We have the technical impulse to believe that what we’re watching on TV is live, without assuming that the programme may be pre-recorded to prevent a broadcast disaster. McCarthy calls this the ideology of liveness.
Ernst talks about mediality and Sam Weber’s mediaura. TV shows that bring attention to their televisualness, like The Simpsons, are considered auratic. Also, when shows offer “a high degree of the unexpected” and with “the catastrophic quality of its sound and image” is considered auratic. We can trawl many live broadcast TV fail moments on YouTube. Some funny, some embarrassing:
Is technology a cause or an effect? According to Williams, this question forms an increasingly important part of our social and cultural arguments, and they are being decided all the time in real life. It changes according to how we relate to the technology. This then leads to the question, does media produce society or does society produce media? I think society produces media because media works to serve the needs of society.
Williams also makes a distinction between the technology itself and the uses of technology. Technology can be created for a specific purpose or need but human beings may interpret the technology differently and use it not solely for its purpose. Paik is a good example.
Williams, much like White, challenges the notion of genius as he believes that technology doesn’t have a birthday as it is made up of the technology that preceded it. Technology is in fact technologies. That’s why when the ipad came about, people knew how to use it because it functions similar to the iphone and we as human beings have a database of knowledge in relation to media which progressively increases.
McCarthy was concerned with the notion of place. How TV creates a placelessness. You can be in your living room in Singapore and yet somehow be transported to a bull fight in Barcelona. TV is a space binder: global and local economy. Allows for a collectivity without a spatial enclosure. Spaces are usually gated. The lifestyle concept of cooking shows where you feel you a sense of familiarity with the setting of the show cos it’s a kitchen much like yours and the host is homely and welcoming and you see her eating with her friends at the end and you feel part of that group because you watched her cook for an hour. You feel as if you are socializing without actually having to.
The domestic, the home, is always going to be part of the mundane. It is an everyday experience. Socialisation in the house and so when you leave the house we are used to the tv because you have one in the house and already know how to interact with the tv so it is comfortable. The tv does not react back so it is safe. They have one at the dentist, at the bank, in a taxi and even at school.
Stanley Wong
This week’s readings talks about television as a medium, and like most weeks, they do not discuss the content it broadcasts and its implications, but talks about television as a technology and its influence on social life instead.
Williams specifically addresses this in his article, where he approaches television as directly influencing how humans relate to each other, and addresses the unintended consequences of the usage of television, where people use it for purposes outside of its intended one. He also traces the history of the television, arguing that its emergence was brought about by a few processes. Firstly, he argued that television was not “invented” as it is; it is simply an assemblage of various technologies. This brings up the question of why it is assembled; there must be a need to fulfil if it was to be invented. This correlated to the development of society after WW2, where men returned to the workforce, and women were needed at home. This led to the (re)emergence of the family as a unit. Seen this way, the television can be seen as a furniture, that is a standard furnishing for all homes and families. Seen this way, the television becomes a supporting logic for the formation of the family. At the same time, television, considered “new media” at that time, relied on logics of the old media to work, which is broadcasting. This is already seen in radios. Seen this way, TVs are founded on existing technologies and old media, which supports the formation of certain social order.
TV is also seen as unifying and creating an imagined community. This is brought about by the concept of “live” broadcasts. The notion of watching the same thing together is a private yet public experience. We watch it in our homes, yet everyone experiences the same thing, creating a sense of collectivity and social bonds between viewers. Seen this way, it redefines social membership; we do not have to be physically present to experience something and feel like it is part of it; we can feel this sense of membership by just watching it and feeling part of it. This is probably what McCarthy means by TV transcends space in the creation of group membership.
Lastly, Ernst talks about the functions of television. Unlike the Frankfurt school, which argues that mass media serves ideological function, he sees television as ambient; we do not pay attention to the content it delivers all the time. It recedes into the background while we go about our everyday lives, becoming ambient sound. Indeed, I often leave the television on while reading my books, or doing something else, paying attention when something interesting comes up. At the same time, Ernst’s argument that TV acts as a social lubricant can be combined with McCarthy’s concept of TV rewriting space and place; in this case, it serves to smooth social interaction between social actors.
Iman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzRNVikfPIM
The above video discusses how television creates a sense of familiarity and homeliness for guests when they are in a foreign place for example at hotels. I find this interesting and it brings up another manner in which television allows for a sense of connection between individuals which Mccarthy brings up in her discussion about how “liveliness” allows for people to experience the same thing at the same time and hence erases the idea of space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyKZM6KAYx4
The above video discusses how television serves as a connection between strangers, and makes public spaces such as bars and restaurants more comfortable. In the video it is stated that “Strangers become family and bars become home.” and ends with “Camaraderie and television are good for business.” In relation to the point brought up by Dionne;
“Television to him [Williams] emerges due to capitalism and consumer culture which provides information… What remains special about television is that it allows consumers to watch television together; hence it is not an individual act.”
We can thus see the effects television has on social relations and how businesses manipulate these effects to serve them.
Audrey
Raymond Williams, of the Birmingham School of Cultural studies, naturally writes a critical rhetoric of the television.
He firstly denies the birthright of the television, cementing the notion that the television was not invented as one moment of genius, but was the outcome of preceding inventions like the radio and motion pictures.
Williams also writes that television is a symptom of shifting social forces, to which he questions then – if the television was not invented, would there have been something else developed to fulfill this social need?
While on one hand I agree with Williams’ question, this question presumes that the social need came before the invention of the television. It is true that the essence of a technology and the ways in which we use it reveals our needs and desires. However, the relationship between the television and its social effects is more of a dialectic one, rather than a one-directional one.
Without the television, would we crave this taken-for-granted yet complex process of consuming media privately, yet in a massified way?
Williams later writes that television can be viewed as a “self-acting force that provides materials for new ways of life.”
We see such “materials” popping up – now, there is “Demand TV” offered on cable television, where we can choose whatever programmes we want, play it as and when we like, and even watch whatever episode as we want.
It seems like this “new ways of life” – choices, convenience, and a personalized viewing experience, are created by what technology offers. But were these needs already there before there were answers?
Williams writes that before the television, the radio and newspapers set the stage for the social desires that the television could later fill. He gives insight on how the press was formed after the Industrial Revolution and how broadcasting first came about through radio.
“Many of its main uses can be seen as socially, commercially and at times politically manipulative,” Williams writes, and he explains the term “masses” as a product of new social formations.
Mc Carthy focuses on how television is a space-binder, and its geographical aspect. “The fact that the medium’s paradigmatic spatial form is the newtwork means that it embodies the methodological conundrum of scale in a number of different analytical areas.”
She introduces the term, ‘placelessness’, and suggests that the television has become so “unremarkable”, it blends into our daily lives like “a piece of furniture”.
The television then becomes ambient or a companion – it does not always require content. It occupies some sort of space – materially, and in an immaterial sense, like filling up silences or creating a sense of buzz. For example, how many of us actually pay attention to what’s showing on the wide-screen television at the North Spine in school (the open-air area before the overhead bridge)? If I’ve noticed right, a repeated video is screened on the television. But the sounds coming from the television, and the very presence of a television screen changes the atmosphere of the somewhat dull and empty space. The television, while flat and not does not literally take up any space, as it is mounted on the wall – actually fills the big, garish space of emptiness.
Mc Carthy expands on this idea, talking about the heterogeneity of the television – how it appears in various forms at Times Square, whether it’s in the cab, or on buildings. She also proposes the ideology of liveness, whereby ‘live’ television maintains both the intimacy of direct address, yet justifies its content as the truth.
Maxly Inthaxai
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
Dionne See
Williams talks about the necessity to view technology in terms of its material abilities and also how the technology is being used. The latter tends to often be neglected because people focus on how to use the technology in front of you, but how the technology is being used by whom is an important question as well. Hence, he talks about the need to understand the social history of technology which takes into account socialization of social knowledge which will eventually shape technology.
