgers,
Epstein]
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
TV II— The post-network period in which increased
competition encouraged "networks to develop programming
forms that inspire devoted, rather than casual, engagement."
Driven by a "grand logic of flexible accumulation," its
"complicated product / producer relationship" is the result of
a "combination satellite and cable distribution system,
augmented by remote controls, personal computers, and
video cassette recorders" [Reeves, Rodgers, Epstein].
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
TV III—The current media situation: the networks in steep
decline; television viewing in real time plummeting—
especially among the young; DVRs and DVDs, binge-viewing,
and streaming (on Hulu, Amazon, Netflix) increasingly
popular; new, multi-platform programming generated by notonly broadcast networks and basic cable and premium
(subscription) channels but by the likes of Amazon and Netflix.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
voice-over: When the voice of one of the characters speaks
over the narrative on the sound-track, helping to tell the story.
Dexter, for example, uses frequent voice-over, as does
Desperate Housewives.
webisode: "[A]n episode of a television show that airs initially
as an Internet download or stream as opposed to first airing
on broadcast or cable television" (Wikipedia). A new factor in
multi-platform storytelling.
WGA: "The Writer's Guild Of America (WGA) founded in 1912
is the official trade union and collective bargaining unit for
writers in the film and television industries and actively
monitors working conditions for writers" (Encyclopedia of
Television).
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
writerly: Roland Barthes’ designation for a traditional "text"
with conventional, seemingly fixed meanings.
writers room: The inner sanctum where the writing staff of a
television series collaboratively creates episodes, arcs, and
seasons.
zap: To skip past segments (usually commercials) of a recorded
television program.
zip: To move rapidly through a recorded television program.
Television Studies Terminology
Film Studies
Film Studies
David Lavery
Epigraphs: Notes Toward a Theory*
It may be true, as the critic Wayne C. Booth has observed,
that epigraphs and titles assume a particular importance in
modernist writing, where ". . . . they are often the only
explicit commentary the reader is given. . . ." All the same,
they are hokey; one more bit of window-dressing before we
get to the goods.
John Barth, "Epigraphs," The Friday Book (quoted from J. B.:
"Epigraphs," in The Friday Book)
_______________
* This essay originally appeared in Kentucky Philological Review.
Bulletin of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Kentucky
Philological Association, March 7 and 8, 1986, Western Kentucky
University: 12-18. You can find it on the “Collected Works” DVD.
Film Studies
Roger Silverstone
Pierre Bourdieu (see
next slide)
Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002). French
sociologist and philosopher.
Major Figures
Popular Culture Studies
Film Studies
Jeffrey Sconce
Todd Gitlin
Amanda Lotz
Cornell Sandvoss
Kathy Myers
Film Studies
Thomas Elsaesser
Will Brooker
Film Studies
Film Studies
Film Studies
Nick Couldry
John Fiske
Film Studies