HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: communication & journalism

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Paul Frosh

Coordinator Email: msfrosh@mscc.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Mondays 10.00-11.00

Teaching Staff:
Prof Paul Frosh

Course/Module description:
This is a seminar class devoted to examining the aesthetic characteristics, and political and social significance, of the medium of television. Particular emphasis will be given to central issues of the research field knows as 'television studies' and to questions concerning the transformations of television in the contemporary digital era.

Course/Module aims:
The course is a seminar class. Every student must read the compulsory material, watch the set 'film' texts, and present either their seminar topic to the class or the analysis of an article. The final assignment is a seminar paper whose topic is selected in consultation with the course lecturer.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
To explain the main theories and topics in television research.
To develop high levels of competence in conceptualizing television's core characteristics and its social and cultural roles.
To produce in-depth critical readings of advanced theoretical writings in the field.
To compare and contrast central thinkers and schools of thought and to interpret and evaluate their points of similarity and difference.
To analyze contemporary empirical developments and their repercussions for television in the light of the theories studied.
To undertake an independent research project, culminating in a seminar paper, on a theoretical or empirical subject relevant to the seminar topic.

Attendance requirements(%):
100

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Lectures, discussions and presentations

Course/Module Content:
1. Introduction: Television as a medium in transmission.
2-3. Aesthetic and communicative characteristics.
4. Broadcasting, the nation, and mass culture
5. Industry, ideology, consumerism and power
6. Reception and the audience
7. Television, the everyday, and the unknown
8. Television genres 1: traditional genres and formats
9. Television genres 2: from television documentary to reality TV
10. Television genres 3: intertextuality and reflexivity
11. Television in the digital age

Required Reading:
שיעור 2-3 מאפיינים אסתטיים ותקשורתיים
דיון בסרט: פרנהייט 451

Booth, W. (1994) ‘The Company We Keep: Self-Making in Imaginative Art, Old and New’. In:
ת, ליבס. ומ, טלמון. תקשורת כתרבות: יצירת משמעות כמפגש בין טקסט לבין קוראים (מקראה, כרך ב'). תל-אביב: האוניברסיטה הפתוחה. ע"ע 81-55.
Also in: Daedalus III (4), 1982: 33-59.
Also in: H. Newcomb (ed.) Television: The Critical View, First Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 503-515.

Ellis, J. (1992) ‘Broadcast TV as Sound and Image’ in Gerald Mast, Marshall Cohen and Leo Baudry (eds.) Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 341-350.

שיעור 4 שידור רחב, האומה ותרבות המונים
דיון בסרט: חידון האשליות

Scannell, P. (1989) ‘Public Service Broadcasting and Modern Public Life’, Media, Culture and Society 11: 135-66.

4. Katz, E. (1996) “And Deliver Us From Segmentation”. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 546: 22-33.

שיעור 5 תעשייה, אידיאולוגיה, צרכנות וכוח
דיון בסרט: רשת שידור

Matthew McAllister (2000) ‘From Flick to Flack: The Increased Emphasis on Marketing by Media Entertainment Corportations’ in Andersen R. and Strate L. (eds) Critical Studies in Media Commercialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 101-122.

שיעור 6 התקבלות והקהל: סוגיות היסטוריות ותיאורטיות

Spigel, L. (1990) ‘Television in the Family Circle: The Popular Reception of a New Medium’. In Mellencamp, P. (ed.) Logics of Television: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Bloomington, Indiana and London: Indiana University Press and BFI Publishing: 73-97.
Also in:Spigel, L. (1992) Make Room For TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 2: 36-72.

Lisbet van Zoonen (2004) “Imagining the Fan Democracy”. European Journal of Communication 19(1): 39-52.

שיעור 7 טלוויזיה, היומיום והבלתי-נודע
דיון בסרט: הצלצול

Morley, D. (2004) ‘At Home With Television’. In Spigel, L. and Olsson, J. (eds) Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition. Durham, NC., Duke University Press: 303-323.

Sconce, J. (2000) ‘Static and Stasis’ in Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television. Durham: Duke University Press: 124-166.

שיעור 8 ז'נארים טלוויזיוניים 1: ז'אנר, פורמט וסוגות מסורתיות

Mittell, J. (2001) ‘A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory’. Cinema Journal 40 (3): 3-24.

שיעור 9 ז'נארים טלוויזיוניים 2: מסרטים תיעודיים לריאליטי טלוויזיה

Andrejevic, M (2002) “The Kinder, Gentler Gaze of Big Brother: Reality TV in the Era of Digital Capitalism”. New Media and Society 4(2): 251-270.