Television to him emerges due to capitalism and consumer culture which provides information. It is preferred by people as compared to radios and newspapers because televisions provide news and entertainment at the same time. However, newspapers now also have advertisements and other entertainment e.g. games. What remains special about television is that it allows consumers to watch television together; hence it is not an individual act. The fact that consumers are able to sit around together to watch, laugh and discuss about television is fascinating.
This broadcasting nature of television from producers to every single home with the same content at the same time does not come by just like that. In the past, when not everyone own a television set, everyone gathers at someone’s house or a common place to watch television together. However today, everyone is cooped up at their own homes enjoying the content to themselves, and due to the variety of channels, the content now differs. In addition, in a single household, with more than one television sets, and different outlets to watch television, it might still be an individual act.
For McCarthy, the idea of place is important. To her, television should not be limited to just the material itself, in fact, televisions are trying to bring us closer to what is happening inside the television. It is like trying to “hypnotize” us to think that we are actually experiencing them first-hand too. For example, American talk shows and sitcoms like Friends input laughter of audience during the show try to make you feel like you are not just a by-stander, but involved in the situations. Therefore, for McCarthy, television provides this distance but they try to minimize this distance by making audience feel intimate with the content on television and can relate to themselves.
When I was young, I was very fascinated whenever I see “live telecast” on television because it makes me feel like I’m getting first-off information just like everyone. If there is a live performance, I would feel excited because it feels like I’m watching while the performance is still on-going. The impact of this ‘liveness’ is actually tremendous as it unconsciously draws your attention. The attractiveness of ‘liveness’ can be exemplified by how people stream for live soccer matches, live award ceremonies, etc.
Sherilyn Tan
Williams talked about how Man oftentimes think that the dawn of television has changed our lives, but that we do not actually know if technology is indeed the cause for such changes. Hence, a cause-and-effect analysis of how television has altered our world, would be beneficial. He goes on to separate the causes and effects into two. Firstly, technological determinism – the invention of technology and consequences following it, is accidental and results in social and cultural changes in society. And secondly symptomatic technology – the development of technology is used to manipulate and control the masses. Without the invention of television, other means of technology would be used to influence the masses. However there are other casual factors that lead to social changes besides the technology available. Both views agree that television has indeed altered humans’ world.
Williams argued that research and development cannot be viewed as self-generating. Instead, technological research and development is purposeful and carried out to fulfill social needs, purposes and practices in which technology is central. He then elaborates on how the invention of technology stemmed from a series of other inventions and developments and talked about how the Industrial Revolution sparked various political, economic and social changes and there was a rise of mobility and leisure time. People would be on the move and yet remain connect to their family and home; it was a form of mobile privatization. These created the social conditions of which broadcast media such as the radio and television, emerged from. The broadcast model consists of centralized transmission and private reception (e.g. the home, private sphere). Broadcast models including the radio and television models developed the transmission and reception technology, to be able to broadcast to the receivers first, before working on the content. However, Williams pointed out that the viewers’ dependence and need for television’s functions of relay and commentary on other events, has resulted in financial backers or sponsors’ support for further development of this medium.
McCarthy examines television in relation to space and its material aspects as a medium. She talks about how television can be analyzed from different levels; from the screen as a viewing collective or the centralized transmission utilized by the broadcast model of the television.She argues against viewing television as eradicating a sense of place. After all, the television occupies an immediate through its material form. The important aspect to focus on, is to analyse how it reorganizes space and time. McCarthy talks about the aspects of television’s technological forms. Firstly, the ideology of liveness that enables viewers to partake in the same event worldwide, thereby transcending both time and space while acting as proof and evidence of that moment. An imagined community and a collective is formed. Next, televisual mediums do not only exist in the form of the television. There are other material forms of it such as retail monitors, huge advertisements screens etc. Thus it affects how individuals relate to the context the medium is situated in. The medium is hence the message as McLuhan would put it. Lastly, McCarthy mentions how causes materialization of space. The scene is not materially preset, though it is displayed on the screen. Hence the television site is both site-specific and space-binding.
Evon Thung
Indeed television has altered our world, all of us grew up with at least one television set at home. Television keeps us mindlessly entertained with numerous programmes and shows while at the same time manipulate the mindsets of the audience. When we watch television, we are actually seeing the world through the lens of the producers that produce the shows. Hence, in a way, we are receiving specific contents that the particular producer wishes to disseminate.
A critique of technological determinism is found in Raymond’s article. He identified 9 different interpretations on how television has altered our world. Within the 9 interpretations, there exist 2 camps. The first 5 interpretations are from the technological determinism camp which suggests that the invention of technology has consequences that result from the creation and presence of the technology itself. Hence, it would mean that along the invention of the technology, there would be social changes. As such, McLuhan “the medium is the message” belonged to this camp.
While, the second camp, the symptomatic technology held a less determinist view. This camp believes that media are used to manipulate others to further its own agenda. Hence, this camp believes that even if television did not exist, there would be other means to influence or control the masses. Therefore, changes would happen regardless of the type of technology employed.
However for Raymond, he uses the hybrid of technological determinism and symptomatic technology. So technology is an intentional process of research and development guided by social needs, purposes and practices set out to fulfil those needs. Blakewell’s copying telegraph, Carey’s electric eye, Nipkow’s scanning system, and Braun’s cathode-ray tube, all demonstrate that television was foreseen, and it was being sought after.
Broadcasting as a social institution would mean a new and powerful form of social integration and control where it could cater to the masses. Because, there is this deep contradiction of centralised transmission and privatised reception, broadcasters turned towards licensing and commercial sponsorship and supportive advertising that propagates the Propaganda model which Chomsky talked about.
Maxly Inthaxai
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
Kerri Heng Yi Ping
RAYMOND WILLIAMS
Most of Williams’ points still hold true today, in the age of the Internet and Smart TV. Television back in the 1970s was a powerful “medium of news and entertainment”. However, today, with the rise of the Internet, social media and online apps, certainly, news is spread at speeds much faster than that of the TV. TV news is usually many hours old, whereas online news can be instantaneous (Eg: a breaking news Tweet).
Williams says that the character of TV could expose a “passive, cultural and psychological inadequacy” among people, which seems to be a popular saying. Like the phrases: couch potato, TV addict, etc, TV does breed passivity in a way. It’s traditionally a one-way medium, where people sit back and watch TV shows fed to them. They don’t interact with the TV programming. However, today, with interactive smart TV, this may be changing. Viewers can provide live feedback to shows they’re watching on TV, for instance.
He talks about TV as a by-product of capitalism and consumer culture, and this points out how many media gadgets today are indeed commodities. It’s always about buying the latest, newest, sleekest TV set, laptop or smart phone these days. Companies market the multitudes of TV types (LED screen, 3D TV, Smart TV, Plasma TV, etc) in many ways (throwing in freebies and packages) for profit.
TV does create a new way of life, like what he says. It can breed a form of communalism in the home, where relatives and family gather and watch their favourite shows. People did not have to buy newspapers outside, they could simply watch the news (LIVE) on TV. They’d also, for instance, rush home after school/work to catch their TV drama serials.
Williams gives a very detailed account of the social history of TV as a technology, tracing it to the many different (spare) parts and inventions preceding the TV. For instance, he talks about the telegraph, telephone, radio, film and the invention of electricity, and how all these facilitated and paved the way for the invention of the TV set and airwaves. TV did not come about overnight, it was a technology that was foreseen even before there was the means/funding/research to build it.
He also talks about governments and Capitalists investing in areas such as the military (during the two World Wars), travel, trade and economy first, before moving on the investing in socio-cultural products, such as products for entertainment. This could be so as the profit-oriented (technologies for trade, travel, corp communication and admin) and political goals (military and wars) governing research and funding could not allow for investment in social ‘entertainment’ (TV…). And that the TV set, like all other products that preceded it, was invented for highly “Specific” and “Operative” purposes. Such as the radio for nautical and military communication. The broadcast and entertainment factors of TV and radio only came much later, in the 1950s.
As social-cultural-political changes occur (industrial revolution, world wars), lived experiences change. The function and process of social communication will then be changed and redefined. Today, in our profit-oriented consumer culture, we’ve a wide range of electronic-online gadgets for us to play with (and spend more money on).
