Maggie's Media Studies

In the Turner reading, ”Convergence and Divergence,” I found the Karen Lury quote very interesting. Lury writes, “In a post-TV world, I no longer need to watch television that is “not for me” and is no longer about “we”…” The new ways in which we can watch television — from DVRs to Hulu to Netflix instant watch— means the culture of sitting down in front of the  TV and watching the same network all night is dying. I read an essay recently by Thomas de Zengotita that argues that new media have given us a “God’s-eye view” of the world we live in, because media gives us access to all corners of the world. De Zengotita also argues that the way in which we receive news has become all about us; when the topic of 9/11 comes up, people are always more than willing to offer the story of where they were when they heard the news. Media makes people feel like their version is relevant, because the constant coverage makes them feel as if they were actually involved. New media allows for a personalized entertainment experience, which is definitely a nice thing. But it also means that our culture is becoming more and more about the individual; rarely do I sit down with a friend to watch a TV show online (I think movies might be slightly more social). Media may be getting more personal, but I think that’s also making it more isolating. 

While reading Morozov’s piece, Internet Freedoms and Their Consequences, I thought of an article we read by Malcolm Gladwell that I’m now reading for another class, “Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” Morozov asserts that, for better or worse, increased access to internet means increased opportunities for groups to form and express their viewpoints. Gladwell would agree that there is an increased access to different points of view, but he believes that this increase in access actually decreases participation, because people feel that they are involved even if they aren’t really participating beyond liking a Facebook page. So while Morozov’s claims that extremist groups have a new medium which they can use to disseminate their ideas, Gladwell would be less concerned about this. The internet can allow people to call themselves something, but Gladwell doesn’t think this will result in much more action. Gladwell’s perspective is actually somewhat comforting considering the uniting potential the internet has.

The article by Richard Butsch  made the claim “Sitcom series have only had one market, network television.” While I don’t doubt that was true at the time, I cannot help but wonder how that has changed. While many cable networks air niche shows, reality shows, or syndicated reruns of network shows, there seems to be an increasing trend in original content on cable channels. For instance, AMC has a number of successful original shows, such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad. There are more than a few comedies produced by cable networks, such as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Nurse Jackie, Louie, and The League. 

I suppose, however, it is true that most of the original shows produced by cable channels are dramas. What is it about cable that makes for more drama than comedy? Is it a buying mood thing? That would mean that cable channels depend less on advertising revenue than do networks. 

In any case, while I do not think Butsch’s statement is false, I think it’s always interesting to notice rapid changes in our TV programming. I think the increase in original material on cable networks has the potential to greatly change the power balance from network to cable in the years to come. 

I found Gray’s assertion that racism on television in the 1950s meant to perpetuate the racist norms in society very interesting, and something that is still relevant today. I don’t notice much overt, explicit racism (although that doesn’t mean it’s not out there), and like in the case of Don Imus, obvious racial slurs are generally not tolerated or rewarded. However, I think the lack of minority representation in the media today is a form of  subconscious, lingering racism. Very few shows on network television feature diverse casts — even on my favorite show, Parks and Recreation, of the 9 or so prominent people who work at the parks department, 6 of them are white. And 1/3 is a pretty high proportion. TV’s most popular comedies in 2010 were Two and a Half Men (starring 3 white guys) and The Big Bang Theory (5 principle characters; 4 are white), both CBS comedies on which minorities (and women, for that matter) are way underrepresented. The only shows with largely minority casts are generally on cable channels meant for niche markets. I think the simple exclusion of minority actors is, in a word, racist. Sitcoms and dramas are supposed to be representations of our culture, but they represent an American culture that’s largely white (and male), which is simply inaccurate. 

