Week Seven [Reading Notes]

Children's Television

Gunter, B. and McAleer, J. (1997) Children and Television: The One Eyed Monster London: Routledge

• Under the ethos of the public service broadcasting, television has been required not only to entertain, but to educate and inform. [p. 56]
• Television is commonly cited by people as their major source of information about what's happening in the world. In public opinion surveys, samples often claim that they learn a great deal about the world from watching television, and that news on television is more important in keeping them informed than any other sources. [p. 56]
• There is no doubt that children do learn some things from watching television, both from programmes designed to entertain and from those whose main objective is to inform. [p. 56]
• If children decide to view for amusement and entertainment, much of what they watch will simply wash over them; little will stick. On the other hand, if they are motivated to find out about something through viewing, then learning is more likely to occur. [p. 57]
• Ultimately, whether or not children learn from television depends on a mixture of factors which relate to the viewers' background knowledge and interests, reasons for watching television, degree of concentration and attention while viewing, and the way that the programmes are produced. [p. 57]
• Educational television programmes represent one area of television output which has been dedicated to improving children's know-how. Some of these productions are broadcast as part of mainstream television for children, while others have been specifically made for schools audiences. [p. 57]

Learning from TV Quiz Shows

• Children can learn from programmes that are designed specifically to entertain. Research among children in Britain has shown that, by watching TV quiz shows, children's general knowledge (on topics covered by the questions on the show) can be improved. Thus, even entertainment orientated shows may provide a source of learning for young viewers. [p. 59]
• One of the key reasons given by children for watching quiz shows was 'to compete against contestants'. This means that, when watching quiz shows, children may be encouraged in generating their own answers. Participation, as well as the additional mental effort in processing an answer from the question may produce an atmosphere in which children actually learn from these programmes. [p. 59] 

Learning from TV News

• Television news is defined both by it's producers and it's audiences as programming designed specifically to inform. This is not to say that news is not also found entertaining. Indeed, it often tries to arouse and entertain. [p. 60]
• Despite its central aim to inform the public, research has shown that audiences often display poor memory for news on television. This happens consistently, even though people subjectively feel that television news provides well for their news needs. [p. 60]
  
  TV News and Political Learning
• Parents and school are known to have an influence over children's and adolescents' political opinion forming, but their is some indication too that the media can play an important role in this as well. (Chaffee, S.H., McLeod, J.M. and Wackman, D.B. 1973) [p. 61]
• Political knowledge has been found to be related to children's and adolescents' use of the mass media and in particular to their interest in news and current affairs. (Gunter, B. 1997) [p. 61]
  
  Remembering What News Programmes Said
• Recall of television news varies with the type of story and the way in which it is presented. The presence of film footage in news items can have a significant effect on how well it is remembered. Dan Drew and Stephen Reese found that memory and understanding among 10- to 16-year-olds were better for TV news accompanied by film footage than when presented by a 'talking head' only. [p. 65] 
• 
  

Week Six [Seminar Notes]

Lifestyle Television

Three types:
- Cooking
- Property
- Fashion

First introduced via Radio broadcasts

Local business for food, soap and other domestic products sponsored early educational programmes and radio shows. Many were sponsored by kitchenware manufacturers.

Broadcast channels and magazines are now dedicated to these areas of consumerism.

Lifestyle programmes were linked to the reproduction of the heterosexual post-war nuclear family.

Lifestyle formats have become more closely associated with the expression of consumer difference, the aesthetication of everyday life.

Examples [On Hand-Out]
Take Care of the Refridgerator' [Korean Cooking/Interview show] 
- It is a host-lead programme with celebrity guests.

How to Look Good Naked [Women's Lifestyle program]
- Idea of the 'Male Gaze' comes into play with this show, with women being insecure about their body image. The influence of a 'queer' host reinforces the debate of this lifestyle in a women's genre of TV.
- Gok Wan - openly gay in the public eye. He's the 'gay best-friend'.

