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CHUM306
Understanding Television: Industrial System, Cultural Form, and Everyday Life
CHUM306 SP
Crosslistings: AMST306, ANTH306, FILM306
| Section | Class Size | *Available | Times | POI | Prereq |
|---|
| 1 | 24 | 0 | Times: ..W.... 7:00PM-10:00PM; | Yes | No |
*The number of spaces listed as available is based on class seats open for
the Blue Add phase of registration. Some seats may be taken in previous
phases while others may be held out for subsequent phases of registration.
(Last Updated on Tue Aug 10 05:00:21 EDT 1999
)
Television designates an industry, its textual products,
and a set of reading practices. Thus, understanding
television requires a multidisciplinary approach. Focusing
on the U.S. television industry, we will consider its
history, economics, and organizational structures; its
development, production, and distribution practices; and its
interactions with other media industries. Television's
product is an immense array of symbolic or cultural goods
designed to attract large, heterogenous audiences
and deliver their attention to sponsors. Televisual genres,
programs, and individual episodes may be approached and
understood as textual phenomena structured to
offer the possibilities of meaning and pleasure to
audiences. The actual production of meaning and pleasure is
completed in everyday, largely domestic contexts by viewers
from diverse social backgrounds whose interests,
competences, and intensity of involvement with television
vary on multiple lines. From the viewpoint of reception, we
will investigate how viewers' responses to television may be
conditioned by their social positions and interpretive
resources.
MAJOR READINGS
James L. Baughman, THE REPUBLIC OF MASS
CULTURE
Nicholas Abercrombie, TELEVISION AND SOCIETY
Charlotte Brunsdon, Julie D'Acci, and Lynn Spigel, eds.,
FEMINIST TELEVISION CRITICISM
John Thornton Caldwell, TELEVISUALITY: STYLE, CRISIS, and
AUTHORITY IN MODERN TELEVISION
Jostein Gripsrud, THE DYNASTY YEARS: HOLLYWOOD TELEVISION
and CRITICAL MEDIA STUDIES
Horace Newcomb, ed., TELEVISION: THE CRITICAL VIEW (Fifth
edition)
EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS
Students are to keep a weekly
research journal; there will be one or two short papers, a
class presentation, and a final research paper.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS
For each class
there will be several hours of required television viewing
of pretaped shows. Students seeking admission should
schedule an interview with the instructor to determine their
eligibility.
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting
or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the
first class, they will be dropped from the class list.
NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form
to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion Lecture Seminar
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Level: UG Credit: 1.00
Gen Ed Area & Dept: SBS ANTH
Prerequisites:
None
- Section 01
- Traube, E
- Times: ..W.... 7:00PM-10:00PM;
- Grading Mode: A/F
- Registration Preference (1 high to 6 low, 0=Excluded) Sr: 1, Jr: 1, So: 2, Fr: 0
- No Major Preference Given
- Permission of Instructor Required.
Last Updated on MAR-22-1999
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