Mass communication differs from broadcast, as mass comm has a motive for social integration and control, like that of the forced listening hours (public listening groups) of the Nazi party in Germany. Broadcast does not necessarily seek social integration and control, as people owning TV sets and handheld radios have a choice to tune in and out as and when they wish, and they probably are scattered all over in towns, cities and villages (and it’s thus difficult to control who watches what programming).
He talks about the paradox of “mobile privatisation”, where the TV provides/enables a form of mobility, yet it also represents a home-centred way of living (TV sets at home). The mobility comes from being able to own a TV set and watch events/programming that may not be taking place near you. And it also means social mobility in the sense that people have the financial capital to purchase and own TV sets and licensing.
He talks about film being of better technical quality than TV, but I argue that this was true only in his time. With large LED and 3D TV screens today, and high resolution/high-definition TV today, the TV viewing experience rivals that of the film, what’s more, TV can be enjoyed in the comfort of our homes.
WOLFGANG ERNST
He talks about very recent developments on TV, with “memory-on-demand”, referring to live TV shows (of events, concerts, sports, NEWS, etc), recorded TV shows (dramas, etc) Cable TV and video-on-demand, where consumers can watch and replay videos and serial shows on their TV sets, as and when they like. Doesn’t this give viewers and consumers a whole lot more control over what they watch? Broadcast TV is certainly becoming more interactive (and less passive) today. (Local examples include SMART TV, Internet TV, TOGGLE by Mediacorp and SingTel’s MIO TV.) He also brings up interactive digital TV and feedback, questioning the control from receiver to sender. Today, as TV programs compete for viewer attention, they have to consider the tastes and needs of consumers. So delivering what consumers want does matter to some extent.
He asks about the scary concept of bringing back old broadcast modes of programming to the Internet (web portals). If the Internet became like broadcast media, with fixed programming, we’d all be consuming the same mass cultural product (on a whole new level), without much agency or freedom of expression. At least with the Internet, consumers can blog, use social media, etc.
He talks about trash TV, which is rubbish and mindless TV. Anyone can watch trash TV, even cats and dogs, without understanding what it really means. After all, it’s just looking at moving images on a screen, it does not require any intellectual understanding.
The message changes when the TV hardware or technology changes. (The medium is the message is here again). For instance, building on how he says that hosts on TV dress differently with the advent of colour TV, today’s HD TV brings actors’ complexions into full, clear detail, forcing many actors to layer on heavy makeup to hide the flaws on their skin. The medium is the message, it’s not so much content-analysis of the TV programs.
He talks about the TV screen as merely a transmitter that disappears from view. Indeed, the screen (the iPad/iPhone screen or the TV screen) transmits info. And as we are looking at the screen, we become absorbed by the content that is streamed to us and we forget the screen in its entirety, thus the screen ‘disappears’ from our awareness. We only become conscious of the screen if it cracks and we can’t watch our TV.
He talks about TV as disturbance and white noise, in the literal and figurative sense. Literally, white noise and static disturbance on TV is annoying, as it cuts into our shows. However, white noise and disturbance bring about Benjamin’s Aura, as it reminds us that this technology has its flaws, and that we are actually just looking at a real, physical object (a box made of wiring/cable/wood/metal/glass).
Figuratively, white noise can ‘run in the background’, like how TV sets run in the background of an American home, while the family goes about life. This reminds me of how we often have a Facebook tab running in the background, and it’s a form of disturbance and distraction from our school work. (much like how a TV set runs in the background, and we focus on TV instead of on our dinner, etc).
Video-scratching and film, much like how some ‘real’ DJs prefer vinyl-scratching today, brings us back to Benjamin’s aura too. It reminds us of the ‘materiality’ of the TV as a medium. The TV is thus not a magical, spiritual object that disappears, it has its flaws and it’s made of materials in everyday life. Likewise, homemade videos, with their sound and video flaws and shaky footage, remind us that they are just ‘material’ objects, not some perfectly edited video in full HD. People seem to like going back to the old, to remind themselves of what is authentic. Benjamin’s aura is also apparent in people who like to use SLRs instead of DSLRs today, and they prefer film instead of digital techniques.
The evening news as a fundamental element of TV format is now losing its edge to the Internet. As mentioned above, the evening news is unable to compete with the instantaneous online news today. However, the older generation still loves it, and it’s their routine to watch the evening news every day.
He ends with saying that the aura never fully disappears even with the advent of TV. There is realness and authenticity in LIVE BROADCAST, where it plays or transmits a singular and unrepeatable (of course it can be replayed) instance of the real thing. Live broadcast can be likened to a human lens, which watches something in real time. (News, sports, etc.) Although live broadcast uses modern digital technology, it still has aura in that sense.
ANNA McCARTHY
Anna talks about the spatial aspect of TV and what it has come to symbolise in different settings. She encourages us to think of TV as flexible and being in many different spaces; as TV is not just confined to the TV set at home. TV is everywhere today, from Free-to-air TV on the mobile phone to MIO TV and large screens embedded in the walls of shopping malls. We need to think about the spatial representation of TV: why is the TV here, what purpose does it hope to serve and what purpose does it truly serve?
Her example about the RIO Video Wall is interesting and it proves that sometimes, the latest technology does not necessarily control a spatial setting. The TV is space-binding and space-specific, and is subject to the nature of the space it is in. She talks about how the TV can take a place, that is to say, the TV can consume and place and make one unaware of where he is. We can be so absorbed in watching TV that we become unconscious of where we are.
However, the other way round is illustrated in her essay. The place ‘takes TV’ and embraces and consumes it.
Her RIO video wall example shows that despite a businessman’s efforts to gentrify a neighbourhood and make it more appealing to the middle class, these efforts can fail. Also, introducing a lot of new and cool technology to a place does not make it an economic success. The RIO video wall was intended to be a cool thing in a flashy new mall. However, the businessman failed to consider the socio-cultural-economic conditions of the area. One’s hopes to gentrify a place does not always succeed (moving of the middle class into the lower class, cheaper neighbourhoods). The RIO video wall tried to represent the destruction of the land (via footage of the ‘old’ land) where the mall now sits. It tried to connect the old and new, and introduced ‘consumer-targeted’ elements like the moving customer’s silhouette. However, no one really bought into these new ideas. To the residents, it was about new people coming in and disturbing their flow of life.
In the end, the video wall was not used and subject to physical elements (it was in the open-air). And it becomes a white elephant in a place with no need for it at all. Life goes on, and the mall becomes a vibrant place for the black community.
Anna reminds us that despite the powerful presence of the TV screen, it still is rooted in the geographical sense. Just like how our smartphones are still rooted in the locality of our countries (we need to make sure we’ve reception, we need to constantly have electrical power points to charge our phones,we need to physically take care of our phones and keep them away from rain, prevent them from breaking, etc), the TV and electronic gadgets are still very ‘material’ and still subject to nature and place.
Maxly Inthaxai
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
Maxly Inthaxai
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
Cheryl Chern
This week’s readings focus on the television. Williams begins by stating how technology is in effect accidental, and television is a technological accident but its significance lies in its uses which are held to be symptomatic of some order of society or some qualities of human nature which are otherwise determined. These form William’s theoretical framework, firstly, technological determinism and secondly, symptomatic technology. William posits that the invention of television is dependent on a complex of inventions and developments in electricity, telegraphy, photography and motion pictures, and radio. Because television filled a social need, it therefore became a dominant technology. For instance, the television (together with the radio) were systems primarily devised for transmission and reception of information – broadcasting.
McCarthy talks about site and sight as a crucial theoretical framework for understanding the televisual as a material scene of representation – “liveness”. The television as a medium is peculiarly malleable and is a heterogeneous physical form. It is space-binding and has scale-shifting effects.
For Ernst, he talks about how the new media is no longer dependent of programs, where narration which is linear technically and temporally do not hold true for media of electronic transmission anymore. He compares the TV to the cinema, where the TV allows for live transmission. Also, television images are no longer static but can be “live”.