I found that study Starr talked about that was published in The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization extremely interesting. It talked about how the lower the circulation of newspapers is in a country, the higher the corruption is. This is extremely frightening, as newspapers in our country are going bankrupt every day. Growing up in Washington state, we always had two papers: the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (colloquially referred to as “The P-I”). It turned out, however, that Seattle wasn’t big enough for the both of them: in early 2009, the Hearst Corporation put the P-I up for sale, and the newspaper ran its last issue only a few months later. The P-I shutting down really shook up the Greater Seattle area; the P-I was one of the most recognizable buildings in the city, and it was a very concrete and scary sign of the recession. So I have experienced firsthand the shock and the nostalgia that result from losing a tradition such as the newspaper. 

On the other hand, though, this is what always what happens with new technologies. I’m sure people lamented losing the telegraph, but the telephone is so much more efficient, and so were the other methods of long-distance communication that came about after. And although Starr says that the growth of online news is not offsetting the decline of decline in print, I think that forms of social media will fill that void. They may not be legitimate news sources, but I think they will fill the role of watchdog pretty effectively. After all, many media outlets are already biased due to political affiliation, so who better than the people to watch out for one another? With nearly everyone on Facebook now and news organizations making it easier than ever to Facebook or Tweet the news, I actually am not so worried about the government’s ability to pull a fast one on us. 

I found Gerbner’s article on violence on television extremely interesting. I’ve read in the past about people’s political ideologies influencing their television preferences (Liberals preferred comedies such as Modern Family, Glee, and 30 Rock) whereas Conservatives were more likely to watch reality competitions and crime dramas (Dancing with the Stars, NCIS, Law and Order). So this paragraph was especially interesting to me:

If Conservative voters are the most likely to be watching these crime shows, it makes sense that they would be the ones to be influenced them. It’s also Conservatives that tend to be more about the 2nd amendment and rights to protect oneself. It’s interesting, because Conservatives are the ones most likely to watch crime dramas, but watching crime shows heavily makes one more likely to feel the need to buy protection, which is something that a Conservative voter may have been in favor of anyway. 

I don’t by any means want to generalize, because not all people with the same political ideology feel the same way about gun control, nor do they all watch the same tv shows. But I think we are so good at picking out the entertainment that reinforces our view of the world, even if we’re doing it subconsciously. It’s because of certain worldviews that we pick what shows we like, and then those shows reinforce what we think about reality. It’s a circle.

I was extremely surprised to read about the amount of TV that is watched in this country, and around the world. While it is easy for me to believe that people spend about 10 hours a day on various media devices (I am constantly on my computer doing work and I’m glued to my cell phone), I was surprised by how much people watch TV. Maybe it’s just because I am one of those people who watches TV almost exclusively online, but hours and hours in front of the TV seemed almost unrealistic. However, I have recently been so busy with school and work that I have gotten weeks and weeks behind on all the shows I watch, and it always bothers my friends that they can’t discuss with me what happened on the last week’s episode. I usually watch the Oscars with a group of friends and just watched the Super Bowl with a bunch of other people, but I never realized just how social regular, primetime TV is. I think shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, or anything that appeals to a wide variety of people plus has some kind of elimination, will always be successful, because it really isn’t the same if you watch it the next day. The whole thing is who will win or lose, just like with sports. I think this means that more and more TV shows will be reality or competition-based in order to hold on to viewers. I wonder, though, what this means for scripted TV.

Peters’s “Media as Conversation, Conversation as Media” talks quite a bit about how some forms of media facilitate easy conversation. He asserts that more interactive forms of media “address viewers-listeners as conversation partners.” This reminded me of how I’ve heard that the New York Times (though a more passive form of media, according to Peters) is always written at a 9th-grade reading level, so as to be accessible to a larger audience instead of being too sophisticated and discouraging readers. Being in a conversation with the media has been around for as long as I can remember: I know my friends and I loved calling in to RadioDisney as kids to see if we could get on the air. But I think that the even more interactive media that are popular today have facilitated this even more. A lot of television news programs will encourage you to tweet responses to their stories and will often air them on the bottom of the screen, if not discuss them. It is less about the media sending out a mass message to anonymous viewers, but the viewers can actually be involved.