Television in the Age of New Media – Spring 2016
Instructor: Dr. Mike Wayne ([email protected])
Office: Building 72, Room 587B
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1600-1700
Summary: Since becoming popular in the United States and Great Britain during the late 1940s and
early 1950s, television has been one of the most important cultural forms in the global mediascape.
Mindful of this past, this course will explore contemporary issues in television studies as the medium
continues to be remade by digital technologies. How does time-shifting technology fundamentally alter
our conceptions of TV? What does mobile viewing mean for the television industry? What does the
emergence of 'quality TV' imply imply about TV's rich past as a shared cultural product? To explore
these issues, this course will use a variety of interdisciplinary paradigms to understand contemporary
American television in a global context. Course readings and lectures address three main topics:
television industries, television texts, and television audiences. Class time will be divided between
lectures, discussions, and screenings.
Evaluation:
- Mid-term take-home essay test (4-6 pages): 30%
- Final take-home essay test (6-9 pages): 50%
*take-home essay tests will be posted online at least two weeks before they are due
- Participation (attendance, evidence of preparation, etc.): 20%
Grading Scale:
A = Rare and outstanding work that shows thought, enterprise, and attention to detail.
B = Very good work that shows care for and understanding of the material.
C = Fair work that demonstrates some familiarity with class material.
D = Unsatisfactory work that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the reading or lectures.
F=
Failure because work was not submitted or the student committed a violation of academic trust.
For additional information, see the following websites:
-http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/s/a/sam50/rubric.htm
-http://www.utdallas.edu/~pkj010100/Grading%20rubrics.htm
-http://www.harding.edu/tullos/paper%20grades.pdf
***Please keep in mind that the schedule posted below is tentative. Reading assignments can and will
change. Any time such changes are made, Moodle will send alerts via email. Students are responsible
for ensuring that they are using the most recent copy of the syllabus.
Course Schedule:
Week 1 (March 8): Welcome
For next week, read:
- Amanda Lotz, 2015, “Why 2015 Was the Year that Changed TV Forever,” New
Republic. http://tinyurl.com/hglah8c
- Amanda Lotz, 2007, The Television Will Be Revolutionized (selections).
Week 2 (March 15): TV in 2016
For next week, read:
- Bernadette Casey, et al., 2002, “Commercial Television,” “Political Economy,” in
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Television Studies: The Key Concepts.
- Victoria O'Donnell, 2007, “Demystifying the Business of Television” (part 1).
- Jonathan Parks-Ramage, 2016, “The American Nightmare: I Worked in Reality TV
and Almost Lost My Soul,” Vice. http://tinyurl.com/gn64ccc
Week 3 (March 22): Television Industries Part One – Ratings and Economics
For next week, read:
- Victoria O'Donnell, 2007, “Demystifying the Business of Television” (part 2).
- Victor Pickard, 2015, “Media Ownership.”
- Catherine Johnson, 2007, “Tele-branding in TVIII,” New Review of Film and
Television Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 5-24.
Week 4 (March 29): Television Industries Part Two – Branding and Production
For next week, read:
- Bernadette Casey, et al., 2002, “Audiences,” in Television Studies: The Key Concepts.
- David Croteau and William Hoynes, 2011, “Active Audiences and the Construction of
Meaning.” In Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences (Fourth Edition)
(pp. 255-284).
Week 5 (April 5): Television Audiences Part One – Active Audiences
For next week, read:
- Jessica Toonkel, 2015, “TV Networks Open Labs to Read the Minds of Viewers,”
Reuters, November 4. http://tinyurl.com/gurf96u
- Elihu Katz and Tamar Liebes, 1990, “Interacting With 'Dallas': Cross Cultural
Readings of American TV.”
Week 6 (April 12): Television Audiences Part Two – Researching Audiences
MIDTERM DUE APRIL 15 AT NOON VIA MOODLE
NO CLASS APRIL 19 – PASSOVER BREAK
NO CLASS APRIL 26 – PASSOVER BREAK
For next week, read:
- Bernadette Casey, et al., 2002, “Text,” “Video,” in Television Studies: The Key
Concepts.
- Toby Miller, 2010, Television Studies: The Basics (chapter three).
Week 7 (May 3): Television Texts Part One – Genres as Cultural Categories
NO CLASS MAY 10 – YOM HAZIKARON
For next week, read:
- Jonathan Gray, 2005, “Television Teaching: Parody, The Simpsons, and Media Literacy
Education,” Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 223238.
- Michael Wayne, 2014, “Appreciating Nietzsche in Episodic Drama: The Highbrow
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Intertextuality and Middlebrow Reception of Criminal Minds.” In Critical
Reflections on Audience and Narrativity: New Connections, New Perspectives
(pp. 49-62).
Week 8 (May 17): Television Texts Part Two – Intertextuality Across Genres
For next week, read:
- Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine, 2012, Legitimating Television: Media
Convergence and Cultural Status (selections).
Week 9 (May 24): The Rise of “Quality” Television
For next week, read:
- Henry Jenkins, 2004, “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence,” International
Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 33-43.
- Stephen Harrington, Tim Highfield, and Axel Bruns, 2013, “More than a Backchannel:
Twitter and Television,” Participations, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 405-409.
- Michael Newman, 2012, “Free TV: File-Sharing and the Value of Television,”
Television & New Media, Vol. 13, No. 6, pp. 463-479.
Week 10 (May 31): Television and Digital Technology
For next week, read:
- William Uricchio, 2009, “The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television,”
pp. 24-39 in The Youtube Reader.
- Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx, 2014, “Click Culture: The Perils and Possibilities of
Family Guy and Convergence-Era Television.”
Week 11 (June 7): Television as Digital Culture
NO CLASS JUNE 14 – MIKE IS TRAVELING
For next week, read:
- Jamie Carter, 2015, “How Netflix Works – 400 Billion Interactions Per Day Ain't
Easy,” Techradar.com. http://tinyurl.com/j43myjy
- Timothy Havens, 2014, “Media Programming in an Era of Big Data,” Media Industries
Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 4-9.
- Jason Mittell, 2016, “Why Netflix Doesn’t Release Its Ratings,” The Atlantic.
http://tinyurl.com/jgsxrvs
Week 12 (June 21): Streaming Services and Web-Based Television Part One
- Amanda Lotz, 2016, “Original or Exclusive? Shifts in Television Financing and
Distribution Shift Meanings,” Antenna. http://tinyurl.com/gq266wd
- Chuck Tryon, 2015, “TV Got Better: Netflix’s Original Programming Strategies and
Binge Viewing,” Media Industries Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 104-116.
- Toby Miller, 2016, “Amazon Studios,” CST Blog, January 14,
http://tinyurl.com/zk68s23
- James Poniewozik, 2015, “Streaming TV Isn’t Just a New Way to Watch: It’s a New
Genre,” New York Times, December 16. http://tinyurl.com/z67cdve
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FINAL DUE ...
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