Clarinda Ong
From Williams’ reading, I can sense that he argued strongly against the technological determinist school of thought. The social construction of reality is formed by texts on television and other media mediums. Media are involved in historical material processes, instead of only the economic and political factors, and hence, there is a temporal effect. Williams mentioned that the development of broadcast technology revolves around economic and political aims. There is a transitional time frame for the invention of the television, and the main concern now is more predominantly skewed to commercial interests. In my opinion, I reckon that Williams opposes the theme stated by Marshall McLuhan that technology shapes the society.
It is crucial to understand technology as the cause of social, economic and behavioural changes in society – cause and effect theory. It is interesting to me how Williams nicely categorize the nine sentences of how “television has altered our lives” into 1) Technological Determinism 2) Symptomatic Technology. Technological Determinism states that it is the society’s technology motivating the development of societal structure and cultural values. Symptomatic technology means that media use is to manipulate others to achieve their own agenda. Even if television does not exist, people would still have ways to control the masses. There are different needs arising from the post-war period as compared to the war period. There was a contradiction of a centralized transmission and privatised reception, and sometimes, it is a combination of both.
From Anna McCarthy’s reading, I start to understand the concept of ‘place’ – there are a lot definitions of just this simple word ‘place’. We cannot just assume that television watching only take place at home. It is really intriguing that television can bring about experiences from the outside world to the comforts of our homes, even without us being physically at the scene of recording. However, I disagree with the fact about participation effect. I think it will never be same of being at the place physically itself, as compared to viewing the experience/ event through the television panel. It is true that one may be pulled into the event, but it is quite hard to “copy” the same feel/ environment/ surroundings to be exactly the same as what is really happening. It may be said to be “false intimacy” in a way if I have to phrase it. It is made to be believed that we are closer to the main happenings in the world, but we are actually still far away from it.
Sasha Kaur Dhillon
McCarthy provides an interesting take on the notions of immateriality and materiality of the TV as a medium. She neatly juxtaposes this with describing the technologies associated with TV to be “space-binding” and “site-specific”. McCarthy feels that too much emphasis is placed on the immateriality of the TV, specifically with its content. Therefore, her paper centers around promoting the importance of understanding the TV via its material form. This is understood by observing where it is placed, and even how it is adorned. She develops this concept by taking into the consideration of scale – namely the “ dialectical movement between global generality and local specificity” which invokes a notion of space and with it the TV becomes an agent of placelessness – because it is everywhere and anywhere. It does not have a particular position, but takes the form that it is placed upon.
In her material representation of the TV she focuses on it’s site. For this she proposes three ideologies. One is that of the indexical force of the formal ideologies which through “liveness” ( as with any broadcast medium) results in people experiencing the same events at the same time ( temporal simultaneity) and this therefore results in the destruction of space altogether as Heidegger postulated.
Next, she proposes that the TV is site-specific. She describes it as being peculiarly malleable and heterogeneous in its form. This is because the same TV can be used as a form of entertainment for a family at home and also as a work related tool for news reporters in their offices but to each and every one engaged in it – it is conferred upon a different purpose, and therefore different meaning. Thus, to understand the TV’s existence, we have to take into account the contextual situation in which it is located and thereby glean not only its significance but impacts.
Thirdly, TV’s understanding should also encompass the ability of its screen to dematerialize as soon as it encounters philosophy. This to be at first seemed absurd, for philosophy is so diverse and multi-faceted, and so how was McCarthy going to explain this collision. However, from what I gather she tried to argue that this dematerialization did not always mean a complete disappearance of the screen but it being reconstructed in another form altogether. She asserts this by saying that screen does more than simply overcome distance and separation but renders this invisible transmission through transposing it into the vision that it transmits. This still seems very vague to me, because the divide itself is ambiguous and all-encompassing and I still do not feel that Mccarthy adequately provides a framework for us to see how these two forces merge together.
However, the compelling aspect of McCarthy’s essay was her use of the ontological and geographical spaces ( as influenced by Heidingger) to make use of the concept of scale. Basically, the geographical comprises of the actual space ( area) whereas the ontological deals with the essence of the space itself. Both conceptions of space in turn, result in tensions and this was aptly portrayed in the Rio Mall’s videowall. The ontological sense of the mall is glistened from showcasing its past destruction of its landscape whereas the geographical sense of it had to do with the fact that people’s images were captured onto the screen when they were physically present as a surveillance image.
Next, Ernst talks about the transmission of media as portraying what is happening in “ real time” but criticizes it as having the incapacity to record or store these events – thus making the TV an incomplete medium. Or at least this was before the advancement of technology to include the magnetic storage. Now, we have video-streaming where the live transmission is reimported using the effect of the Web-cam into the medium of the television. Digital archives are also found online. However, there were certain consequences as a result of this. One was that there was a distortion of the temporal realm – between something that was “live” and something that was “recorded”. This notion of memory and archiving, for Ernst, formed the nexus of TV.
Ernst also argues that TV does not require narration since it is founded upon electronic transmission which is the very message that it seeks to portray. This seeks him to expand on to include that TV does not require any hermeneutic understandings because its messages are based on “signals” and “noises” rather than semantics of sorts that are typically produced in content as in narration. But, then again these very “signals” and “noises” can form their own special semantics and a language of transmission that ultimately embodies the message of TV.
Ernst also showcases that televisions do not necessarily have to portray real images – the image of the real comes into its own. This is especially when the transmissions are interrupted by unexpected circumstances – such as breaking news. The screens immediately show pictures ( still images) of the news and through this people discern other images of reality behind these events that may not be shown. I think this is a particularly crucial point for it displays the power of the television in constructing and influencing our sense of reality.
He then talks about broadcasting and TV morphing out of a radio medium which is also compounded in William’s paper and in fact, even Lynn White’s paper on Inventions because it sheds light on how the TV continually evolved out of broadcasting sounds ( radio) and even specific broadcasting of images ( film). Firstly, to showcase the causal relationship that technology shares with society, we are provided with a framework of technological determinism – that tells us that technology and its consequences are accidental. The other model of symptomatic technology juxtaposed with this suggests instead, that though technology was an accident it was significant in its uses.
Next, the social history of Television was similar to Lynn White’s arguments because it emphasized how Television grew out of other forms of media such as Telegraphs due to constantly created new needs and thus the need for new inventions to meet these needs. These needs had great social implications – most noticeably in the expanding military and commercial systems and thus the TV in itself was able to create and fortify certain social institutions in society.
Also, the broadcasting ability of the TV enabled it to reach specific people and thus engage in specific forms of communicative transmissions such as – the uses of person to person and operator and operative to operator and operative within these social structures.
This was facilitated by the press that was the galvanizing force behind the TV. This was because a new institution was needed to meet the needs of transmitting news and background. This social destiny is not predestined according to Williams but is an inevitable result. The irony that Williams points out in broadcasting is that although it uses the term “ mass communication” to portray itself due to the sheer extent of people it can reach out to, its effects can also be felt in individual institutions such as homes and this obscures the very definition of mass communication. Williams also points out that broadcasting enhances social integration by making people aware of the news around them and thus able to communicate effectively based on it.
We have the technical impulse to believe that what we’re watching on TV is live, without assuming that the programme may be pre-recorded to prevent a broadcast disaster. McCarthy calls this the ideology of liveness.
Ernst talks about mediality and Sam Weber’s mediaura. TV shows that bring attention to their televisualness, like The Simpsons, are considered auratic. Also, when shows offer “a high degree of the unexpected” and with “the catastrophic quality of its sound and image” is considered auratic. We can trawl many live broadcast TV fail moments on YouTube. Some funny, some embarrassing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glCcGYrlNbQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LsyDYwG2f4
Is technology a cause or an effect? According to Williams, this question forms an increasingly important part of our social and cultural arguments, and they are being decided all the time in real life. It changes according to how we relate to the technology. This then leads to the question, does media produce society or does society produce media? I think society produces media because media works to serve the needs of society.
Williams also makes a distinction between the technology itself and the uses of technology. Technology can be created for a specific purpose or need but human beings may interpret the technology differently and use it not solely for its purpose. Paik is a good example.
