Texas Speech Communication Journal

Teaching About Television

Television is a voice in the cultural conversation. It is a very loud, powerful and multi-tongued voice, but it is still just a voice among others. It can persuade, cajole, convince, instruct and impel its viewers to think and behave in certain ways. But in the end, humans are not automatons. They must choose to believe or act in those ways: Television can’t make them do so. Exploring television’s cultural role sheds light on our relationship with it, and empowers students by giving them tools that help them take an active rather than potato couch position in the conversation. My upper level Television Analysis and Criticism class at McDaniel College examines any and all of what can be found on television, as it serves the needs of the particular analytical approach. In this course, students explore commercial forces and political influences behind media materials, learn semiotic approaches to criticism, appraise research related to television effects, become aware of how they can influence television, and appreciate how the conversation they have with television is two-way as long as they assume the authority to talk back.

The fundamental skill students should acquire is an ability to watch television mindfully. Like the general public, most of my students have watched television passively all their lives, treating it as an “escape from reality,” a meaningless pursuit unrelated to other areas of their lives, and “just entertainment.” I’ve compiled a coursepack of key readings which I’ve entitled “Not Just Entertainment” to stress my conviction that television’s role as instructor, informer, and cultural arbiter are hidden behind a veneer of often silly and shallow programming that can easily be considered mindless entertainment. As Gitlin (1985) claims, viewers have been lulled into mindless acceptance of what is presented by an anonymous “they.” Students need tools that put a face on this anonymous “they”, and understand their motives. Invariably at the end of a semester students say, ruefully, that they will never be able to watch television mindlessly again. Such is the price of awareness -- banishment from the paradise of ignorance.

Technical Needs

In order to teach a class about television, one must have the means to record television programs. You can use the old VHS technology as long as your campus has the means to show it – indeed, many old television shows are only available in VHS format. I use a personal computer which with its cable connection and its Windows Media Center operating system, which can be set to automatically record shows. Then I transfer particular programs onto DVD using Sonic, software that came installed on my computer but is very clumsy and slow. I’ve recently ordered Hauppage and hear that Apple more adeptly captures program segments, which is difficult to do on my set–up.

Assignments

I assign readings in Allen’s Channels of Discourse, Reassembled (1992) and Berger’s (2005) Media Analysis Techniques, which dovetail nicely in their presentation of theory. Because this is a course in analysis and criticism course, students write analyses using concepts from contemporary theories which differ from traditional approaches that locate meaning in the text. In their arguments, students must include evidence from television programs and background studies, and show that their analysis is significant, relevant and coherent. What follows is a brief outline of how I sequence a semester’s worth of learning activities along with suggested assignments.

Week 1: Culture

My first task is to set a foundation by contextualizing television, showing how it is part and parcel of culture, so that students come to see television as emerging from the same place as they do rather than from the anonymous “they.” By providing shared experiences, television creates the closest approximation to cultural unity existent in the United States. It reports news that shapes perceptions of the world and tells stories that influence notions of truth and reality among its various viewers.

I ask students to reflect for five minutes and write down their beliefs about television, which they then share with each other. This information provides an opportunity to expose entry-level assumptions so we can revisit them during the semester. I’ve found these assumptions to be repetitive and predictable: e.g., that television is just meaningless entertainment, appeals to the lowest common denominator, is primarily for selling products, teaches sex and violence, and – last but not least – contains messages “they” want “us” to hear.

Culture rests on a non-physical foundation consisting of a universe of shared meaning, including values, beliefs, and attitudes. In other words, culture exists in the human mind, collectively. Understanding this point is a crucial step toward being able to dispense with the concept of “they.” Within any culture, most knowledge is implicit, organized in our minds and shared by others in the community. Cultures emerge over time and provide social structures, such as educational and legal systems, that help solve problems of living in and relating to the world. They also set guidelines on and limits around available choices, which helps make human behavior predictable.