Location, Location, Location
- Male and female hosts, mainly the female host with a separate narrator.
- The male is seen as the dominating sales element, the women is involved in the design.
- Male = Practical, Female = Picky


Theoretical Relations
These shows seems spontaneous and natural [un-scripted], representing a true image of the participants with their opinions.





Textual Analysis of the Genre:

Fanny Cradock v Nigella Lawson

Direct Gaze - Breaking the fourth wall
Simple domestic appliances in a plain colour kitchen [Fanny]

Nigella has an upbeat melody in comparison to Cradock.
There are a vast amount of cuts and a huge variety of colours represented in the show.

Nigella's kitchen has a lot more appliances, cooking more internationally renown dishes.
A much more extravagant yet homely feel to the show.
Nigella uses a lot more immersive language.

They had similar costumes and a strong representation of femininity.

Cradock's is a much more traditionally British show with her food.

Aimed at a middle-class audience [Nigella] and the other aimed at the working class [Fanny]

Nigella has a male gaze essence to it, with her costumes, make-up and overall appearance. 

Week Six [Reading Notes]

Powell, H. & Prasad, S. (2010) ‘"As Seen on TV." The Celebrity Expert- How Taste is Shaped by Lifestyle Media’ in Cultural Politics 6 (1). 111 -124

Lifestyle templates are available primarily through multiple media channels, where lifestyle is an example of a new “social form” based on specific patterns of consumer choice.

Television, print, and advertising play a role in constructing media stars who transfer particular lifestyle knowledge through to the lived experience of ordinary people. 

The genre of D.I.Y. programs has always been popular on British television. However, of specific interest here is both the shift in style of these programs and their sheer volume internationally. Therefore, the questions this article considers are: Why have celebrity experts grown to such prominence and how do they seek to function as the conduit through which mediated lifestyle becomes lived experience?

Within the “new economy,” information and the symbolic are highly valued and they allow for those who specialise in such culturally specific materials to increase their standing based not on their education but rather on their knowledge of the aesthetic in all its forms. In this way, the sign value of goods creates a new social order whereby increasingly a sense of collective identification is informed by market choices and guided by the rhetoric of advertising, design, and the television celebrity expert.

Celebrity experts/hosts become role models through highly performative, mediated interaction. They offer a lifestyle template located within a setting of familiarity and trust accrued through a weekly slot on television (Chaney 2001; Powell and Prasad 2007).

How Not to Decorate 
Operates on the basis of transformation, set against a backdrop of a race against the clock leading up to the final reveal. However, the discourse of the two presenters throughout the program makes it clear that transformation takes place within a context: the transposition or implementation of one taste culture over another. Colin and Justin reinforce each other’s values and, from a position of authority as presenters of the show, are allowed their choices to be legitimised and implemented. Interestingly, these celebrity experts are not involved in the actual transformation: they show no skill in painting, carpentry, plastering. Rather they remain firmly rooted in the world of the aesthetic and knowledge of the communicative value of objects and styles. Their own value and status is therefore located in the decision-making process made apparent on television which legitimises their own particular cultural tastes and preferences.

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Linda Barker and DFS

If lifestyle is manifested in the choices we make in relation to interior design or the food that we cook and serve and if such choices make statements concerning our sense of self and social positioning, then celebrity experts become important by providing, through the media, templates of possibilities. 

If we trace the DFS furniture campaign from 2003 to the present (2009), a series of “designers” reinforce the idea that taste is important for the ordinary homemaker, but more significantly it can be bought with the right guidance. Linda Barker has played a key role in promoting the brand and her latest “Why I love DFS” advertisements guide the public to examine particular features of a sofa which her expertise can validate. [www.dfs.co.uk/linda-and-dfs]

Experts like Barker are there, we suggest, to facilitate the decision-making process. In turn, they reduce the anxiety that, in a consumer driven culture, might come with seemingly limitless choice. She provides reassurance and practical guidance but ultimately her function is one of cultural intermediary and tastemaker (Philips 2005). 

