Farhad Manjoo

Popular culture is the artistic and creative expression in entertainment and style that appeals to society as whole. It includes music, film, sports, painting, sculpture, and even photography. It can be diffused in many ways, but one of the most powerful and effective ways to address society is through film and television. Broadcasting, radio and television are the primary means by which information and entertainment are delivered to the public in virtually every nation around the world, and they have become a crucial instrument of modern social and political organization. Most of today’s television programming genres are derived from earlier media such as stage, cinema and radio. In the area of comedy, sitcoms have proven

In their article “Moving beyond the 'Vast Wasteland'”, Laurie Ouellette and Justin Lewis critique how public broadcasting functions in the US. Liberal reformers hold to the view that television needs protection from commercialism. The liberal reformer view contains cultural and class hierarchies. They believe that public television is for the white, college-educated middle-class viewer who has “cultural capital”(Ouellette & Lewis, 96). As a result, funding for public broadcasting has gone primarily towards high culture and intellectual programs and not sitcoms or other popular forms of television. Ouellette and Lewis disagree with this, saying that these types of high-brow programming are not the only ones worthy of public investment. Instead, they argue that popular programs that are being commercially maintained also merit public support and investment (96). Rather than reserving public broadcasting for more educational programming, the authors argue that there is a more progressive solution that can incorporate popular media forms while still veering away from commercialization.

Netflix has engendered a generic recategorization of texts into previously established genres, as well as into newly established generic categories meant to organize these diverse texts in new and very specific adjective based genres, such as political dramas or spiritual documentaries,which combine descriptive and generic words meant to capture viewers. This generic specificity also accounts for the fact that texts are often cross-listed across multiple of these traditional and contemporary genres. Additionally, texts are categorized on each user’s homepage according to generic categories generated by the user’s profile and viewing history, with categories like, “you might also like this” and “because you watched…”. In accordance with Mittell’s genre theory, which states that genre is a cultural practice situated in larger cultural hierarchies and power relations and accounts for specific attributes of the medium, Netflix’s unique genre categories account for the particular attributes of the medium, but also, significantly, of the new digital platform as well. In making these arguments, I analyze the functions of the platform which create “streaming flow”, its algorithm, format, and generic categorization, as well as texts such as Arrested Development (2003-) and Stranger Things (2016-), that comprise streaming flow and which are generically categorized by

Americans’ everyday life. The Golden Age of television was a period of intense growth and expansion of

Rather instead we are actually left with the author’s notion television is not yet a fully utilized tool. Through the use of these rhetorical strategies the author has created a convincing argument against a widely held belief of the general public, effectively evoking critical thought unto the public and possibly even changing the view in whole. Even though these strategies alone do not make an argument, when used in order to support one you canget a very effective persuasive, even informative, piece like the one presented

Television has, without doubt, received more attention from Americanisation critics on media globalization more than any of the other domains e.g. fashion, language. According to Tony Bennett (1999, p.207) the early 1960s represented the peak in the Americanisation of popular culture measured by the proportion of American material transmitted. Most analysists now agree that about half of Australian television scheduled is taken up with imports, with US material dominating the commercial channels and British programs comprising the bulk of overseas material broadcast by the ABC (Bennett 1999, p.212). In what is probably the most systematic comparison of international flows, Tapio Varis reported that Australia has seen a decline from 57 per cent of imported programming to 40 per cent in 1983, although the proportion of imported programs at prime time was slightly higher at 46 per cent. Although Australia’s proportion of imported television is high compared to the Western European countries (yet significantly lower than New Zealand), commentators have generally claimed that such imported programs do not attract

Last Tuesday, I attempted to unplug myself from the world of media and see how it affected my everyday life. After trying to disconnect myself from everything that involves media, I realized how much I rely on it to get me through each day. I was never this aware of its presence in today’s society until disconnecting myself. Without media to rely on, I found myself having to readjust my whole normal routine just to get through the day.