During week one, the class reads and discusses an essay describing the work and thought that went into producing a Kodak camera commercial advertisement in 1985. (I would like to find a copy of this commercial though it is well described in the essay.) Himmelstein’s (2000) essay shows how the ad’s producers were steeped in trends and attitudes of the time which led them to make creative and business choices and use themes and symbols that tapped into the audience’s mood. The essay reveals how television commercials sell myths and dreams along with products. Students thus start to glimpse how television producers’ messages interact with the meaning-making reception of viewers like themselves and how an advertisement comprises more than just the means to sell a product.

In preparing to teach my Television Analysis and Criticism course, I immersed myself in television viewing and watched as many programs – as well as non-programs like commercials, trailers, introductions, and other continuity – as possible. After a few weeks, I realized that I looked forward to commercials which were innovative and fun whereas the programs faded into a blur of predictable plots, character types and themes. I asked students to ponder why this might be so: Besides their critical analyses, I also assign similar problems for students to mull over and write about in journals. These problems serve as discussion springboards. I collect the journals three or four times during the semester. I’m planning to transfer this exercise to an electronic format, like an interactive blog or Blackboard.

Week 2: Sociological Aspects – Race

Sociological aspects of television conform most closely to students’ preconceptions and also receive the most press – e.g., theories based in propaganda research such as the effects theories, mass society theory, cultivation theory and the relationship between television and society in terms of how race, gender and stereotypes are presented. I position this perspective early in the semester so that we can face it and then move on. Allen’s book doesn’t address sociological aspects because he believes communication research has moved beyond it, but Berger’s book does.

We focus on television as a forum for tackling and resolving social problems, and for the first week zoom in on depictions of race. Pertinent here are Gerbner’s (1993) longitudinal studies on media violence and his analysis on heroes and villains, as he points to the prominence of white males as heroes and authorities, with much less air time given to women, minorities, the elderly and the poor.

A useful video is a retrospective of the series, All in the Family (Lear, 1972). Because students tend to perceive the present day as more provocative than the past, they express amazement at the daring themes tackled in 1972. They can see that almost every controversial issue currently handled by Southpark (Parker and Stone, 1997) was tackled more fully and thoughtfully and less didactically on All in the Family. The retrospective video also includes interviews with contemporary viewers of the program, revealing how they reacted to it at the time, and how it interconnected with their lives.

Week 3: Sociological Aspects – Gender

To open a discussion about depictions of gender, students watch a videotape, TV Revolution from AMC, outlining depictions of women on television since the 1950s. I supplement this program with current shows that feature women’s roles, or older shows which I’ve purchased or taped from Nick at Nite, on the Nickelodeon network. With some guidance, students can see that depictions of women in the recent programs Sex and the City (Star, 1998), and Desperate Housewives (Cherry, 2004) have not evolved much from the 1960s Bewitched (Saks, 1965) or I Dream of Jeannie (Sheldon, 1965). Other shows from the spring 2007 semester include Date my Mom (Miller, 2003), Beauty and the Geek (Kucher, Goldberg and Santora, 2005), and Fashion Police – all of which portray attractive, mindless women. A few that challenge stereotypes include Roseanne which, although it breaks the middle-class stereotype, still shows women in traditional roles. Commander in Chief (Lurie, 2005) features a rarity in a strong, competent woman who isn’t a bitch.

Looking at treatments of race and gender raises the question of whose depictions these are and what social purpose they may serve. We refer back to the discussion of commerce from week one, and possible reasons for such narrow, confining stereotyped portrayals. We look at research on gender stereotypes, such as an essay by Shrag (1991) on children’s television, and wonder whether the business of television prefers conservative social roles.

Although I usually don’t do so, it might be fruitful to assign a paper on sociological aspects of television, both to get it out of students’ systems and to show that it as only one of may ways to understand television. Students could select a drama series, sitcom, cartoon, sports program, advertising campaign, news or public affairs program, look at how its images relate to members of society, and address how it teaches, models, influences, persuades, or suggests. They might examine the cumulative social effects emanating from the text, assess whether it benefits or harms the audience, and consider what it reveals about U.S. culture.