The success of Barker in this was to present good taste in a form that was palatable for mass consumption and to appear to reflect the sensibilities of ordinary people; what some social commentators have described as a democratisation of taste. But this notion of the ordinary is problematic as Taylor suggests:
Lifestyle never floats free of class. The “ordinary” people of terrestrial lifestyle television for example, are usually at least lower middle-class; the embrace of working class people is extremely rare in lifestyle programming. (2005: 115) 

Tastemakers and, by extension, celebrity experts have seized the opportunity to legitimise their role as bearers of aesthetic knowledge, as function is replaced by the expressive qualities of any object in terms of what it says about a sense of self or aspirational standing. Knowledge thus becomes a currency that allows for distinctions and judgments to be made, played out through the format of makeover television (Lury 1996: 88).

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Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver broke the mould of the traditional cookery show format through The Naked Chef (beginning in 1999) by positioning food at the center of his lifestyle construction and placing family and friends at the heart of program content. This format enabled the genre to develop away from its traditional didacticism and into the realm of narrative story telling with a culinary theme.

In addition to his known culinary expertise, Oliver’s appeal derived from his youthful appearance and enthusiastic manner of presentation, which struck a chord with a younger and indeed more masculine demographic. Therefore, the emphasis placed within Oliver’s television program on the choosing and acquiring of suitable quality ingredients was transferred to Sainsbury’s with a knowing consumer believing and trusting that the products must indeed be of high quality if a celebrity chef uses them.

The celebrity expert:
A cultural intermediary emerging from the growth of the communications and pro- motional industries and shifts in patterns of social organisation. Such celebrities have found their niche in contemporary culture through the development of a particular genre of reality television, namely lifestyle.

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Lifestyle television becomes important, according to Skeggs (2004: 97), “for recognition of difference is a lot more difficult to maintain, to know and to see; boundaries are far more permeable than in the past”. In this context, it becomes a site where the taste of the expert can gain mass appeal and confirms their status as a celebrity. It makes those with symbolic power visible and provides a medium whereby their judgments and classifications can be legitimised. This strengthens their market value and brand extensions can follow.

 

Bibliography

Chaney D. 2001. “From Ways of Life to Lifestyle: Rethinking Culture as Ideology and Sensibility.” In J. Lull (ed.) Culture in the Communica­tion Age, pp. 75–88. London: Routledge. 

Lury, C. 1996. Consumer Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Philips, D. 2005. “Transformation Scenes: The Television Interior Makeover.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 8(2): 213–29.

Powell, H. and S. Prasad. 2007. “Life Swap: Celebrity expert as lifestyle adviser.” In D. Heller (ed.) Reading Makeover Television: Realities Remodelled, pp. 56–66. London: I.B. Tauris. 

Skeggs, B. 2004. Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge. 

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Brunsdon, C. (2004) ‘Taste and Time on Television’ in Screen 45(2) p115 – 129.

 

Critical Viewing Log [Week Five]

Viewing Log 1: Week 5 Seminar [500 – 750 words]

The emphasis on textual analysis on this course cannot be stressed enough and it is vital that you have developed advanced skills in this method of media research. Television brings with it its own unique opportunities – and challenges – for research and the motivation behind the critical viewing logs can be identified as follows:

• Providing a structuring space for your own individual television viewing within the context of this course. 
• A springboard for in-depth discussion during seminars.
• Skills training in close textual analysis.

You are asked to choose two topics at the beginning of the course which you will focus your critical viewing logs on. Each should focus primarily on ONE EPISODE or SCENE from a television show you have watched in preparation for the seminar in that week. You are expected to undertake a close textual analysis of the programme that highlights the critical and generic conventions of its genre. You may find it useful to relate your discussion to the reading you have carried out in preparation for that particular week.

Please choose a TV genre from those in weeks 2-4 and then focus on one show - analyse one or two scenes in that show. I will add some notes on textual analysis to Study Direct. Think about how elements of the text can help you make arguments and points about wider critical readings of TV i.e. class/gender/race/genre studies. 