Couldry, N. (2002) ‘Playing for Celebrity: Big Brother as a Ritual Event’. Television and New Media 3 (3): 283-293.

שיעור 10 ז'נארים טלוויזיוניים 3: אינטר-טקסטואליות ורפלקסיביות

Mittel, J. (2001) ‘Cartoon Realism: Genre Mixing and the Cultural Life of The Simpsons’. The Velvet Light Trap 47: 15-28.

שיעור 11טלוויזיה בעידן הדיגיטאלי

Lotz, A. (2009) What Is U.S. Television Now? The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 625: 49-59.

Jenkins, H. (2004) “The cultural logic of media convergence”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7(1): 33-43.

Additional Reading Material:
שיעורים 2-3 מאפיינים אסתטיים ותקשורתיים
Raymond Williams (1990) ‘Programming As Sequence or Flow’. In Chapter 2, ‘Programming: Distribution and Flow’, of Television: Technology and Cultural Form. Routledge, London: 86-96.

Bourdon, J. (2000) ‘Live Television is Still Alive: On Television as an Unfulfilled Promise’. Media, Culture and Society 22(5): 531-56.

Caldwell, J. (1995) ‘Excessive Style: The Crisis of Network Television’. Chapter 1 in Televisuality: Style, Crisis and Authority in American Television. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press: 3-31.
Also in: Newcomb, H. (ed.) (2000) Television: The Critical View (6th edition). Oxford, Oxford University Press: 649-686.

McLuhan, M. (1998/1964) ‘Television: The Timid Giant’. Chapter 31 in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press: 308-337.

Frosh, P. (2009) ‘The Face of Television’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 625: 87-102.

שיעור 4 שידור רחב, האומה ותרבות המונים

גריפסרוד, י (1998/2003) 'טלוויזיה, שידור, שטף: דימויי מפתח בתיאוריה של הטלוויזיה'. בתוך: ת, ליבס. ומ, טלמון. תקשורת כתרבות: יצירת משמעות כמפגש בין טקסט לבין קוראים (מקראה, כרך ב'). תל-אביב: האוניברסיטה הפתוחה. ע"ע 150-132.

Oren, T. (2003) “The Belly Dancer Strategy: Israeli Educational Television and its Alternatives”. Media, Culture & Society, 25 (2): 167–186.

Bourdon, J. (2004) ‘Old and New Ghosts: Public Service Television and the Popular – A History’. European Journal of Cultural Studies 7 (3): 283-304.

Morley, D. (2000) ‘Broadcasting and the Construction of the National Family’. Chapter 5 in Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. London: Routledge.

Marc, D (2000) ‘What Was Broadcasting?’. In Newcomb, H. (ed.) Television: The Critical View (6th edition). Oxford, Oxford University Press: 629-648.

שיעור 5 תעשייה, אידיאולוגיה, צרכנות וכוח

גיטלין, ט. (1995), ,'אידיאולוגיה של "זמן צפיית שיא: התהליך ההגמוני בבידור המשודר בטלוויזיה'. בתוך כספי, ד. (עורך) תקשורת המונים, זרמים ואסכולות מחקר(מקראה) תל אביב, האוניברסיטה הפתוחה. ע"ע 164-144.
פריט זה מופיע גם באנגלית:
[Todd Gitlin (2000) ‘Prime Time Ideology: The Hegemonic Process in Television Entertainment’. In Newcomb, H. (ed.) Television: The Critical View (6th edition). Oxford, Oxford University Press: 629-648.]

Eileen R. Meehan (2005) “Watching Television: A Political Economic Approach”. In Janet Wasko (ed). A Companion to Television, Oxford, Blackwell 238-255.

Robin Andersen (1992) ‘Advertising, Economics and the Media’, Chapter 1 in Consumer Culture and TV Programming. Westview Press, Boulder: 14-50.

Edward Herman and Robert McChesney (1997) ‘The Global Media in the Late 1990s’, Chapter 2 of The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism, Cassell, London: 41-69.

James Curran (2004) ‘Globalization, Social Change and Television Reform’, Chapter 7 of Media and Power. Routledge, London, pp. 187-216.

שיעור 6 התקבלות והקהל: סוגיות היסטוריות ותיאורטיות

Jenkins, H. (2000) ‘Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching. In Newcomb, H. (ed.) Television: The Critical View (6th edition). Oxford, Oxford University Press: 470-491.