Williams, much like White, challenges the notion of genius as he believes that technology doesn’t have a birthday as it is made up of the technology that preceded it. Technology is in fact technologies. That’s why when the ipad came about, people knew how to use it because it functions similar to the iphone and we as human beings have a database of knowledge in relation to media which progressively increases.
McCarthy was concerned with the notion of place. How TV creates a placelessness. You can be in your living room in Singapore and yet somehow be transported to a bull fight in Barcelona. TV is a space binder: global and local economy. Allows for a collectivity without a spatial enclosure. Spaces are usually gated. The lifestyle concept of cooking shows where you feel you a sense of familiarity with the setting of the show cos it’s a kitchen much like yours and the host is homely and welcoming and you see her eating with her friends at the end and you feel part of that group because you watched her cook for an hour. You feel as if you are socializing without actually having to.
The domestic, the home, is always going to be part of the mundane. It is an everyday experience. Socialisation in the house and so when you leave the house we are used to the tv because you have one in the house and already know how to interact with the tv so it is comfortable. The tv does not react back so it is safe. They have one at the dentist, at the bank, in a taxi and even at school.
This week’s readings talks about television as a medium, and like most weeks, they do not discuss the content it broadcasts and its implications, but talks about television as a technology and its influence on social life instead.
Williams specifically addresses this in his article, where he approaches television as directly influencing how humans relate to each other, and addresses the unintended consequences of the usage of television, where people use it for purposes outside of its intended one. He also traces the history of the television, arguing that its emergence was brought about by a few processes. Firstly, he argued that television was not “invented” as it is; it is simply an assemblage of various technologies. This brings up the question of why it is assembled; there must be a need to fulfil if it was to be invented. This correlated to the development of society after WW2, where men returned to the workforce, and women were needed at home. This led to the (re)emergence of the family as a unit. Seen this way, the television can be seen as a furniture, that is a standard furnishing for all homes and families. Seen this way, the television becomes a supporting logic for the formation of the family. At the same time, television, considered “new media” at that time, relied on logics of the old media to work, which is broadcasting. This is already seen in radios. Seen this way, TVs are founded on existing technologies and old media, which supports the formation of certain social order.
TV is also seen as unifying and creating an imagined community. This is brought about by the concept of “live” broadcasts. The notion of watching the same thing together is a private yet public experience. We watch it in our homes, yet everyone experiences the same thing, creating a sense of collectivity and social bonds between viewers. Seen this way, it redefines social membership; we do not have to be physically present to experience something and feel like it is part of it; we can feel this sense of membership by just watching it and feeling part of it. This is probably what McCarthy means by TV transcends space in the creation of group membership.
Lastly, Ernst talks about the functions of television. Unlike the Frankfurt school, which argues that mass media serves ideological function, he sees television as ambient; we do not pay attention to the content it delivers all the time. It recedes into the background while we go about our everyday lives, becoming ambient sound. Indeed, I often leave the television on while reading my books, or doing something else, paying attention when something interesting comes up. At the same time, Ernst’s argument that TV acts as a social lubricant can be combined with McCarthy’s concept of TV rewriting space and place; in this case, it serves to smooth social interaction between social actors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzRNVikfPIM
The above video discusses how television creates a sense of familiarity and homeliness for guests when they are in a foreign place for example at hotels. I find this interesting and it brings up another manner in which television allows for a sense of connection between individuals which Mccarthy brings up in her discussion about how “liveliness” allows for people to experience the same thing at the same time and hence erases the idea of space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyKZM6KAYx4
The above video discusses how television serves as a connection between strangers, and makes public spaces such as bars and restaurants more comfortable. In the video it is stated that “Strangers become family and bars become home.” and ends with “Camaraderie and television are good for business.” In relation to the point brought up by Dionne;
“Television to him [Williams] emerges due to capitalism and consumer culture which provides information… What remains special about television is that it allows consumers to watch television together; hence it is not an individual act.”
We can thus see the effects television has on social relations and how businesses manipulate these effects to serve them.
Raymond Williams, of the Birmingham School of Cultural studies, naturally writes a critical rhetoric of the television.
He firstly denies the birthright of the television, cementing the notion that the television was not invented as one moment of genius, but was the outcome of preceding inventions like the radio and motion pictures.
Williams also writes that television is a symptom of shifting social forces, to which he questions then – if the television was not invented, would there have been something else developed to fulfill this social need?
While on one hand I agree with Williams’ question, this question presumes that the social need came before the invention of the television. It is true that the essence of a technology and the ways in which we use it reveals our needs and desires. However, the relationship between the television and its social effects is more of a dialectic one, rather than a one-directional one.
Without the television, would we crave this taken-for-granted yet complex process of consuming media privately, yet in a massified way?
Williams later writes that television can be viewed as a “self-acting force that provides materials for new ways of life.”
We see such “materials” popping up – now, there is “Demand TV” offered on cable television, where we can choose whatever programmes we want, play it as and when we like, and even watch whatever episode as we want.
It seems like this “new ways of life” – choices, convenience, and a personalized viewing experience, are created by what technology offers. But were these needs already there before there were answers?
Williams writes that before the television, the radio and newspapers set the stage for the social desires that the television could later fill. He gives insight on how the press was formed after the Industrial Revolution and how broadcasting first came about through radio.
“Many of its main uses can be seen as socially, commercially and at times politically manipulative,” Williams writes, and he explains the term “masses” as a product of new social formations.
Mc Carthy focuses on how television is a space-binder, and its geographical aspect. “The fact that the medium’s paradigmatic spatial form is the newtwork means that it embodies the methodological conundrum of scale in a number of different analytical areas.”
She introduces the term, ‘placelessness’, and suggests that the television has become so “unremarkable”, it blends into our daily lives like “a piece of furniture”.
The television then becomes ambient or a companion – it does not always require content. It occupies some sort of space – materially, and in an immaterial sense, like filling up silences or creating a sense of buzz. For example, how many of us actually pay attention to what’s showing on the wide-screen television at the North Spine in school (the open-air area before the overhead bridge)? If I’ve noticed right, a repeated video is screened on the television. But the sounds coming from the television, and the very presence of a television screen changes the atmosphere of the somewhat dull and empty space. The television, while flat and not does not literally take up any space, as it is mounted on the wall – actually fills the big, garish space of emptiness.
Mc Carthy expands on this idea, talking about the heterogeneity of the television – how it appears in various forms at Times Square, whether it’s in the cab, or on buildings. She also proposes the ideology of liveness, whereby ‘live’ television maintains both the intimacy of direct address, yet justifies its content as the truth.
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
Williams talks about the necessity to view technology in terms of its material abilities and also how the technology is being used. The latter tends to often be neglected because people focus on how to use the technology in front of you, but how the technology is being used by whom is an important question as well. Hence, he talks about the need to understand the social history of technology which takes into account socialization of social knowledge which will eventually shape technology.
Television to him emerges due to capitalism and consumer culture which provides information. It is preferred by people as compared to radios and newspapers because televisions provide news and entertainment at the same time. However, newspapers now also have advertisements and other entertainment e.g. games. What remains special about television is that it allows consumers to watch television together; hence it is not an individual act. The fact that consumers are able to sit around together to watch, laugh and discuss about television is fascinating.
This broadcasting nature of television from producers to every single home with the same content at the same time does not come by just like that. In the past, when not everyone own a television set, everyone gathers at someone’s house or a common place to watch television together. However today, everyone is cooped up at their own homes enjoying the content to themselves, and due to the variety of channels, the content now differs. In addition, in a single household, with more than one television sets, and different outlets to watch television, it might still be an individual act.
For McCarthy, the idea of place is important. To her, television should not be limited to just the material itself, in fact, televisions are trying to bring us closer to what is happening inside the television. It is like trying to “hypnotize” us to think that we are actually experiencing them first-hand too. For example, American talk shows and sitcoms like Friends input laughter of audience during the show try to make you feel like you are not just a by-stander, but involved in the situations. Therefore, for McCarthy, television provides this distance but they try to minimize this distance by making audience feel intimate with the content on television and can relate to themselves.
