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Critical Mass

About the Criticizing TV Course...

Television is one of the most powerful forms of communication in our contemporary world, shaping and connecting personal and global sites of knowledge and impacting identity formation. This quarter, we’ll analyze the aesthetic, creative, and persuasive strategies of television programming, using critical theoretical perspectives to explore television’s influence on perceptions of and beliefs about social diversity in America. We’ll develop our personal and communal perspectives on television by viewing it, discussing it, reading about it, and writing about it. Theoretical perspectives used in the course include narrative analysis, genre study, semiotics, and postmodernism. All program types will be considered this quarter including news, sports, sitcoms, reality TV, advertising, talk shows, comedy, documentary, cartoons, soap opera, and drama. The Criticizing Television course will not only offer you the opportunity to explore what TV is today, but also develop informed ideas about how television might be produced, perceived, and interpreted differently now and in the future.

Some key questions we’ll consider include:

What is television’s role in public and private life? How does it function for groups? For individuals?
What lessons does television teach about race, ethnicity, gender, sex, class, religion, age, and sexuality?
Whose presence is visible on television? Whose presence is invisible?
What does television provide? Information? Entertainment? Education? Social cohesiveness? Pleasure? Companionship? Distraction?
How is it decided that a particular program or genre is “good,” or “bad?” How are these values determined?
What is television’s relationship to other contemporary media?
What is television’s technological, social, and economic impact on individuals and groups?
Does television represent realities? Construct realities? Refute realities? What is reality? Who decides what reality is?

Course Objective: Our objective this quarter is learn about American popular television’s relationship to social diversity issues through the production of television criticism. We’ll explore television through a variety of theoretical perspectives and engage in creative activities designed to develop your best inventive and analytical thinking. The learning experiences are designed be relevant and meaningful to your life world and help you learn holistically, placing your life experiences within a communal and scholarly context.

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