Weeks 4 & 5: Narrative Theory

A narrative is basically a linear tale with a beginning, middle and end; it provides the primary mode of television programming and involves both teller(s) of a tale and listener(s). We spend two weeks on theory about narrative, a very prominent component of television. As Gerbner (1998) says, television is the storyteller of our age, and its stories portray cultural values.

Every story is told by someone to someone and in a particular way, which Kozloff (1999) explores in depth. Referring to her typology, students identify the narrator who tells the stories, and the supernarrator who presents the telling of the stories. The class views such programs as PBS and History Channel documentaries, The Twilight Zone (Serling, 1959) and The Bachelor (Fleiss, 2002) to see when narrators are embedded; assess narrators’ point of view and nature (omniscience, reliability, neutrality, distance, insider/outsider); identify what kinds of people are presented as hero, victim, and villain; describe camera techniques used to frame the story and its point of view; and assess how the tale relates to the world constructed by the tale.

A possible assignment is for students to find all levels of narrative structures, alla Kozloff, in a half-hour viewing of reality news programming including its commercials. I ask them to avoid using dramas (sitcoms), domestic comedies, cartoons, game shows, and sports programs so that they can begin to understand that narratives exist in places they might not expect.

Week 6 & 7: Structuralism and Semiotics

The class spends roughly one week on structuralism and another on semiotics. I used to teach this sequence during weeks two and three because I thought it would provide a good basis for further analysis, but have found it to be conceptually more difficult than I had anticipated, so I’ve moved it to this point in the semester.

Students explore how signs and sequences lie within systems where their interrelationships construct meanings beyond the control of an author. Structuralist theory explains how beliefs and values inhabit texts such as television narratives, and communicate cultural conflicts and resolutions (Levi-Strauss, 1969). We examine Propp’s (1927/1968) work on folktales, which explores the function of characters and the purpose of myth. As sign systems, such narratives indicate cultural meanings attached to character and story types. Stories and myths transmit cultural beliefs that explain the culture to its members (Barthes, 1982) and pose solutions to cultural dilemmas (Brinson, 1995). Among other functions, they convey values, beliefs, and attitudes shared among community members; model behavior, and determine a culture’s position in the world. (Peterson & Horton, 1995; Frentz & Rushing, 1993.).

Included in the discussion is also television genre: With the consent of audiences, story types become gathered into larger categories – genres – that contain codes of their own. Genres influence viewers’ reading of a text. For example we discuss how classifying a program such as The Simpsons (Groening, 1989) as a sitcom, cartoon, or social satire alters how one understands it.

Students practice paradigmatic analyses in class. Looking for binary oppositions in program credits sequences. Material, such as recent TV commercials, especially ones that debut during the Super Bowl for in-class exercises are plentiful on YouTube. Berger (2005) analyzes the Apple’s classic “1984” commercial, which is also available on YouTube.

The theory of semiotics continues the work of structuralism, saying that signs interact as viewers appraise them. Single images have no independent meaning, but derive meaning in relationship with other elements in a system. Arbitrary connections are established by cultural usage, attaching additional emotional and cultural meanings to a sign to create connotative meanings. Semiotics explores television’s sign system that includes such elements as film edits, music, lighting, and camera work that cultural members learn to read and decode. For example, in film, the fading to black signifies the ending of scene but also carries the connotation of serious drama. A person sitting at a desk in a studio appears authorized to present news which is perceived as pure information (Gitlin, 2000).

Students read Seiter’s (1987) essay on the credits in the Cosby Show, and view a videotape of the credits she writes about, followed by performing similar in-class exercises. In their papers, I ask students to look for binary oppositions as Seiter does, and interpret semiotic codes from a specific portion or aspect (i.e., syntagm) of the television text, such as the program, commercials, station identification, transitions, opening credits, lighting, camera work, or sound. They must address any or all of the following, as appropriate their discussion: How is the paradigmatic element (e.g., lighting or whatever you’re focusing on) in this TV text related to that of another? What binary oppositions exist?

