TEL 420 Electronic media criticism

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TEL 420 Electronic media criticism

• Spring 2009

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Bulletin description

• Examination of each of several critical theories
  and approaches to the criticism of
  telecommunications program content. Practical
  experience in evaluating critical writing and in
  the writing of critical pieces. Prereq Telecom
  major status or consent of instructor.

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Three main foci

• Construction of narratives
• Telling stories in electronic media
• Production of media content (texts)
• What goes into film, television, videogame
  production
• Social critique of media texts
• Analysis of the quality, morality, ideology of
  media content

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Why?

• This course will help you as a producer and/or as
  a consumer of popular culture
• Electronic texts are all around us
• We tend to take them at face value
• We have overlearned the language of electronic
  representation
• Even so, they affect us in important ways
• Im not an alarmist, but we should recognize that
  electronic narratives have effects we dont
  recognize as well as those that we do

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How?

• First well look at the components that make up
  narratives and how we experience them in film,
  television and videogame texts
• Stories
• Characters
• Settings
• Plots
• Action
• Myth

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• Then well take a quick look at how the texts are
  produced
• Cinematography
• Sound
• Mise-en-scene
• Editing
• Shots/scenes/episodes
• Lighting

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• Finally, well review some of the social
  implications of the narratives/texts commonly
  found in film, on television, and in video games
• Class
• Race
• Gender
• Morality
• Sexuality

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How will we tackle these tasks?

• Readings
• The readings are moderate in amount and mostly
  quite readable
• Some of this stuff can be absolutely impenetrable
• I needed to find content you could understand
  without prior classwork in this area but that was
  not at a grade-school level
• I tried to mix theory with application
• Youll get more out of the class if you start
  reading film, tv and videogame criticism in the
  popular media
• I provide some recommended readings and point to
  some good sources for additional information

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• Assignments
• Assignments are a mix of short quizzes on
  Blackboard and simple analyses of electronic
  texts to be discussed in class
• For example, I may ask you to watch the
  presentation of Arabs in 24 one week and apply
  the readings to what you see

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• A midterm
• Mostly based on your understanding of concepts,
  vocabulary, and basic theory about our topics

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• An in-class presentation
• Each of you will present to the class your
  interpretation of how a weeks topic applies to
  some electronic text
• More on that later, but you should know that you
  will need to propose your topic to me and get
  feedback prior to your presentation

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• The final test
• This will be a combination of demonstrating that
  you have picked up the content from the
  post-midterm readings and that you can apply the
  semesters theoretical content to specific
  examples of electronic narrative
• Ill show examples at the time of the test and
  you will be expected to be able to identify how
  our semester content applies to the clips

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• The final project
• Each of you will pick a topic you want to explore
  more deeply than the once-over in class allows.
  Youll get the okay to go forward with your topic
  and will keep me updated on how you are
  progressing, getting your basic outline okayed,
  etc. during the semester. You will provide a
  paper on your topic and will share the knowledge
  you have gained (in greatly abbreviated form) in
  a second in-class presentation at the end of the
  semester.

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Out-of-class assignments

• In order to be on the same page, Ill be
  requiring you to watch some films, television
  shows, documentaries and perhaps watch some folks
  playing video games. This will require some out
  of class time but is necessary to see that we can
  have intelligent discussions of various texts.
  Ill make the content available to you so that
  you wont be required to catch a single showing
  of somethingwhich might be a problem if you have
  to be at work at a given time, etc. Much of the
  content will be available online.

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Grades

• In general, if you do the work, youll do fine as
  far as grades are concerned. If you are doing
  the readings, coming to class, etc. and arent
  getting the ideas, please see me during office
  hours or set up a meeting.

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So, to get started

• Narratives are, generally speaking, stories.
• Theres a whole area of study around narratives
  and some of the folks who specialize in that area
  would not want such a simplistic definition, but
  it will serve us okay in this class.

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Narrative

• What are the important features of narrative?
• Time
• What happens in narratives is ordered in time
• Though there may be flashbacks, flashforwards,
  parallel activity occurring simultaneously, etc.
  the basic structure of narrative is of linear
  time with a series of events occurring
• Characters
• Narratives usually center on some person or
  persons doing things or having things happen to
  them

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Narrative

• Important features of narrative
• Causality
• The events, actions, etc. are thought to be
  related, with earlier ones causing later ones
• Setting
• The actions take place somewhere
• Plot
• The actions that are included and their causal
  relations
• Structure
• There are common ways that the features above are
  structured
• These vary by the type of narrative and the media
  by which the narrative are disseminated

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Why focus on narrative?

• Narratives are extremely common
• The great majority of texts you are exposed to
  through electronic media present narrative
  content
• People tend to construct their communications in
  narrative form
• What did you do last night?
• A list?
• A story?
• Narratives are more interesting and satisfying
  than other forms of presentation

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Narrative effects

• Even though most narratives are constructed for
  enjoyment/amusement, they have been demonstrated
  to be persuasive and educational.
• People tell stories as a way of arguing their
  point
• Stories are memorable and therefore are brought
  to mind when we need to make decisions, evaluate
  alternatives, etc.
• People dont recognize narratives as acts of
  persuasion and so often do not critically analyze
  them the way they do arguments, etc.

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Narratives in electronic media

• The great majority of fictional content is
  narrative in nature
• Think about the structure of primetime fiction,
  film fiction, etc.
• Videogames?
• Much of, if not the majority of, non-fiction is
  narrative in nature, as well
• Reality TV
• News stories
• Commercial mini-narratives

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Artistry

• Much of the artistry of electronic media is in
  the construction of compelling and entertaining
  narratives
• Scriptwriting
• Direction
• Acting
• Cinematography
• Sound design
• Special effects
• Etc.

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So lets take a first look

• The Internet Archive has lots of video,
  especially old movies, TV and cartoons
• http//www.archive.org/index.php