Television as culture/as communication/as inquiry
Lecture 1, Sept 9, 2011
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Agenda
Opening Activities
Mini Lecture: Intro to Television Studies
Review of Syllabus
Discuss: tutorials (TSF)
Opening Activities:
What is the biggest television “event” of this (2011)
summer/fall….
1 possibility
Lloyd Robertson sign off?
Its coverage by CBC?
2nd possibility:
Switch from analogue to digital in Canada?
3rd possibility:
CTV two?
What is CTVtwo?
4th possibility:
10th Anniversary of 911?
Terror as spectacle
AD 1
AD 2
5th possibility:
AMC comes to an end
Clip 1
Clip 2
Clip 3
Our course is a mix of several disciplinary strands
Disciplines have to achieve “legitimacy” in universities
Television studies was not considered legitimate area to study until
recently.
Why?
Our course is a mix of several disciplinary strands
Disciplines have to achieve “legitimacy” in universities
Television studies was not considered legitimate area to study until
recently.
Why?
Popular culture was not considered an area of study
Pieces of technology where not studied for their cultural influence
by any one except archeologists: Separation between
disciplines, meant that anthropology was ascendant in this area
they studied “OLD stuff” television was NEW!
How did this change?
Following WWII: Impetus to improve the world, lead to the
rise of need to study current cultures, not ancient ones: this l
led to the use of archeological/anthropological lenses to study
current culture:
Critical theory movement: Adorno: Frankfurt School
Rise of Sociology: Study of Technology: Ellul
Rise of Marketing/Statistic Analysis: Neilsen Polls
Rise of Technology Studies (Philosophical) Heidegger
Rise of Advertising Industry alongside Psychology
Rise of Interdisciplinary work in this area
Pioneers in television studies
Study of the Image: Goethe, Benjamin, Rise of Art History
Study of sound: Walter J. Ong: Adorno
Study of Culture: Stuart Hall, et all
Study of the relationship of these to culture: Marshall McLuhan,
Raymond Williams
Study of Film: Bergman: Filmmaker – Film study intertwine
Situating an area of study in a culture that was infected with two
ideas: One: the separation of disciplines
Two: the importance of text and numerical analysis for
legitmating university study – must be translated
into “high culture”.
High Culture not popular culture
Study of the Film: Estoteric study –highly textual to justify itself
Usually located in literature department: By default: Television Studies
rose as a field in many literature departments: very textually oriented,
using textual analysis
It took a long time for the study of the image and of the technology to
infiltrate this fortress, and for those doing this initial work to find their
resources in other disciplinary areas especially that related to image
This was in part due to technology: accessing archives of image – and
presenting these – very difficult in televised/cinematic form; impossible
in paper form
Digital changes this: but not as fast as one would think
Digital technology enables the archiving and reproduction of
1. Images
2. Sound
3. Video
Which is now transforming the field of television studies from its formal
roots.
The filed however trying to justify itself in the university environs so it is
still very textual
Very dependent on its roots in literary studies and textualized versions
of cultural/film/communication studies.
Our focus:
Will be multidisciplinary: drawing on fields of anthropology, sociology,
political science, film studies, visual culture, image studies, audience
studies, material culture in addition to emphasizing
Critical technology studies/Communication studies/Media Studies:
What is critical technology studies?
Syllabus