Week 8: Audience Centered Approach

McLuhan (1968) asserts that one effect of television is that it has helped to create a global village: When we consume a televised message, we consume the same message that millions of others experience, thereby establishing a bond among us, although we’ll never meet each other. What are some of the characteristics of this global village? How does TV provide a forum where viewers connect?

We launch into an audience-centered approach with a discussion of such programs as Beavis and Butthead (Judge, 1993), Leave it to Beaver (Mosher, 1957), Sex and the City (Star, 1998), Star Trek (Roddenberry, 1966), Winky Dinks (Pritchett, 1953), X-files (Carter, 1993), soap operas, and MTV. Although there is sociological information here, we move beyond it to look at fan culture, a growing area of scholarship that observes the power of viewers to extend and alter meanings of television texts. We discuss how programs like these reach into the culture, as viewers have interpreted and extended their meanings into fashion and behavior. The film Trekkies (Border, 1997) is instructive in this regard. Viewers fill in gaps as they perceive TV texts, developing expectations about what will happen next and hold assumptions about how the TV world relates to life, as we saw in week one when students shared their views about the meaning of television. Viewers make connections that the text can’t make for them.

Audiences can actively construct their own meanings from texts independent of what any author intends, thus locating meanings not in texts, but in themselves. For example, viewers who watch soaps are familiar with the ubiquitous, evil “bitch” character, but might read such a character in a positive way, as a powerful, independent woman. Some might imitate the conversational topics they hear on Sex and the City, or the sarcastic humor of Bart Simpson. Others might watch the ideal family on Leave It to Beaver and find dysfunction. Still others might wear the Star Trek uniform to indicate their belief in the oneness of humanity that they read in that program.

The paper assignment asks students to explore how viewers co-create the meaning of a television text. Students are asked to view a television program and to discuss what happens during any of its “gaps” – the time between programs in a serial or during commercial breaks, or in the unstated margins of an “open” character, etc.) I ask students to consider how viewers might activate the text: What sorts of connections might they make or have they made of the text that the text hasn’t and can’t make for them? What messages can be construed that would create a meaning for members of a “global village”?

Week 9: Realism

Television programs are biased toward realism. Reality beyond our personal sphere is filtered through media, media determine what’s real and what’s not by emphasizing some events and ignoring others. In order to make its world believable, television presents programs as objective or natural, creating an illusion of reality by hiding its techniques, thus hiding its discursive nature (Fiske, 1987). We discuss realism, using Fiske’s theories about techniques used to make or disrupt reality: Viewers tend to perceive the camera as objective and edited scenes as natural, with one moment seemingly to lead naturally to the next.

Discussing “reality” introduces questions of ideology. As with narrative, the television critic must look for whose worldview is presented and what is their message. Nichols (1991) introduces the terms historical world and historical reality which are helpful in distinguishing unmediated from mediated reality on nonfiction television, and social actor to denote characters in nonfiction TV programs.

Some shows wouldn’t exist if viewers didn’t think they presented a form of reality and audiences don’t like being played for fools. Quiz shows, for example, succeed because viewers believed that ordinary, unscripted social actors compete in an impartial contest in real time. The infamous scandals of 1959 occurred when audience learned that quiz shows were rigged. Similarly, when a documentary news program re-enacts events without labeling them as such, audiences are piqued.

In class, we look at local television news and discuss how things are presented as “real.” We also look at animated programs and sitcoms and identify elements of reality in them, usually cultural messages. A journal problem with which to grapple is comparing the reality presented in, for example, King of the Hill (Judge and Daniels, 1997), with that in news.

Week 10: Ideology

We examine ideology as a system of assumptions, meanings, and values that appears as common sense, governs what culture deems normative, and, in short, shapes how people perceive reality is for most people, and, and what. It is embedded in language as well as in all social and cultural processes, and functions to secure power. It is silent and invisible, like water in aquarium, which bestows great power. Political economy theorists (e.g., McChesney) point out that multinational corporations that control most television determine what is and isn’t aired. Because they support messages that carry dominant ideologies, the programs and news reports they produce will also be informed by these ideologies. The most difficult area for students to grasp is that they = us.