When I was young, I was very fascinated whenever I see “live telecast” on television because it makes me feel like I’m getting first-off information just like everyone. If there is a live performance, I would feel excited because it feels like I’m watching while the performance is still on-going. The impact of this ‘liveness’ is actually tremendous as it unconsciously draws your attention. The attractiveness of ‘liveness’ can be exemplified by how people stream for live soccer matches, live award ceremonies, etc.
Williams talked about how Man oftentimes think that the dawn of television has changed our lives, but that we do not actually know if technology is indeed the cause for such changes. Hence, a cause-and-effect analysis of how television has altered our world, would be beneficial. He goes on to separate the causes and effects into two. Firstly, technological determinism – the invention of technology and consequences following it, is accidental and results in social and cultural changes in society. And secondly symptomatic technology – the development of technology is used to manipulate and control the masses. Without the invention of television, other means of technology would be used to influence the masses. However there are other casual factors that lead to social changes besides the technology available. Both views agree that television has indeed altered humans’ world.
Williams argued that research and development cannot be viewed as self-generating. Instead, technological research and development is purposeful and carried out to fulfill social needs, purposes and practices in which technology is central. He then elaborates on how the invention of technology stemmed from a series of other inventions and developments and talked about how the Industrial Revolution sparked various political, economic and social changes and there was a rise of mobility and leisure time. People would be on the move and yet remain connect to their family and home; it was a form of mobile privatization. These created the social conditions of which broadcast media such as the radio and television, emerged from. The broadcast model consists of centralized transmission and private reception (e.g. the home, private sphere). Broadcast models including the radio and television models developed the transmission and reception technology, to be able to broadcast to the receivers first, before working on the content. However, Williams pointed out that the viewers’ dependence and need for television’s functions of relay and commentary on other events, has resulted in financial backers or sponsors’ support for further development of this medium.
McCarthy examines television in relation to space and its material aspects as a medium. She talks about how television can be analyzed from different levels; from the screen as a viewing collective or the centralized transmission utilized by the broadcast model of the television.She argues against viewing television as eradicating a sense of place. After all, the television occupies an immediate through its material form. The important aspect to focus on, is to analyse how it reorganizes space and time. McCarthy talks about the aspects of television’s technological forms. Firstly, the ideology of liveness that enables viewers to partake in the same event worldwide, thereby transcending both time and space while acting as proof and evidence of that moment. An imagined community and a collective is formed. Next, televisual mediums do not only exist in the form of the television. There are other material forms of it such as retail monitors, huge advertisements screens etc. Thus it affects how individuals relate to the context the medium is situated in. The medium is hence the message as McLuhan would put it. Lastly, McCarthy mentions how causes materialization of space. The scene is not materially preset, though it is displayed on the screen. Hence the television site is both site-specific and space-binding.
Indeed television has altered our world, all of us grew up with at least one television set at home. Television keeps us mindlessly entertained with numerous programmes and shows while at the same time manipulate the mindsets of the audience. When we watch television, we are actually seeing the world through the lens of the producers that produce the shows. Hence, in a way, we are receiving specific contents that the particular producer wishes to disseminate.
A critique of technological determinism is found in Raymond’s article. He identified 9 different interpretations on how television has altered our world. Within the 9 interpretations, there exist 2 camps. The first 5 interpretations are from the technological determinism camp which suggests that the invention of technology has consequences that result from the creation and presence of the technology itself. Hence, it would mean that along the invention of the technology, there would be social changes. As such, McLuhan “the medium is the message” belonged to this camp.
While, the second camp, the symptomatic technology held a less determinist view. This camp believes that media are used to manipulate others to further its own agenda. Hence, this camp believes that even if television did not exist, there would be other means to influence or control the masses. Therefore, changes would happen regardless of the type of technology employed.
However for Raymond, he uses the hybrid of technological determinism and symptomatic technology. So technology is an intentional process of research and development guided by social needs, purposes and practices set out to fulfil those needs. Blakewell’s copying telegraph, Carey’s electric eye, Nipkow’s scanning system, and Braun’s cathode-ray tube, all demonstrate that television was foreseen, and it was being sought after.
Broadcasting as a social institution would mean a new and powerful form of social integration and control where it could cater to the masses. Because, there is this deep contradiction of centralised transmission and privatised reception, broadcasters turned towards licensing and commercial sponsorship and supportive advertising that propagates the Propaganda model which Chomsky talked about.
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
RAYMOND WILLIAMS
Most of Williams’ points still hold true today, in the age of the Internet and Smart TV. Television back in the 1970s was a powerful “medium of news and entertainment”. However, today, with the rise of the Internet, social media and online apps, certainly, news is spread at speeds much faster than that of the TV. TV news is usually many hours old, whereas online news can be instantaneous (Eg: a breaking news Tweet).
Williams says that the character of TV could expose a “passive, cultural and psychological inadequacy” among people, which seems to be a popular saying. Like the phrases: couch potato, TV addict, etc, TV does breed passivity in a way. It’s traditionally a one-way medium, where people sit back and watch TV shows fed to them. They don’t interact with the TV programming. However, today, with interactive smart TV, this may be changing. Viewers can provide live feedback to shows they’re watching on TV, for instance.
He talks about TV as a by-product of capitalism and consumer culture, and this points out how many media gadgets today are indeed commodities. It’s always about buying the latest, newest, sleekest TV set, laptop or smart phone these days. Companies market the multitudes of TV types (LED screen, 3D TV, Smart TV, Plasma TV, etc) in many ways (throwing in freebies and packages) for profit.
TV does create a new way of life, like what he says. It can breed a form of communalism in the home, where relatives and family gather and watch their favourite shows. People did not have to buy newspapers outside, they could simply watch the news (LIVE) on TV. They’d also, for instance, rush home after school/work to catch their TV drama serials.
Williams gives a very detailed account of the social history of TV as a technology, tracing it to the many different (spare) parts and inventions preceding the TV. For instance, he talks about the telegraph, telephone, radio, film and the invention of electricity, and how all these facilitated and paved the way for the invention of the TV set and airwaves. TV did not come about overnight, it was a technology that was foreseen even before there was the means/funding/research to build it.
He also talks about governments and Capitalists investing in areas such as the military (during the two World Wars), travel, trade and economy first, before moving on the investing in socio-cultural products, such as products for entertainment. This could be so as the profit-oriented (technologies for trade, travel, corp communication and admin) and political goals (military and wars) governing research and funding could not allow for investment in social ‘entertainment’ (TV…). And that the TV set, like all other products that preceded it, was invented for highly “Specific” and “Operative” purposes. Such as the radio for nautical and military communication. The broadcast and entertainment factors of TV and radio only came much later, in the 1950s.
As social-cultural-political changes occur (industrial revolution, world wars), lived experiences change. The function and process of social communication will then be changed and redefined. Today, in our profit-oriented consumer culture, we’ve a wide range of electronic-online gadgets for us to play with (and spend more money on).
Mass communication differs from broadcast, as mass comm has a motive for social integration and control, like that of the forced listening hours (public listening groups) of the Nazi party in Germany. Broadcast does not necessarily seek social integration and control, as people owning TV sets and handheld radios have a choice to tune in and out as and when they wish, and they probably are scattered all over in towns, cities and villages (and it’s thus difficult to control who watches what programming).
He talks about the paradox of “mobile privatisation”, where the TV provides/enables a form of mobility, yet it also represents a home-centred way of living (TV sets at home). The mobility comes from being able to own a TV set and watch events/programming that may not be taking place near you. And it also means social mobility in the sense that people have the financial capital to purchase and own TV sets and licensing.
He talks about film being of better technical quality than TV, but I argue that this was true only in his time. With large LED and 3D TV screens today, and high resolution/high-definition TV today, the TV viewing experience rivals that of the film, what’s more, TV can be enjoyed in the comfort of our homes.