Format should be intro few sentences on the show and the scenes you picked (include original transmission time, date and year of show). Analysis. Concluding points. 

Please include academic reading in your log - at least three references from material we have covered. I strongly recommend you do this exercise to get feedback ahead of your assessed log for week nine.

____________________________________________________________________________

Countdown is a British game show incorporating word and number puzzles and has been broadcasting on Channel 4 since it became a terrestrial channel in 1982 and is the longest running game show to be broadcasted in the UK. I will undertake a critical textual analysis of this game show, highlighting the critical and generic conventions of its genre. I will be focussing on the scenes from episode 5571 that was broadcasted on 19 October 2012 at 3:10pm, as part of Series 67.

"Game shows depend on the display of knowledge or performance of skills, the acquisition of prizes, the display of celebrity and personality all presented in terms of fun and games." (Whannel, 1990, p.103-114) Countdown definitely meets the generic conventions of a game show stated by Whannel. For example, contestants start out equal and finish differentiated into a winner and losers by gaining points from various rounds, where their knowledge of numbers and letters being tested. Also, coinciding with the show's friendly nature and it's mass appeal to all generations, instead of competing for money, contestants compete to win a 'Countdown tea-pot' and a chance to play again in the following show, in hope that they can one day play in champions series finale. 
The display of celebrity is also apparent in Countdown with the show's present and of course, the celebrity guest assisting in the dictionary corner, being Dr Phil Hammond in this episode. With game shows like Countdown having a celebrated hosts with a charismatic presence, it agrees with Merrill's theory of how game shows possessing this trait are "capable of drawing in larger audiences of all backgrounds." (Merill, 1999, p. 28-30)

Countdown appeals to people of all ages as it is visually interpretable to members of it's studio audience consisting of students, pensioners and people from all walks of society, and classes. It is broadcasted around 'tea-time' when many people have just got in form work or school and are sitting down to relax before dinner.  On the other hand, Countdown's mass popularity in comparison to other game shows could also be due to it's gender representations and equality, having both male and female hosts as well as being represented in the dictionary corner. It possesses no gender limitations. 

Another generic convention of game shows which is apparent in Countdown is their tendency to cost little to produce in comparison to other television shows with their simplistic set designs and minimal cast members. Countdown has a basic studio set, containing a desk panels, the letters and numbers board and the centrepiece of the set, the 'Countdown clock.' The clock being the most important feature ,along with the music played as the time counts down.

However, I feel contestants may consider that being on television for at least one episode and being able to have conversations with the 'celebrity' cast on Countdown is actually more of a prize in comparison to the actual prize the show awards. Members of the public can go on the show and get their moment of fame and be in the public eye for at least one episode. On the other hand, contests could view this show more as a competition, gaining intellectual power and public approval from winning. Nevertheless, it's clear that Countdown is game show that "what counts is not just winning but having fun." (Wulff, 2000) 



Bibliography


Merrill, C. (1999) "Millionaire" gets America's attention, American Demographics (November 199) p. 28-30

Whannel, G. (1990) Winner Takes All: Competiton, in A. Goodwin and G. Whannel (eds) Understanding Television. New York and London: Routledge

Wulff, L. M. J.(2000) ‘Intertextuality and situative contexts in game shows: the case of Wheel of Fortune’ in Meinhoff, U. H. & Smith, J. (eds.) Intertextuality and the Media: From Genre to Everyday Life. Manchester U.P.

Week Five [Lecture Notes]

Reality + Lifestyle Television

Focus on Our Lives...

Reality TV - Performance, surveillance, disciplining society, class...

Lifestyle TV - From citizen to consumer, from cooks to life experts, gendered expectations and lifestyle TV 

THERE'S A CROSS OVER


Real Lives?

- Unpacking the notion of reality TV

- The paradox of being 'sold' a version of our reality...

- Gender and class politics in reality/lifestyle shows --> How does the 'reality' format change what is acceptable in terms of representation.

