Tag Archives: television

What the advertising in the magazines you subscribe to says about you

Posted on by

One book one of my classes is recently reading, The Suburban Christian,  offered this simple method for measuring your consumption levels (or perhaps what you aspire to consume): look at the advertising and the goods for sale in the magazines that you subscribe to.

This reminds me of something I noticed a few months into my first subscription to The Atlantic. I like this magazine for its reporting and commentary but I noticed that the advertisements were for luxury items I had no hope of buying and had never really even dreamed of buying. These goods were on par with the commercials that suggest that buying your spouse a Lexus with a giant bow on the top is the appropriate Christmas present.

This diagnostic would seem to fit with Juliet Schor’s ideas in The Overspent American about reference groups. Schor argues that media, television in particular, has presented Americans in the last few decades with a distorted view of the middle class. The typical TV middle-class family lives in a large house, seems not have any financial problems or even worries, has all sorts of popular consumer objects, and it is hard to tell if they even work. The average American watches these kinds of shows and starts comparing themselves to these middle-class TV families and raising their consumer aspirations to match what they see. Similarly, magazine advertisements suggest a certain lifestyle or things that the average American needs. These pitches can have a subtle but marked impact on who we compare ourselves to and what we think we need.

The next biggest US TV network: Univision

Posted on by

Amidst lower ratings and numerous articles about how to avoid TV all together, the big four American TV networks have some major competition: Univision. With already decent ratings and a growing Hispanic population, Univision may just be the network of the future:

With double-digit ratings growth this season, Spanish-language broadcaster Univision is off to a better start than any of the major English-language networks, and the future is promising as well.

The new census is expected to show a nearly 45% increase in the number of Hispanic Americans since 2000, to a total of 50 million. This couples with continuing audience erosion at the major networks and Univision’s recent deal with Mexican programer Grupo Televisa, which locks up the source of much the network’s popular programing for at least another decade.

Just a few years ago, the notion of Univision catching and surpassing them would have had mainstream network executives rolling with laughter. They’re not laughing now.

And they’re not talking publicly about it either: When asked to comment, the Big Four nets refused.

So while the big 4 networks are chasing edgy 18-49 year olds (or older viewers), Univision is capitalizing on the big demographic changes taking place in America.

How will the big 4 networks respond? They have been having troubles for years, losing viewers to cable and other media. Might we see some crossover programming from Univision and other Spanish-language stations reach the air through older broadcast networks?

College courses created by students include looks at Mad Men and Seinfeld

Posted on by

The University of California-Berkeley has a program called DeCal. In the program, college students teach other college students for college credit. One recent article about the program highlights how some of the courses take a longer look at television shows:

That’s because the popular show based in the 1960 is the subject of a fall course.

It’s a two-unit class that meets once a week in the school’s DeCal program. It focuses on the “thematically, symbolically and historically rich television series.” DeCal classes give a platform to students who want to dig into atypical subjects, according to the university.  This fall’s topics range from a class on the “Sociology of Seinfeld” to longboarding. DeCal is run by the students themselves, but the classes give real college credits…

The teachers…say they are covering the following themes:

  • contemporary culture
  • politics of the 1960s
  • the role of women, class and society
  • the family unit

Students have more than just a television show to watch as homework, they are also given supplemental reading assignments.

I can imagine one category of reactions to the article: “of course, when you let students teach their own courses for credit, you will end up studying television shows.”

On the other hand, there are courses like this at other schools where media content, film, movies, and other cultural products, are analyzed. As one of the student teachers suggests, Mad Men could be read/watched as saying important things about our culture. Not only does it offer some reflection on early 1960s life, it also could be read as how people in 2010 view that era.

Overall, teenagers (8-18 years old) and emerging adults (18-25) consume a lot of media-produced stories like Mad Men. Courses like this might help them better understand what they are viewing and how it lines up with the real world.

(I would be curious to know what kind of evaluations these kinds of courses receive. Do students perceive that they learned more or less in a student taught course? And then, did they actually learn more or less?)

Vatican newspaper says Homer J. Simpson is a Catholic

Posted on by

The Vatican’s newspaper recently said that they consider Homer Simpson to be a Catholic:

But in an article headlined “Homer and Bart are Catholics”, the newspaper said: “The Simpsons are among the few TV programmes for children in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes.”

The family “recites prayers before meals and, in their own peculiar way, believes in the life thereafter”…

“Few people know it, and he does everything he can to hide it, but it is true: Homer J Simpson is a Catholic,” insists L’Osservatore Romano.

This must be a very loose definition of what a Catholic is or how one should act. In fact, it strikes me as a very American sort of idea: Homer’s Catholicism is a grab-bag of practices and beliefs of his own choosing. Is Homer’s approach to religion really much different than many Americans?

But one point the newspaper makes seems accurate: the Simpson’s portray “old-fashioned family values” in a way that few other shows do today.