WOLFGANG ERNST
He talks about very recent developments on TV, with “memory-on-demand”, referring to live TV shows (of events, concerts, sports, NEWS, etc), recorded TV shows (dramas, etc) Cable TV and video-on-demand, where consumers can watch and replay videos and serial shows on their TV sets, as and when they like. Doesn’t this give viewers and consumers a whole lot more control over what they watch? Broadcast TV is certainly becoming more interactive (and less passive) today. (Local examples include SMART TV, Internet TV, TOGGLE by Mediacorp and SingTel’s MIO TV.) He also brings up interactive digital TV and feedback, questioning the control from receiver to sender. Today, as TV programs compete for viewer attention, they have to consider the tastes and needs of consumers. So delivering what consumers want does matter to some extent.
He asks about the scary concept of bringing back old broadcast modes of programming to the Internet (web portals). If the Internet became like broadcast media, with fixed programming, we’d all be consuming the same mass cultural product (on a whole new level), without much agency or freedom of expression. At least with the Internet, consumers can blog, use social media, etc.
He talks about trash TV, which is rubbish and mindless TV. Anyone can watch trash TV, even cats and dogs, without understanding what it really means. After all, it’s just looking at moving images on a screen, it does not require any intellectual understanding.
The message changes when the TV hardware or technology changes. (The medium is the message is here again). For instance, building on how he says that hosts on TV dress differently with the advent of colour TV, today’s HD TV brings actors’ complexions into full, clear detail, forcing many actors to layer on heavy makeup to hide the flaws on their skin. The medium is the message, it’s not so much content-analysis of the TV programs.
He talks about the TV screen as merely a transmitter that disappears from view. Indeed, the screen (the iPad/iPhone screen or the TV screen) transmits info. And as we are looking at the screen, we become absorbed by the content that is streamed to us and we forget the screen in its entirety, thus the screen ‘disappears’ from our awareness. We only become conscious of the screen if it cracks and we can’t watch our TV.
He talks about TV as disturbance and white noise, in the literal and figurative sense. Literally, white noise and static disturbance on TV is annoying, as it cuts into our shows. However, white noise and disturbance bring about Benjamin’s Aura, as it reminds us that this technology has its flaws, and that we are actually just looking at a real, physical object (a box made of wiring/cable/wood/metal/glass).
Figuratively, white noise can ‘run in the background’, like how TV sets run in the background of an American home, while the family goes about life. This reminds me of how we often have a Facebook tab running in the background, and it’s a form of disturbance and distraction from our school work. (much like how a TV set runs in the background, and we focus on TV instead of on our dinner, etc).
Video-scratching and film, much like how some ‘real’ DJs prefer vinyl-scratching today, brings us back to Benjamin’s aura too. It reminds us of the ‘materiality’ of the TV as a medium. The TV is thus not a magical, spiritual object that disappears, it has its flaws and it’s made of materials in everyday life. Likewise, homemade videos, with their sound and video flaws and shaky footage, remind us that they are just ‘material’ objects, not some perfectly edited video in full HD. People seem to like going back to the old, to remind themselves of what is authentic. Benjamin’s aura is also apparent in people who like to use SLRs instead of DSLRs today, and they prefer film instead of digital techniques.
The evening news as a fundamental element of TV format is now losing its edge to the Internet. As mentioned above, the evening news is unable to compete with the instantaneous online news today. However, the older generation still loves it, and it’s their routine to watch the evening news every day.
He ends with saying that the aura never fully disappears even with the advent of TV. There is realness and authenticity in LIVE BROADCAST, where it plays or transmits a singular and unrepeatable (of course it can be replayed) instance of the real thing. Live broadcast can be likened to a human lens, which watches something in real time. (News, sports, etc.) Although live broadcast uses modern digital technology, it still has aura in that sense.
ANNA McCARTHY
Anna talks about the spatial aspect of TV and what it has come to symbolise in different settings. She encourages us to think of TV as flexible and being in many different spaces; as TV is not just confined to the TV set at home. TV is everywhere today, from Free-to-air TV on the mobile phone to MIO TV and large screens embedded in the walls of shopping malls. We need to think about the spatial representation of TV: why is the TV here, what purpose does it hope to serve and what purpose does it truly serve?
Her example about the RIO Video Wall is interesting and it proves that sometimes, the latest technology does not necessarily control a spatial setting. The TV is space-binding and space-specific, and is subject to the nature of the space it is in. She talks about how the TV can take a place, that is to say, the TV can consume and place and make one unaware of where he is. We can be so absorbed in watching TV that we become unconscious of where we are.
However, the other way round is illustrated in her essay. The place ‘takes TV’ and embraces and consumes it.
Her RIO video wall example shows that despite a businessman’s efforts to gentrify a neighbourhood and make it more appealing to the middle class, these efforts can fail. Also, introducing a lot of new and cool technology to a place does not make it an economic success. The RIO video wall was intended to be a cool thing in a flashy new mall. However, the businessman failed to consider the socio-cultural-economic conditions of the area. One’s hopes to gentrify a place does not always succeed (moving of the middle class into the lower class, cheaper neighbourhoods). The RIO video wall tried to represent the destruction of the land (via footage of the ‘old’ land) where the mall now sits. It tried to connect the old and new, and introduced ‘consumer-targeted’ elements like the moving customer’s silhouette. However, no one really bought into these new ideas. To the residents, it was about new people coming in and disturbing their flow of life.
In the end, the video wall was not used and subject to physical elements (it was in the open-air). And it becomes a white elephant in a place with no need for it at all. Life goes on, and the mall becomes a vibrant place for the black community.
Anna reminds us that despite the powerful presence of the TV screen, it still is rooted in the geographical sense. Just like how our smartphones are still rooted in the locality of our countries (we need to make sure we’ve reception, we need to constantly have electrical power points to charge our phones,we need to physically take care of our phones and keep them away from rain, prevent them from breaking, etc), the TV and electronic gadgets are still very ‘material’ and still subject to nature and place.
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
Wailliams
The beginning of his contents announce with the general statement that television has altered the world and the analysis with three headings that include versions of cause and effect in technology and society; the social history of television as a technology; the social history of the uses of television technology. The analysis as a particular culture technology looked at its development, institutions, forms and effects. Otherwise, he gave some examples of television statement that explain the meaning of whatever television altered the world by its investing to be the power of medium in the communication of the society. Television is not only altered the world by its investing but also discovered as a possibility by scientific and technical research.
In the content of the social history of television is a part of the ability of human invention that exhibited the idea of how television was invested and also the relating to the beginning that television could not stand by alone, therefore it is difficult to separate it in the earliest stages from the other items such as photo-telegraphy, electronic camera and so on. This is a kind of the especially a characteristic of the communication systems that were foreseen and this is a history of communications systems creating a new social conditions.
Obviously, it is true that Wailliams said the social history of the uses of television technology is never quite true in the modern societies, particularly in the several of time that people tried to use in the different ways but mostly was obscured. The broadcasting identifies the relation between the radio and the television that both of them use to be the mass communication and additionally use to be the mass of economic society by being promote manufacturing companies and so on.
The television technology is the essential of transmission and reception developed before the content, it is important that contents have remained by the products of technology and it became a very expensive medium, within the broadcasting model that provide a service of the transmission of content to the audience in every social complex.
McCarthy
The article indicated television just a simple item of the ideology of liveness. Televisions not only know just representative as machine, but also represent as medium technology. Indeed television would be relating with the systems of signalization to transfer the information among the audience, therefore McCarthy described television upsets the ontology of place television has passed into the processing as medium of presentation. On the rest of the article Mc indicated the ideology in the news particularly in the global media network that served as a reminder of the sense in every production that on air in nowadays.
Ernst
The identifying of his mind based on the real time and memory demand of the reflection television. Technology of television is the most explainable of the article that he indicated the time and the progress in the value of television program. Every single period of time be able to identify the relating between television and the technical quality transmission since it excluded from the first recorded until the high technology recording in presently.
Television has been giving as many contents and information that it also has done great in its responsibilities as medium new technology that can be immediately transmits data to the audience even though we have many ways to receive that kind of the information but television still be important in our communication transmission of media and society.
