Wiki calls Hardball (or did when I posted this) "a talking-head style cable news show where the moderator advances opinions on a wide range of topics, focusing primarily on political issues."
Check out the website below for the transcript of Matthews on The Daily Show. How could I have missed it?
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/10/03/publiceye/entry3326751.shtml
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Nancy Grace (due Nov 5)
Okay. What kind of news is this? Who is the audience? What gives Nancy Grace authority (if anything does)?
Hannity and Colmes (for Nov 5)
http://web.mit.edu/cms/reconstructions/interpretations/tvnews.html
Here's a link to the article on your syllabus. Hannity? Colmes? Can anyone tell me why people listen to these two bozos? Does anybody listen to these guys? Hannity is a totally biased, pompous, narrow-thinking ideologue. Colmes might be dead and nobody's noticed yet.
Here's a link to the article on your syllabus. Hannity? Colmes? Can anyone tell me why people listen to these two bozos? Does anybody listen to these guys? Hannity is a totally biased, pompous, narrow-thinking ideologue. Colmes might be dead and nobody's noticed yet.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Stewart: The Daily Show
Okay. You've already heard this news blurb, no doubt. Most college students (your peers) get their news from The Daily Show but (oops) don't double check it with a newspaper or "hard news" television show. The article at this link refers to a study that appears to back the claim that The Daily Show is making you all (your peers!) worse citizens. What do you think?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201474.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201474.html
O'Reilly and his Factor
Apparently O'Reilly and Olbermann are perceived as opposites. So you might check out Olbermann's Countdown. And the Colbert Report, of course, is a spoof of The O'Reilly Factor so you might watch Colbert with that in mind.
Is he a "hard-hitting, uncompromising No Spin" reporter? or a "biased Republican, all-spin zone" reporter? One of these quotes is from O'Reilly's own web site, the other is from "oreillysucks.com."
Is he entertainment or news?
Is he a "hard-hitting, uncompromising No Spin" reporter? or a "biased Republican, all-spin zone" reporter? One of these quotes is from O'Reilly's own web site, the other is from "oreillysucks.com."
Is he entertainment or news?
the morning news
How would you characterize the morning news show you watched? (Be sure to identify it.) Who do you think is its audience? How can you tell? What do you think of the host(s)? Is this hard news? Or soft? Be specific.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
discuss amongst yourselves . . . 10/16 pre-class
1. Scores of third-person perception studies have demonstrated the fact that individuals believe other people are more affected by media messages than they themselves are (Perloff, 1993).
This stat. cracks me up. This is so human: we always think everything is a bad influence on everybody except us--because we're too smart, too savvy, to be influenced.
what do you think?
2. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Christopher J. Wright. Read it. We've discussed some of these issues in terms of Kid Nation. What is his point? Do you agree?
What do you think we need to understand about reality television in American culture? You call Survivor the “false real.”Well, a number of scholars (and newspaper writers, too) have documented how “reality TV” is an ironic term. Sure, what we see on Survivor and The Real World, etc., isn’t fiction – it did happen. But it’s a bad idea to assume that things occurred during filming exactly as we see it on screen, and viewers, myself included, could get lulled into a false sense of a relative lack of mediation – like we’re watching a live event, nearly free of editing. Now, Survivor, The Amazing Race, and maybe one or two other reality shows are expertly edited – as good, I’d say, as some adventure/drama/suspense films. Both shows at their best can be riveting. So we forget about editing, time compression, the fact that when we see a contestant alone, talking to the camera, they’re usually responding to interview questions from a producer. But the biggest issue may be the potential impact on socialization, and that’s something I try to hit on repeatedly in my book. If Survivor and reality TV are seen as “real,” then the ideologies, stereotypes, and the like presented in them are all the more believable. In our society, we already stereotype people left and right – we all do it. This doesn’t help.
This stat. cracks me up. This is so human: we always think everything is a bad influence on everybody except us--because we're too smart, too savvy, to be influenced.
what do you think?
2. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Christopher J. Wright. Read it. We've discussed some of these issues in terms of Kid Nation. What is his point? Do you agree?
What do you think we need to understand about reality television in American culture? You call Survivor the “false real.”Well, a number of scholars (and newspaper writers, too) have documented how “reality TV” is an ironic term. Sure, what we see on Survivor and The Real World, etc., isn’t fiction – it did happen. But it’s a bad idea to assume that things occurred during filming exactly as we see it on screen, and viewers, myself included, could get lulled into a false sense of a relative lack of mediation – like we’re watching a live event, nearly free of editing. Now, Survivor, The Amazing Race, and maybe one or two other reality shows are expertly edited – as good, I’d say, as some adventure/drama/suspense films. Both shows at their best can be riveting. So we forget about editing, time compression, the fact that when we see a contestant alone, talking to the camera, they’re usually responding to interview questions from a producer. But the biggest issue may be the potential impact on socialization, and that’s something I try to hit on repeatedly in my book. If Survivor and reality TV are seen as “real,” then the ideologies, stereotypes, and the like presented in them are all the more believable. In our society, we already stereotype people left and right – we all do it. This doesn’t help.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
defining trash and pornography
Defining trash television has been hard. And maybe, like pornography, it's impossible to define precisely because it involves judgment. Defining pornography in order to legislate has been notoriously difficult. The Supreme Court Justice, Potter Steward, said in the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) that "hard-core pornography " was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it." Since we all seem to agree that Springer is trash and most of concur that Oprah is not, this seems apt to our discussion.
Nonetheless. Let's TRY to define trash tv. Or at least some of the principles.
We seem to (mostly) agree that trash tv:
does not educate
seems to be interested in shocking subject matter only for the sake of shock value
that its purpose is solely entertainment
Is there more that we agree on?
Does trash television have content that is outrageous as well as badly-behaved and inarticulate guests? (And would this be something like literature's form v. content?)
(Raising the question that if Springer has a particularly articulate and well-behaved woman who slept with her father's best friend, does the episode qualify as "trashy?")
Also, some of us may believe that many shows meet all of these "qualifications." So what defines tv as "not trash"? And what is the difference between trash tv and mere bad tv?
Nonetheless. Let's TRY to define trash tv. Or at least some of the principles.
We seem to (mostly) agree that trash tv:
does not educate
seems to be interested in shocking subject matter only for the sake of shock value
that its purpose is solely entertainment
Is there more that we agree on?
Does trash television have content that is outrageous as well as badly-behaved and inarticulate guests? (And would this be something like literature's form v. content?)
(Raising the question that if Springer has a particularly articulate and well-behaved woman who slept with her father's best friend, does the episode qualify as "trashy?")
Also, some of us may believe that many shows meet all of these "qualifications." So what defines tv as "not trash"? And what is the difference between trash tv and mere bad tv?
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