- Which 'realities' are reified


The Reality Bomb

- Exploded at the end of the 1990s

- But not new...it's grown considerably

- Candid camera started in the US in 1949

- This genre also continued in docu-soaps such as Airport [1949]

- Birth of Big Brother which started in the Netherlands in 1999 came to the UK in 2000, which had it's peak viewers on average at 5.8million by season 3



Reality Bites

- I'm A Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here
- Survivor
- X Factor
- Britain's Got Talent
- Sun, Sea and Suspicious Parents
- Benefits Street
- Geordie Shore
- The Only Way is Essex
- America's Next Top Model
- The Apprentice [Work Place Reality]


Performance

Is the performance in the Big Brother house different to performing in everyday life? No 

- The moment the camera is switched on, the 'hermetic seal' of reality is broken
- What we are watching is a 'performance' of reality
- It's arguably a new version of reality, but one we want to consume
- It's cut/constructed by producers
- First element of Big Brother to go was the late night 'live-feeds', people preferred the condensed hour-long show made by the producers as they preferred to consume this constructed reality.


Appearance and Surveillance

Intensified our interest in our images
- Big Brother is basically CCTV
- The legitimisation of CCTV/surveillance

CrimeWatch
- TV as a surveyor not for the public good, for the public's own good.

TV experts as your best friend (but they still tell you how to look better)


Commodified Intimacy

- Big Brother was originally pitched as a 'social experiment'. It was us watching human behaviour.

- Our desire for 'people like us'... so called 'politics of the popular'.

- Andrejevic (2004) "Voyeurism on offer is yet another form of submission" (p. 173)

- Those watching make a tacit acknowledgment of the dominance....


The Disciplinary Society

- Can be seen as part of Foucault's (1979) 'Disciplinary Society'.
- He used the metaphor of the panopticon prison of the direction in which reality TV was heading.

- The panopticon is a prison that places a guard tower at the centre and positions it's prisoners in a circle around it.


Disciplining Class

Benefits Street [2004] 
- Producers want to show life for those on benefits but why might this seem circumspect?

Secret Shopper [2014]
- Mary Portas helps small businesses improve...business or class?

Seminars

- Questions of genre --> does reality TV have a narrative/what do they have in common?

TOWIE, Made in Chelsea


_______________________________________________________

What is Lifestyle TV

- Home DIY
- Property
- Fashion
- Cookery
- Makeovers


Why Lifestyle, Why Now?

- Lifestyle TV is not new, it was instructional TV, but it has morphed and changed in the last 20 years.

- Roberts [2007] suggested that Lifestyle TV is a result of deregulation...

- PSB (BBC) has to compete with the private sector, so they had to keep up with the increasingly competitive TV markets

- Race for global TV products.


Citizen/Consumer

- BBC was traditionally about 'education and information' for the public.

- 80/90s, Neo-liberalism, Thatcherism/Blairism

- Lifestylification

- Lifestyle about improvement through good

-Lifestyle TV, a new public service which the BBC followed.


The Consumer Citizens

- Not a simple shift from citizen to consumer
- Mosely suggests that today's lifestyle shows "represent a complex conjunction of the two, in which the personal and the private are figured in significant spaces in which citizens can, on a small local scale, learn to make changes, make a difference, improve the person for the national good" Roberts [2007]


GOV Discourse

- How does TV operate as a way of training and guiding citizens, and how does this knowledge and these skills pertain to a governmental rationality which encourages privatisation and personalisation of welfare
Ouellette and Hay 2006


Post-Feminism and Lifestyle TV

- Feminism --> Mostly marxist critique of society, capital was controlled by men and there it was another part of patriarchy 

- Post-feminism is inextricably bound up in consumption


Part of Disciplinary Society

- Experts are judging what is 'normal'.

- The boundaries of femininity/class are being defined by lifestyle experts.

- Acceptable forms of behaviour are reified by psychologist/quasi experts.

But what are their expertise based upon?

Snog, Marry, Avoid [2008]
- Power by the 'transformation' trope... why has this become so dominant in lifestyle TV? How has lifestylification generically changed instructional TV?