Tweeting every emergency call the police receive

Posted on by

A British police chief/chief constable is trying a new tactic to draw attention to what his department does: tweeting each of the emergency calls that the department receives.

While this may seem like a political stunt considering large budget cuts that are being considered, the chief says he wants to draw attention to the things police do beyond chasing criminals:

”A lot of what we do is dealing with social problems such as missing children, people with mental health problems and domestic abuse. Often these incidents can be incredibly complex and need a lot of time, resource and expertise.

”I am not saying that we shouldn’t deal with these types of incidents, far from it, but what I am saying is that this work is not recognised in league tables and measurements – yet is a huge part of what we do.”

An interesting argument. How much do police do outside what many might consider “traditional police work” of solving crimes and chasing criminals? At the same time, he seems to argue that activities like dealing with missing children and domestic abuse are outside typical boundaries – aren’t these cases often criminal complaints or issues?

Of course, if we were to draw conclusions about the police just from television and movies, we might conclude that they only work on grisly crimes…

Banksy and the Simpsons: a wink to what watching the show actually means

Posted on by

Part of the long-term appeal of The Simpsons has been its ability to effectively play with ambiguity: it has had the ability to both mock television in general while at the same time creating a likable cast that reach resolutions that are not that different from many sitcoms. Should viewers revel in its put-downs of all aspects of society or should they enjoy the heart-warming family outcomes?

The latest stunt on this front involves the elusive British street artist Banksy:

The episode, “MoneyBART,” opens with an extended “couch gag” — the opening sequence in which the Simpson family takes its place on their sofa — created by British street artist Banksy. The artist’s dark vision gives viewers a horrifying look at how he imagines the hit show and its lucrative merchandise are made: sweatshop conditions for its animators; unsafe conditions for producers of its apparel; boxes sealed with the tongue of a disembodied dolphin head; the center holes popped out of its DVDs with the horn of a shackled, emaciated unicorn. Really…

Were the show’s creators trying to draw attention to the unethical business practices an animated series must engage in to remain competitive? Are viewers meant to draw conclusions about our own complicity as we consumers indirectly fund companies that enslave people overseas? Or was the sequence merely a stunt calculated to bring attention — negative or not — on an aging, fading series?

While an interesting opening sequence that was longer than normal and contained typical Simpsons absurdities (like the unicorn), is this really edgy or new? Any television watcher should know what is really going on with shows: they are about making money. In its early days, the Simpsons was a rebellious show, drawing in a young audience and selling a lot of merchandise. Today, it is still about making money (and perhaps sowing ground for a second successful movie). The Simpsons may now be part of American culture but that is not why the show is still on television.

Ultimately, this may simply be about gaining attention. And with the show then moving on to a typical 22 minute storyline, can the opening really be construed as some sort of powerful statement?

How national sports broadcasts contribute to the collective understanding of their sports

Posted on by

I’ve watched many sporting events in my lifetime. National broadcasts of the major four sports are somewhat different than local broadcasts: because they are for a wider audience and because they are more neutral, they emphasize broader plot lines. I believe these national broadcasters try to cast themselves as keepers of the collective understanding of their particular sports. There are three primary components to retelling and producing this collective memory: an emphasis on history, overcoming hardship, and continuity across networks.

The most obvious way this happens is through the historical overview. The common plot line: “this is not just a single game. This is another match-up in a long and engrossing history. You the viewer should pay more attention because you could be seeing history tonight.” There are often flashbacks to games or championships decades ago like Joe Namath guaranteeing a win in Super Bowl III. This history can be fun, particularly if considering how modern stars would fit in an older era or vice versa or reliving some emotional or breathtaking moments. Of course, these historical overviews and comparisons may have nothing to do with the current team but they imbue the current game with a sense of meaning. This can quickly turn into unnecessary sentimentalizing.

The emphasis is typically on how the teams involved have overcome hardship. These narratives like nothing better than the team that has risen from the pits of the league to be on top. Teams that have received this treatment in recent: the Tampa Bay Rays, the Chicago Blackhawks, the New Orleans Saints, the Boston Celtics. This return to the top is cast in heroic terms as players and coaches successfully battled all the odds. This heroism can be over the top and result in the sportscasters making hyperbolic claims about the power of sports. Returning to the New Orleans Saints: there is no doubt the team overcame difficulties but to suggest the team has been vital in helping to revive the city after Hurricane Katrina is a much more difficult argument to prove.

It is remarkable to see how consistent these messages can be across networks and broadcasters. It is like they have a common storyline vault that they all share and tweak a little bit in each broadcast. If you watch enough national broadcasts, you have heard all the main stories: how remarkable so and so is, how this franchise has survived or has had difficulty winning the big game, how great the hustle of the role player is. Part of the problem with this is it leads to blandness – who has new insights? Why not focus more on the game at hand? They also may be repeating hard to prove stories: is Mariano Rivera really key to the success of the Yankees (even as statistics suggest closers are not as valuable as other position players)

With these tactics, national broadcasts build a collective understanding of each sport. This understanding is difficult to reverse or steer in a new direction.