Television programs are imbued with the ideas and beliefs – the ideology – of the dominant culture. Ideology is embedded in language and other social, cultural processes and is so pervasive in our culture, that it seems self evident and is therefore difficult to observe, but that is what an ideological analysis does – it looks for systematic meanings and contradictions in the text. In order to do this, you must examine the central concepts. As White (1987) says, the goal is to understand the cultural logic that sustains the program.

An ideological analysis involves a deconstruction of the text by examining its basic structures and assumptions, uncovering the oppressive relations and discovering any forces that have the potential to lead to liberation or emancipation. In their paper on ideology, the goal is to uncover ideology – to understand the power relations of dependence, exploitation, or humiliation of some over others – and bring it to light. Students select any 30-60 minute television program to discern how the text indicates oppression. By beginning with a narrative analysis, they look at the plot’s logic to see and how it naturalizes ideological practices. I ask them to identify, within the narrative, the format, formula, genre, setting and character, slant and solution (Gitlin, 2000). Generally, viewers perceive just the surface, but I ask students to draw from their understanding of narrative and go deeper to identify the supernarrator; enter his or her mind to expose underlying meanings, biases and preconceptions; access his or her beliefs and values; determine whose story (i.e., what is the social position of the type of character – white male, white female, ethnic minority, etc.) is being told; identify whether lower economic groups or minority races are ignored or devalued; see whether values supporting dominant group are privileged; and figure out if inequality exists in production or possession of material goods. I don’t assign the ideology paper until we’ve also looked at feminism, and then allow students to choose a perspective.

Week 11 Ideology: feminism

We turn next to feminist criticism for another take on ideology, uncovering the patriarchy in programs. There are numerous types of feminist theories but they share three principles: Women’s experiences are different from men’s, their perspectives are not incorporated into the culture, and they are oppressed by patriarchy because men’s experiences are often central and universalized. Feminist criticism seeks to discover how construction of gender is used to oppress individuals based on race, class and sexual orientation and to eradicate the ideology of domination from the culture and is committed to achieve equality not just for women but for anyone not white male heterosexual. Feminist critics recognize patriarchy, seek to expose it and, by exposing, seek to change it.

Patriarchy is a hierarchical system of power relations in which men dominate women so that women’s interests are subordinated and they are seen as inferior to men. In patriarchal society, relations of domination between women and men exist in all institutions and social practices. Women’s experiences are different because of biology and because of gender roles. Because women’s perspectives are not incorporated and they have less power to describe reality and have that description accepted. In texts, women’s perspectives aren’t taken into account. Because we learn the ideology of patriarchal values and modes of operations as appropriate and natural, we help to perpetuate them.

Students perform a feminist analysis by identifying in the text the patriarchal elements and their effect, and then providing an alternative feminist read. They select any 30-60 minute television program and discuss how gender is constructed, how are women, men, femininity and masculinity depicted, what is presented as standard, normal, desirable, appropriate behavior for men and women. They must ask themselves how oppression related to gender maintained and how can patriarchy be challenged.

Weeks 12 & 13 Postmodernism

Modernist reformers believed that they could produce social change by altering consciousness via the way individuals regarded and lived in physical spaces. The postmodern aesthetic introduced in the 1960s included mass produced, mixed-up, recycled forms and images, and used them in abundance. Andy Warhol created oil paintings of images from the surrounding world such as a photograph of Marilyn Monroe and labels from Campbell Soup cans.

Television lends itself particularly well to postmodern sensibilities, especially in the 5 or 6 decades since its debut in USAmerican culture. As a medium, it displays multiple styles. Moreover, it engages in what deCerteau (1984) calls cultural poaching: Recent programs and commercial advertisements make intertextual references by recycling images, issues and characters from past programs and movies, and from music and politics; The Simpsons (Groening, 1989), SCTV (Sahlins and Alexendar, 1976), Family Guy (MacFarlane, 1999), and Arrested Development (Hurwitz, 2003) have done this particularly well. Postmodernism holds that society no longer supplies meaningful narratives, and abandons absolute truth values.

