Television as Culture Television as Communication Television as Inquiry COMN 3316: Sept. 23, 2011, Lecture 3

Agenda Housekeeping Lecture

Housekeeping tutorial  switches: please stay after  Do not attend a tutorial you are not enrolled in (after Sept 29)  should be attending tutorials  staying in touch with TA review of syllabus, assignments, dates intro to new tab on website questions to date?

Readings to date: match Autobiography Place Place + autobiography Place and the problem of iconicity (place as icon?) Intro to television studies Autobiography as cultural location Icon and nationality?

Place as autobiographic We identify with places variously If it is “not my place” we look for ways to comprehend “a place” one of these is familiar architectures, structures Place is often used in television as a means of connecting to the body of the viewer, the I of the view, through the eye of the viewer Some places have gained currency as “everyone’s” place

Place as autobiographic Some places have gained currency as “everyone’s” place Place 1 & Place 2Place 1Place 2 Place 3

Place as autobiographic Place 3

Place as autobiographic Some places have gained currency as “everyone’s” place Place 1 & Place 2Place 1Place 2 Place 3 Place 4

Place as autobiographic Some places have gained currency as “everyone’s” place Place 4

Place as autobiographic Some places have gained currency as “everyone’s” place The camera’s point of view is the view we all see, yet it is the view we are (usually) supposed to pretend we are not seeing

Place as autobiographic Thus there is this idea – that if we recognize a place in a television set, we are interrupting its magic Place in television is supposed to be something we identify generally enough to connect with it, but not in such detail that it interrupts the “magic” Thus filming was to be at places that were “every place” Some places however were so iconic that they were thought to belong to “everyone” (or came to feel as if they were also our place”

Place as autobiographic New York: ▫countless movies ▫countless television showscountless television shows New York has earned “the right” to appear as “itself” in part because we are so familiar with it, we (supposedly) identify our/selves as within it

Place as autobiographic There are certain other places that have been filmed as much or even more than NYC, and have earned the “right to pretend to by NYC” But such places are very rarely allowed to be “themselves”. Perhaps this is because they are too distinct in cultural memory (as of yet) to transmit that iconic/autobiographical (yes mystical) status that allows “everyone” to identify with it as “their” space, For example – if they are recognized as “in another country”

Example? Toronto’s identity as “Place” filmed in Toronto ▫filmed in Toronto, focus 1filmed in Toronto, focus 1 ▫filmed in Toronto, focus 2filmed in Toronto, focus 2 ▫filmed in Toronto, focus 4filmed in Toronto, focus 4 ▫filmed in Toronto, representing New Yorkfilmed in Toronto, representing New York

Place/I+eye Assumed connections between the location of the camera persons feet, their eyes our eyes

Place/I+eye Assumed connections between the location of the camera persons feet, their eyes our eyes We are assumed to be grounded by the same ground they are grounded by language of “everyone” He Mans point of view You guys

Place/I+eye At the exact same time We are also actually situated in relationship to a screen Televisual form evolves in relationship to these two place-ments And from serendipitous conflating of these two positions

Place/I+eye Assumed connections between the location of the camera persons feet, their eyes our eyes We are assumed to be grounded by the same ground they are grounded by

Place/I+eye Assumed connections between the location of the camera persons feet, their eyes our eyes We are assumed to be grounded by the same ground they are grounded by assumed male assumed white assumed middle class or higher assumed western location (generally US) assumed heterosexual assumed able-bodied assumed coupled or wanted to be By “assuming these things we are addressing everyone Was meant perhaps? as inclusive strategy?

Place/I+eye At the exact same time We are also actually situated in relationship to a screen Televisual form evolves in relationship to these two place-ments And from serendipitous conflating of these two positions Audience is visible enough to those influencing televisual form That they assume some diversity in viewing public However this diversity is mainly in noticing there are male and female viewers. Ads were/still are often directed to Women Initially women address were white, middle class, western Buying power!

Due to loss of time in the lecture due to my car breakdown We stopped here on the 23 rd and took up here on the 30 th.

Eye/I dyad Dyad = two Dyad = constructs that structure our world Because we are a “two’d” animal we have an attraction to two’s

Eye/I dyad This is concurrent with the rise of the book through the printing press Legitimate Knowledge Third person/He writes Less Legitmate Knowledge I/you Not protected Market; She watches She buys

Eye/I dyad

Icon 6Mhttp:// 6M po&feature=related

Icon Figural Form which can direct attention and enable movement between ▫Object…….subject ▫Possible ……impossible ▫Complete…..Incomplete ▫Tactile……Visual ▫Play…….Watching ▫Enact….React ▫Involvement……Disguise ▫Reveal and Conceal: Allows address, yet allows “cover” Participates in mythic structure/allows participation in mythic structure Allow this participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated

Icon Figural Form which can direct attention and enable movement between ▫Possible ……impossible ▫Complete…..Incomplete ▫Tactile……Visual ▫Play…….Watching ▫Enact….React ▫Reveal and Conceal: Allows address, yet allows “cover” Participates in mythic structure/allows participation in mythic structure Allow this participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged Is packagable/transmissable through form that also has connections to mythic structures

Icon Participates in mythic structure/allows participation in mythic structure Allow this participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged Is packagable/transmissabl e through form that also has connections to mythic structures

Icon Participates in mythic structure/allows participation in mythic structure, Allow this participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged Is packagable/transmissabl e through form that also has connections to mythic structures Hand

Icon mythic structure participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged with hand Is packagable/transmissable through form that also has connections to mythic structures Hand

Icon mythic structure participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged with hand Is packagable/transmissable through form that also has connections to mythic structures Hand

Icon mythic structure participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged with hand Is packagable/transmissable through form that also has connections to mythic structures Hand

Icon mythic structure participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged with hand Is packagable/transmissable through form that also has connections to mythic structures Hand

Icon mythic structure participation in such a way that the eye + I can become conflated, exchanged with hand Is packagable/transmissable through form that also has connections to mythic structures