Hartley, J. (2004) ‘From Republic of Letters to Television Republic? Citizen Readers in the Era of Broadcast Television’. In Spigel, L. and Olsson, J. (eds) Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition. Durham, NC., Duke University Press: 386-417.

Dayan D. (2001) “The Peculiar Public of Television”, Media, Culture and Society 23(6): 743-765.

Allen, R. C. (1992) ‘Audience-Oriented Criticism and Television’. In Allen, R. C. (ed) Channels of Discourse Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism (2nd edition). London, Routlege: 101-137.

שיעור 7 טלוויזיה, היומיום והבלתי-נודע

Bonner, F. (2003) ‘What is Ordinary Television?’. Chapter 2 in Ordinary Television: Analyzing Popular TV. London, Sage: 29-63.

Scannell, P. (1989) ‘Radio Times: The Temporal Arrangements of Broadcasting in the Modern World’. In Television and its Audience: International Research Perspectives. London, BFI Publishing: 15-31.

Gauntlett, D. and Hill, A. (1999) ‘Television and Everyday Life’. Chapter 2 in TV Living: Television, Culture and Everyday Life. London, Routledge: 21-51.

שיעור 8 ז'נארים טלוויזיוניים 1: ז'אנר, פורמט וסוגות מסורתיות

Waisbord, S. (2004) ‘McTV: Understanding the Popularity of Global Television Formats’. Television and New Media 5 (4): 359-383.

Morse, M. (2004) ‘News as Performance: The Image as Event’. In Allen, R. C. and Hill, A. (eds) The Television Studies Reader. London: Routledge: 209-225.

מודלסקי, ט. (1979/2003) 'חיפוש אחר המחר באופרות הסבון של היום' בתוך: ת, ליבס. ומ, טלמון. תקשורת כתרבות: יצירת משמעות כמפגש בין טקסט לבין קוראים (מקראה, כרך ב'). תל-אביב: האוניברסיטה הפתוחה. ע"ע 174-162.

שיעור 9 ז'נארים טלוויזיוניים 2: מסרטים תיעודיים לריאליטי טלוויזיה

Corner, J. (1995) ‘Civic Visions: Forms of Documentary’. Chapter 4 in Television Form and Public Address. London, Edward Arnold: 77-104.
Also in: Newcomb, H. (ed.) (2000) Television: The Critical View (6th edition). Oxford, Oxford University Press: 207-236.

Holmes, S. (2004) ‘“Reality Goes Pop!”; Reality TV, Popular Music, and Narratives of Stardom in Pop Idol’. Television and New Media 5 (2): 147-172.

שיעור 10 ז'נארים טלוויזיוניים 3: אינטר-טקסטואליות ורפלקסיביות

Olbrys, S. (2005) ‘Seinfeld’s Democratic Vistas’. Critical Studies in Media Communication 22 (5): 390-408.

Sconce, J. (2004) ‘What If? Charting Television’s New Textual Boundaries’. In Spigel, L. and Olsson, J. (eds) Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition. Durham, NC., Duke University Press: 93-112.

שיעור 11 טלוויזיה בעידן הדיגיטאלי

Urricchio, W. (2009) “The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television.” In Pelle Snickers and Patrick Vonderau The YouTube Reader. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden: 24-39.

Chamberlain, D (2010) “Television Interfaces”, Journal of Popular Film and Television 38(2): 84-88.

Shani Orgad (2009) “Mobile TV: Old and New in the Construction of an Emergent Technology”, Convergence 15(2) 197-214.

Brooker, W (2001) “Living on Dawson’s Creek: Teen Viewers, Cultural Convergence and Television Overflow”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 4(4): 456-472.

Caldwell, J. (2004) ‘Convergence Television: Aggregating Form and Repurposing Content in the Culture of Conglomeration’. In Spigel, L. and Olsson, J. (eds) Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition. Durham, NC., Duke University Press: 41-74.

9. Carlson, M. (2006) ‘Tapping into TiVo: Digital Video Recorders and the Transition from Schedules to Surveillance in Television’. New Media and Society 8 (1): 97-115.

10. Kompare, D. (2005) ‘Acquisitive Repetion: Home Video and the Television Heritage’ and ‘Conclusion’. In Rerun Nation: How Repeats Invented American Television. London, Routledge: 197-224.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 80 %
Participation in Tutorials 20 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
The language of instruction is Hebrew.