Kennedy/Nixon debate fanfare overblown?

Posted on by

Fifty years ago yesterday, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon faced off in the first televised presidential debate. The debate supposedly “changed the world” and the narrative of the Kennedy win has long been part of history:

It’s now common knowledge that without the nation’s first televised debate – fifty years ago Sunday – Kennedy would never have been president. But beyond securing his presidential career, the 60-minute duel between the handsome Irish-American senator and Vice President Richard Nixon fundamentally altered political campaigns, television media and America’s political history. “It’s one of those unusual points on the timeline of history where you can say things changed very dramatically – in this case, in a single night,” says Alan Schroeder, a media historian and associate professor at Northeastern University, who authored the book, Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV.

But after reading and reviewing the book Getting It Wrong, I’m a little more skeptical of these claims. So let me be the contrarian for a moment and suggest why this media moment from 1960 is overhyped:

1. It is part of the lore of JFK. It was in this moment that the country saw his youthful charm and in contrast, Nixon’s shadiness. JFK’s image fit television perfectly and the media has since played up the Kennedy family as American political royalty. Of course, JFK’s charm was likely evident elsewhere and Nixon was still elected president twice (after having served as vice-president under Eisenhower).

2. It suggests televised debates, in general, are critically important for elections. I’m not sure about this – I think the media thinks they are more important than they are. By always looking for a “winner” and “loser,” candidates are set up to succeed or fail. Television doesn’t lend itself to nuanced debates about critical issues; it is perfect for sound-bites and unflappable dispositions. If the voters care about debates, it is because they have been told that such debates matter.

3. Overall, it suggests TV can be an important contributor to democracy rather than just the source of junk television shows. This is debatable.

Reasons for using The Wire in class

Posted on by

Two Harvard professors, one is sociologist William Julius Wilson, explain why they have built a course on urban inequality around the television show “The Wire.” In addition to how the show illustrates how the chances of the urban poor are limited by institutions, the professors argue “The Wire” is unique in its abilities to show the complexities of the real world:

“The Wire” is fiction, but it forces us to confront social realities more effectively than any other media production in the era of so-called reality TV. It does not tie things up neatly; as in real life, the problems remain unsolved, and the cycle repeats itself as disadvantages become more deeply entrenched. Outside the world of television drama, sociologists aim to explain what causes certain social conditions and then assess the merits of competing theories. The solutions, however, are usually less clear. “The Wire” gets that part right, too.

In my experience, television shows and movies are often terrible at depicting the real world. Perhaps it is difficult to avoid following a typical narrative arc or the need to entertain wins out. However, I’ve always thought that real life situations are usually more interesting than created stories.

When reviewing this show back in June, I mentioned about this course at Harvard and added thoughts about the sociological value of the show.

Quick Review: Lost Season 6 special features

Posted on by

I was excited to check out the final disc of Lost Season 6 to see the special features. Alas, I was disappointed – here’s why:

1. The feature I was anticipating the most was “The New Man in Charge.” This roughly 10-minute epilogue featured Hugo Reyes as keeper of the Island with Ben Linus working for him. While this feature provided a few answers about the overall story, it didn’t do enough. And since it didn’t do enough, it didn’t seem very necessary.

2. What I found more interesting was the roughly 8 minute feature titled “See You In Another Life, Brotha.” While this is probably my favorite phrase from the TV show, it featured the producers and cast talking about how they interpreted the sideways story arc that distinguished season 6. The sideways world was meant to represent a better side of the characters, what they could have been if they had not encountered the Island.

3. The feature titled “A Hero’s Journey” quickly showed how the show’s story arc followed Joseph Campbell’s outline of the hero’s journey. This was not terribly useful, particularly if you had been reading Doc Jensen in the final season where he already made this connection.

4. The making-of featurette, “THE END: Crafting a Final Season,” was an opportunity for the producers, writers, cast, and others to explain a little what it was like to film the last season. The writers and producers said they felt the pressure to produce the perfect ending (which I do not think they did – this will be the subject of a future post) and they were satisfied with the final product. They all said the things you might expect: we all became a family, I really enjoyed the opportunity, and so on.

5. The blooper reel and deleted scenes were fairly worthless.

My opinion: the special features were not that special. I was hoping for more answers to questions about the Island but the answers were not given. Instead, the overall theme was that the producers and writers (and the cast went along with it with seemingly few complaints) wanted to end by focusing on relationships.

One thing positive that did come out of watching these features: I want to rewatch the final episode of the series. I’m looking forward to this task and seeing if I feel differently after watching it another time.