Chapter 12: Television Part 3

Popular Programs

• No one knows if a TV show will be popular before its first broadcast.

• Very few series last for more than three years.

• Most are canceled during their first year.

• The most dependable shows are soap operas and police dramas.

• Reality programming has also emerged as one of the most popular categories of television.

• That’s why very year there are new shows that are quite similar to old shows.

• Medical shows, police stories, and westerns are all genres of TV shows that have been popular for years and have been replicated many times.

• Other TV programming categories include: News and documentaries, sports, movies, music videos, variety shows, adventure series, talk shows, quiz and game shows, daytime drama (soap operas), situation comedies (sitcoms), dramatic series, miniseries, reality shows.

• TV often shows cardboard, one-dimensional characters – people whose personalities are not developed, or 3-dimensional.

• For example: the jolly fat man, the dumb secretary, the tough cop.

• These are created so viewers easily recognize what they’re seeing.

• The constant repetition of such characters tend to condition viewers to expect fat people to be jolly, secretaries to be dumb, or cops to be tough.

Genres and Program Types

• TV programs are made to gather an audience for commercials.

• Very little has changed since the beginning of television in this regard.

• Networks tend to stick with what has worked in the past.

• When a certain type of show is successful on one TV station, other stations rush to create a similar one.

Television and Stereotypes

• Each person has a mental picture of what the world is like.

• This picture is shaped by our personal experience and education.

• A third factor that helps shape our mental pictures is mass media. TV is the main teacher of this third factor.

• TV has created a nation of people who have opinions on just about every subject. This is due to the fact that TV provides us with mental pictures of places we’ve never visited, people we’ve never met, and events only experienced by watching on the TV.

• When our stereotypes are attacked or challenged, we tend to think of this as a personal attack, and often defend our stereotypes.

• Clearly, stereotypes are not limited to people who are prejudiced, bigoted, or uneducated. Many stereotypes are strengthened by television.

• Sometimes, TV can replace a commonly held stereotype with a fuller picture.

• Unfortunately, because of the power of TV, some stereotypes are commonly accepted as the full truth.

• News and entertainment distribute so much information about the world that some people claim that schools no longer are the main source of learning for most people.

• TV has taken over the role of forming our mental image of the world.

• This has meant that our mental map or picture of the world is, in some areas, quite detailed and well developed. Sometimes, however, our picture of the world is only a rough sketch with few details.

• Our brains demand that we fill in the sketches with details.

• We use our parents, schools, and mass media to fill in these details.

• Unfortunately, some of what we use to fill in this information are stereotypes.

• People who belong to these often stereotyped groups find it difficult to over-come these media-created stereotypes.

• On TV, murder, assault, and armed robbery are the most common crimes.

• In reality, burglaries, larcenies, auto thefts, and drunk driving are most common.

• On TV, detectives solve 90% of cases. In reality, the figure is much smaller.

• Groups that are often stereotyped include: the elderly, jocks, nerds, punk rockers, artists, Mexicans, African Americans, the French, Italians, New Yorkers, Texans, Women, people on welfare, Jews, teenagers, models, professional athletes, handicapped people, rich people, librarians, liberals, conservatives, overweight people, Arabs, and politicians.

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/understanding-stereotypes.cfm

Italian Stereotypes:

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/0c6yeq/la-douche-vita---italian-stereotypes

• A stereotype is an application to an entire group of the qualities of a limited sample of that group.

• Stereotypes are a convenient mental device. They help us deal with the vast amount of reality that can never be known in detail.

• The problem is that most stereotypes contain only a kernel of truth and so are dangerous if taken to be the whole truth.

• Stereotypes give people a feeling of security, a feeling that something complex is more understandable.

• Stereotypes provide us with the illusion that we know our way around the world

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/t0ei8s/frisky-business

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/dhf4v1/frisky-business---jessica-williams

http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/topics/historical-events-social-change-1939-40-worlds-fair

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/02/11/275087586/study-stereotypes-drive-perceptions-of-race

Chapter 12: Television Part 3