I've been giving some thought to Tara's question at the end of class. After a semester of surveying the history of television criticism, how do I define television? The scope of "Television" makes this question nearly impossible to answer. We've seen how technological definitions of television are susceptible to deterministic assumptions. We've discussed how "flow," once so apt to describe the televisual experience of broadcast and cable, falls short of explaining modern phenomena like platforms and binge watching. We've tried to categorize Television based on form, content, and audience, all of which fail maintain their distinctions in the face of full-season releases and hybridity. It seems that "Television" has come to describe such a broad spectrum of contemporary media experiences that it loses most of its utility as an analytical term. I do, however, have a definition to push forward:
"Television" describes any electronic apparatus capable of receiving signals and decoding them in such a way as to present the intended audio-visual programming on a screen, or the programmed content itself.
Jesse – I’m happy you shared your definition of TV. From the few classes we’ve been in together, I’ve come to quite enjoy your categorical mode of analysis – your penchant for definitions. So I was hoping you’d offer one when Tara posed that question :)
ReplyDeleteWhat I like about your definition of TV here is its inherent split. By following your careful technological construction with the overlarge, “or the programmed content itself,” your definition performs the multiplicity that besets any attempt at defining TV. It also counters the oddness of your device-based claim: I was surprised, that is, at the move to anchor TV in devicehood when this has so proliferated. Do cellphones count as TV – given that they are an “electronic apparatus capable of receiving signals and decoding them in such a way as to present the intended audio-visual programming on a screen”? But phones are clearly not TV, even if they perform a TV-function. So I wonder if there is ultimately any value in sticking with device-based models of what television might be…
(Tania)
I agree with Tania in both: 1-your penchant for categorization is extremely neat yet has a sense of humor, which is a style you should keep 2-your emphasis on the device itself in your definition of TV is valid yet odd. I guess defining TV is an inherently compromising enterprise, there is no way to capture the whole thing in a single definition, especially in an era where TV itself keeps changing so rapidly. I guess our definitions just show where our preferences lie. For me, TV is about the episodic nature of its content above all else. At least that is where the power of TV lies in comparison to cinema, guaranteed elongated time and space devoted to tell a story that stretches as freely as it wants to.
ReplyDeleteI wonder one way to tackle this challenging question (what is TV?) might be incorporating historical contextualization of the practice surrounding the TV. To understand television's medium specificity and its sociohistorical implications, mixing theoretical work and historical perspective can provide a clearer picture to think about the ontological question for TV.
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