Slide 1

Oct. 1, 2010 COMN 3316 Television as Culture Slide 2 Agenda Getting ready to do autobiography project Looking at use of life writing and place in Reading One. Looking at the varied levels of analysis in Reading One: Viewing/Broadcast history/Plot/Set/Production issues/Marketing etc. Reviewing the analytical tools we have used to think about television so far: Icon, iconicity Place Binaries Televisions own categories Looking more in depth at other analytical tools offered in Spigels work: Space & the Autobiographical Returning to look in depth at the autobiography project Precis Question Sets Slide 3 My House Was On Torchwood: Media, Place and Identity By Brett Mills From International Journal of Cultural Studies 2008 Reading One Slide 4 The article discusses the many layers connecting place and television: What are some of these? Slide 5 Slide 6 Identities Analysis Slide 7 The article discusses the many layers connecting place and television: What are some of these? Identities Analysis Slide 8 Modes of analysis to be used in Autobiographical Assignment : Autobiography Slide 9 What is autobiography as a mode of analysis It is a way of using your own life to do research It is a way of writing, in which you present your story and also analyze it. Slide 10 Modes of analysis to be used in Autobiographical Assignment : Categories of television studies Slide 11 Article 1: categories of analysis, all areas in TV Studies Broadcasting Schedule Distribution Technology Cultural Variations Market Local National International Advertising Policy: local, national, international Performance studies Slide 12 Reading 1: Categories of analysis in TV Studies Filming/writing/acting/production/editing/costume/set/directing Vocabulary related to Elements of scene and dramatic composition/enactment Techniques Direction Viewer/Audience Studies History Technological histories Show histories Motif histories Policy histories Institutionalized histories Slide 13 Modes of analysis to be used in Autobiographical Assignment : Binaries Slide 14 Binary: a pair Whose meaning develops directly or indirectly in relationship to one another Slide 15 Binary: a pair Whose meaning develops or is developed, directly or indirectly in relationship to one another Slide 16 How are binaries used in reading 1? Slide 17 Modes of analysis to be used in Autobiographical Assignment : Icon Slide 18 Reviewing: Icon or Iconic form An imagic mode of communication Which works with the imagination both individual, collective and cultural It evokes rather quickly yet deeply It works through shapes, patterns, themes, motifs, palettes, postures, grammars of rank, symbologics of value It works in layers of significance that are emotional plus cognitive It works through the perceptual apparatus connected to apprehension, ritual, worship, admiration, myth It also works through perceptual apparatus that are subliminal/ connected to desire (dream apparatus) It is especially connected to cathartic modes of human function ( or we could say modes that need discharge) Slide 19 Icon or Iconic form (continued) It is accessible to multi-sensual forms of reappearing: visual, tactile, audio (rhythmic), aroma It is a means of gathering and transmitting collected sets of meanings, meanings that are entangled and embedded in one another It taps into and acquires cultural potency especially for that which eludes easy definition It can often transmit a broad set of cultural motifs/values/ or other information while allowing them a platform for gathering and even transforming. Slide 20 Icon or Iconic form It is agile: It can be a person (Marilyn Monroe), A place (Mecca), a Musical theme (Mash), Shape (red lips) Smell (coffee) - its agility allows it to stand in for potent and important meanings yet without making rigid definitions of that meaning It often partakes of the cultural rhythms (and thus these can decode them) For example in our culture which thinks in twos binaries will often help decode our icons) Slide 21 Another take http://www.pedroguitton.com/phd_knowledge_center/pd f/LessonsIcons.pdf http://www.pedroguitton.com/phd_knowledge_center/pd f/LessonsIcons.pdf Slide 22 Examples 1: gun Slide 23 Example 2: Shiny Toy Guns Video In pairs Discuss use of icons Discuss use of binaries Discuss use of place Account one autobiographical piece of info about video Slide 24 Part 2: White flight in Welcome to the Dream House: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs by Lynn Spigel 2001 Reading Two Slide 25 In Reading 2: How does space function as Icon Binary Means of taking us through television studies Autobiography? Slide 26 Returning to consider categories of analysis in TV Studies Reading 1 Reading 2 Slide 27 Precis 2 readings: one in the fall/winter term one in spring/winter terms 100 words Author focused. Summary of key bits (not a review, a summary) Your own words Slide 28 Question Sets (we will talk again next week about good questions Write 10 good questions One term: the set will be for the lecture Other term: the set will be for a reading Questions will be used in tutorials. Questions will be evaluated by both tutorial students and TA, though TA will be main and final evaluator. Question must demonstrate that asker has truly read and digested the article (or attended and digested the lecture) Questions must help students digest the material, learn from it, and find its key elements and tensions. Questions should cover basic reading, and also more sophisticated relevance of article or lecture to course.