Television is a medium made for postmodernism with its intertextuality, and plethora of competing images and sounds. We contrast realism with postmodern sensibilities, where TV viewers more aware of TV’s construction than film viewers and the “objective” camera. Postmodern television texts are aware that many interpretations are possible, and that much meaning occurs in the audience who make the meanings they want and need from TV texts. Audience isn’t a homogeneous mass but its viewers are individuals but television narrowcasting provides an example of how television seeks specific audiences. Other postmodern characteristics include hyperconsciousness, decentered identity.

The television texts that I bring in for analysis really are random portions of recorded programs. A good example of a postmodernist text is the TV Guide Channel – as the television program directory is displayed at the bottom quarter of the screen, a Hollywood gossip program plays above, complete with commercial interruptions. A television program that’s good to use for this discussion is Peewee’s Playhouse, a program ostensibly for children but which contains some questionable content. The program is quite intertextual, its sets are overloaded with competing signs and symbols.

Week 14: Cultural Studies

During the final week of the semester is time to draw upon all the theories encountered during the last 13 weeks. Television is the primary producer of meanings and pleasures in our culture. It also serves the economic and ideological interests of dominant cultural groups, a feat it accomplishes because of its polysemic nature: Viewers are able to find negotiated or oppositional meanings in a television text even if that text carries primarily an ideologically dominant meaning.

Most of the theoretical approaches in the semester derive from British Cultural Studies, the school of analysis and criticism that stresses the parallel structures of society and texts. Television is part of the cultural experience of a viewer and can be seen as intertextual in the way that it relates to a viewer’s life. Because one’s experiences of television and of society are seen to be integrated, making sense of a television text can help make sense of one’s own social experience.

Viewers bring to their television viewing their values and beliefs on social issues and policy that often have been shaped or suggested by mediated messages. They don’t typically notice that the prevailing belief systems in their culture embedded in stories and characters shown in television programs reflect the interests of the powerful classes who have the economic and political means to gain access to media outlets. One of the deeply embedded characteristics of U.S. culture is the consumption, presenting itself as an essential component of self-fulfillment, that lurks in images and messages

The last paper requires students to pull together all of the analytical skills they’ve developed over the course of the semester and combine them in one analysis. Again, students are free to select a particular television program that will supply you with all the elements they’ll need. They must refer to the program’s semiotics and structure, discuss the balance in the program text between its position as a commodity for sale and as cultural artifact, discuss the dominant ideology and gender construction in the text, describe oppositional or negotiated readings are possible in responding to this text, assess the social significance of this particular television program, assess whether its viewers have reacted to it in particular ways, and come to a conclusion about the overall cultural status of this television program.

The Final Exam/span>

As a final exam, I screen a television show, preferably an hour-long pilot of a new program. I settled on this for two reasons: It’s more likely to find a program that none of the students has seen rather than one that they’ve all seen. Also, viewing a pilot requires no prior knowledge of any of the characters or themes. Students must watch the entire hour, including all commercials, promotional messages and credits. The final exam is similar to the Cultural Studies paper assignment, except that this time everyone in the class is writing about the same program.

Conclusion

I’m amazed at how much resistance I regularly encounter from students who don’t want to question television so deeply. A few sometimes accuse me of taking it all too seriously. But some report back to me that they find themselves pointing out ideologies to their friends and fellow television viewers, and others say they sometimes yell at their sets. Still more are inspired to continue studying along these lines in graduate school.

Media literacy, especially learning to read television texts, should ideally be taught in grade school. But until then, I’m happy to know that the veterans of my television analysis course are out there somewhere, experiencing their television viewing in a much more thoughtful way than before.

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TV Revolution from AMC,

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