Lecture 8. Television as a medium

Cinema as an open socialisation process. Television as a more closed socialisation process in aprivate context. Family gathering in front of the television in the evenings as a ritual. Television is on but not necessarily watching it. Often people work, discuss, eat, read while the TV is on. The TV set as part of the furniture. The TV set as the centre of the living room. Americans spending many hours per day on average watching TV. Europeans spending less hours. Often TV may inhibit socialisation. Closing people indoors. Sometimes however it can unite people giving them topics to discuss. Common themes, TV programmes acting as a reference point. 

More publicity than the cinema. Television addressing potentially everybody. Mass medium that transmits instantly information. Educational as well as entertainment role. State and private television. State channels are expected to be more serious and offer higher quality programmes. More educational and less entertaining. Concentration of ownership. Profit making. Advertisements promoting consumerist values and ideologies. The target of always expanding the audience. The soap-operas as a phenomenon. Mass audience: housewives, children, elderly. Regularity, the story unfolding gradually. Sometimes continuing from episode to episode, other times each episode is autonomous. Its development depends on its success or failure. The script is being written while the soap opera is being screened on TV. Like with the films, the television audience is called upon to identify with the protagonists of the serial, accept the narrative structure and participate in the attribution of meaning in the story. Reality shows and competitions as the basic development of the decade. 5. The coexistence of cinema and television

Cinema focusing on high budget productions, television focusing on soap-operas and news buletins. Cinema as going out on weekends, television as staying in in weekdays. Different aesthetic and different technical production. Continuity in the production of a tv show/programme. A cinema film takes a long time to shoot and requires cooperation of many people, whereas a television film is directed in the studio, in relatively short time and under the immediate direction of the director. Television transmits immediately from the camera, whereas cinema films undergo a process of montage etc. Television as a cheaper sort of entertainment.

Screening: The power of image (BBC documentary)

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Για όσους δυσκολεύονται με τα αγγλικά υπάρχουν οι σημειώσεις της τάξης που είναι βασισμένες στα πιο πάνω αλλά και άλλες πηγές

πχ

Σάντας, Κ. (2006), Πώς βλέπω μια ταινία Σπουδή στην τέχνη του κινηματογράφου, Αθήνα: Γρηγόρη

Κιθ Ρίντερ, Ιστορία του παγκόσμιου κινηματογράφου (σελίδες 49-56, 105-109, 169-178)

http://helencomments.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_11.html

http://helencomments.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post.html

http://helencomments.blogspot.com/2010/02/hollywood.html

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