This week’s readings focus on the television. Williams begins by stating how technology is in effect accidental, and television is a technological accident but its significance lies in its uses which are held to be symptomatic of some order of society or some qualities of human nature which are otherwise determined. These form William’s theoretical framework, firstly, technological determinism and secondly, symptomatic technology. William posits that the invention of television is dependent on a complex of inventions and developments in electricity, telegraphy, photography and motion pictures, and radio. Because television filled a social need, it therefore became a dominant technology. For instance, the television (together with the radio) were systems primarily devised for transmission and reception of information – broadcasting.
McCarthy talks about site and sight as a crucial theoretical framework for understanding the televisual as a material scene of representation – “liveness”. The television as a medium is peculiarly malleable and is a heterogeneous physical form. It is space-binding and has scale-shifting effects.
For Ernst, he talks about how the new media is no longer dependent of programs, where narration which is linear technically and temporally do not hold true for media of electronic transmission anymore. He compares the TV to the cinema, where the TV allows for live transmission. Also, television images are no longer static but can be “live”.
From Williams’ reading, I can sense that he argued strongly against the technological determinist school of thought. The social construction of reality is formed by texts on television and other media mediums. Media are involved in historical material processes, instead of only the economic and political factors, and hence, there is a temporal effect. Williams mentioned that the development of broadcast technology revolves around economic and political aims. There is a transitional time frame for the invention of the television, and the main concern now is more predominantly skewed to commercial interests. In my opinion, I reckon that Williams opposes the theme stated by Marshall McLuhan that technology shapes the society.
It is crucial to understand technology as the cause of social, economic and behavioural changes in society – cause and effect theory. It is interesting to me how Williams nicely categorize the nine sentences of how “television has altered our lives” into 1) Technological Determinism 2) Symptomatic Technology. Technological Determinism states that it is the society’s technology motivating the development of societal structure and cultural values. Symptomatic technology means that media use is to manipulate others to achieve their own agenda. Even if television does not exist, people would still have ways to control the masses. There are different needs arising from the post-war period as compared to the war period. There was a contradiction of a centralized transmission and privatised reception, and sometimes, it is a combination of both.
From Anna McCarthy’s reading, I start to understand the concept of ‘place’ – there are a lot definitions of just this simple word ‘place’. We cannot just assume that television watching only take place at home. It is really intriguing that television can bring about experiences from the outside world to the comforts of our homes, even without us being physically at the scene of recording. However, I disagree with the fact about participation effect. I think it will never be same of being at the place physically itself, as compared to viewing the experience/ event through the television panel. It is true that one may be pulled into the event, but it is quite hard to “copy” the same feel/ environment/ surroundings to be exactly the same as what is really happening. It may be said to be “false intimacy” in a way if I have to phrase it. It is made to be believed that we are closer to the main happenings in the world, but we are actually still far away from it.
McCarthy provides an interesting take on the notions of immateriality and materiality of the TV as a medium. She neatly juxtaposes this with describing the technologies associated with TV to be “space-binding” and “site-specific”. McCarthy feels that too much emphasis is placed on the immateriality of the TV, specifically with its content. Therefore, her paper centers around promoting the importance of understanding the TV via its material form. This is understood by observing where it is placed, and even how it is adorned. She develops this concept by taking into the consideration of scale – namely the “ dialectical movement between global generality and local specificity” which invokes a notion of space and with it the TV becomes an agent of placelessness – because it is everywhere and anywhere. It does not have a particular position, but takes the form that it is placed upon.
In her material representation of the TV she focuses on it’s site. For this she proposes three ideologies. One is that of the indexical force of the formal ideologies which through “liveness” ( as with any broadcast medium) results in people experiencing the same events at the same time ( temporal simultaneity) and this therefore results in the destruction of space altogether as Heidegger postulated.
Next, she proposes that the TV is site-specific. She describes it as being peculiarly malleable and heterogeneous in its form. This is because the same TV can be used as a form of entertainment for a family at home and also as a work related tool for news reporters in their offices but to each and every one engaged in it – it is conferred upon a different purpose, and therefore different meaning. Thus, to understand the TV’s existence, we have to take into account the contextual situation in which it is located and thereby glean not only its significance but impacts.
Thirdly, TV’s understanding should also encompass the ability of its screen to dematerialize as soon as it encounters philosophy. This to be at first seemed absurd, for philosophy is so diverse and multi-faceted, and so how was McCarthy going to explain this collision. However, from what I gather she tried to argue that this dematerialization did not always mean a complete disappearance of the screen but it being reconstructed in another form altogether. She asserts this by saying that screen does more than simply overcome distance and separation but renders this invisible transmission through transposing it into the vision that it transmits. This still seems very vague to me, because the divide itself is ambiguous and all-encompassing and I still do not feel that Mccarthy adequately provides a framework for us to see how these two forces merge together.
However, the compelling aspect of McCarthy’s essay was her use of the ontological and geographical spaces ( as influenced by Heidingger) to make use of the concept of scale. Basically, the geographical comprises of the actual space ( area) whereas the ontological deals with the essence of the space itself. Both conceptions of space in turn, result in tensions and this was aptly portrayed in the Rio Mall’s videowall. The ontological sense of the mall is glistened from showcasing its past destruction of its landscape whereas the geographical sense of it had to do with the fact that people’s images were captured onto the screen when they were physically present as a surveillance image.
Next, Ernst talks about the transmission of media as portraying what is happening in “ real time” but criticizes it as having the incapacity to record or store these events – thus making the TV an incomplete medium. Or at least this was before the advancement of technology to include the magnetic storage. Now, we have video-streaming where the live transmission is reimported using the effect of the Web-cam into the medium of the television. Digital archives are also found online. However, there were certain consequences as a result of this. One was that there was a distortion of the temporal realm – between something that was “live” and something that was “recorded”. This notion of memory and archiving, for Ernst, formed the nexus of TV.
Ernst also argues that TV does not require narration since it is founded upon electronic transmission which is the very message that it seeks to portray. This seeks him to expand on to include that TV does not require any hermeneutic understandings because its messages are based on “signals” and “noises” rather than semantics of sorts that are typically produced in content as in narration. But, then again these very “signals” and “noises” can form their own special semantics and a language of transmission that ultimately embodies the message of TV.
Ernst also showcases that televisions do not necessarily have to portray real images – the image of the real comes into its own. This is especially when the transmissions are interrupted by unexpected circumstances – such as breaking news. The screens immediately show pictures ( still images) of the news and through this people discern other images of reality behind these events that may not be shown. I think this is a particularly crucial point for it displays the power of the television in constructing and influencing our sense of reality.
He then talks about broadcasting and TV morphing out of a radio medium which is also compounded in William’s paper and in fact, even Lynn White’s paper on Inventions because it sheds light on how the TV continually evolved out of broadcasting sounds ( radio) and even specific broadcasting of images ( film). Firstly, to showcase the causal relationship that technology shares with society, we are provided with a framework of technological determinism – that tells us that technology and its consequences are accidental. The other model of symptomatic technology juxtaposed with this suggests instead, that though technology was an accident it was significant in its uses.
Next, the social history of Television was similar to Lynn White’s arguments because it emphasized how Television grew out of other forms of media such as Telegraphs due to constantly created new needs and thus the need for new inventions to meet these needs. These needs had great social implications – most noticeably in the expanding military and commercial systems and thus the TV in itself was able to create and fortify certain social institutions in society.
Also, the broadcasting ability of the TV enabled it to reach specific people and thus engage in specific forms of communicative transmissions such as – the uses of person to person and operator and operative to operator and operative within these social structures.
This was facilitated by the press that was the galvanizing force behind the TV. This was because a new institution was needed to meet the needs of transmitting news and background. This social destiny is not predestined according to Williams but is an inevitable result. The irony that Williams points out in broadcasting is that although it uses the term “ mass communication” to portray itself due to the sheer extent of people it can reach out to, its effects can also be felt in individual institutions such as homes and this obscures the very definition of mass communication. Williams also points out that broadcasting enhances social integration by making people aware of the news around them and thus able to communicate effectively based on it.