Through David Letterman, Rudy and Ron’s fear as well as Edilyn’s confusion, Wallace examines television’s role in American culture especially in making pop culture. In fact, this

We have a sense of what is happening around us, with a fair insight about how things work elsewhere on the globe. We can view the world through the television, even if we are rooted in one spot the whole time. It is a getaway to places unknown, foreign, and magical with knowledge of what goes on around us without being physically present in that place. The media in all its forms can introduce us to creative outlets that can help us better ourselves in different ways, be it in our personal or work lives. It can change our perspectives and push us to do more than what we limit ourselves to. It can also help us engage with other people around the world, and be more open and understanding towards other cultures.

In an effort to expose the epistemology of television, which Postman believes has not been effectively addressed, he examines the effects of TV on several important American cultural institutions: news, religion, politics and education.  All four institutions, Postman argues, have realized that they have to go on television in order to be noticed which, in turn, requires them to learn the language of TV if they are to reach the people.  Therefore, they have joined the national conversation not on their own terms, but on TV's terms.  Postman contends that this transformation of our major institutions has trivialized what is most important about them and turned our culture into "one vast arena for show business" (80).  In the case of broadcast news, we see visually stimulating, disconnected stories about murder and mayhem along with a healthy dose of infotainment delivered by friendly and likeable anchors that remind us to "tune in tomorrow".  In the case of politics, we have discourse through distorted paid TV commercials and "debates" in which the appearance of having said something important is

“Television programming reflected and animated several qualities of popular historical consciousness that were new in the 1970s: a newfound interest in the everyday life and experience of earlier times; a desire to understand the past on empathetic and emotional terms; and an idea of history and the passage of time as contingent, flexible, and permeable. Although television is often said to be a primary space for the formation, articulation, and reflection of culture in the United States, because of the medium’s unique relationship with history and temporality (Malgorzata J. 83). Along with the spread of television coming about in the 1970s, the spread of American culture spread nationwide. The desire to understand past culture and the visual representation of our history is the driving force for popularity for television. American Dad helps depict American culture, because although American Dad is a sitcom they mention past events and their political viewpoints are often expressed in episodes of American Dad. Specially, Stan Smith is extremely controversial and is dead set on keeping terrorists out of America. This was very emotional for Americans because American Dad came out after 9/11, which is a very touchy subject for millions of Americans. However, American Dad pushes Americans through their emotional barrier and helps to depict American culture by

Media has become a powerful source of knowledge, and a great breakthrough in human history. Who can regret that media is a daily need in our lives. Media has the ability and control to adjust to all levels of knowledge in people. Media helps us to escape from our daily lives and our problems in times of stress. Thou Media as proved to be beneficial by educating, entertaining and informing us, it has also have its downfall, to cause many bad influences to the younger audience. Media has influenced us to conduct bad behavior, breed violence among teens and fear to the public, thus causing a lot of negative conflicts among ourselves. Television, Music, Internet, and more, are just some of the media exposure that needs to be censored and

People very often debate whether technology is good or bad. Many people believe that technology can only cause harm to their lives and society, while many others strongly defend the technologies which have made their lives much more leisurely and enriching than it could have been several hundred years ago. In my opinion, both of these views are correct to an extent, but I also believe that what should be examined is not whether technology in its self is good or bad, but rather how we as humans use it.For decades now, television has been accused of contributing to the dissolution of the American family and the destruction of the minds of those who watch it. However, although the TV has been involved in this, the problem roots not with

Over the last forty to fifty years, television has been a major topic of discussion. Specifically, many debate societal benefits to television watching. One widely accepted opinion is that watching TV makes people dumber. People have referred to it with terms like the “idiot box” and do not feel that watching TV has any benefit at all. They feel that it is a waste of time and people need to spend their hours more wisely. Others are of the opinion that TV is actually has societal benefits. From this perspective, they claim that the development of the structure of the programs now requires one to intellectually participate in watching television. Essentially, the argument is whether TV is a beneficial societal force or is it simply a

What do we really mean by television? The way we watch television has drastically changed over the last fifteen years due to new technologies such as digital television and services providing on-demand access. These drastic changes have had a huge effect on viewers and have “allowed online streaming platforms to dominate and revolutionize the way the audience consumes” (Aliloupour) media, ultimately allowing the viewer to be in total control of how, when and where they want their content. The idea of only being able to watch television on a television set is now a thing of the past. Due to technology, the audience now has a vast variety of options on how they can access content. By using scholarly articles, research in new media and Internet sites I will be analyzing current television and where the future of television will be heading.