Tabloid Television and News Culture: Access and Representation
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Transcript of Tabloid Television and News Culture: Access and Representation
Tabloid Television and News Culture: Access and Representation
Erin Robinson & Andrew Wood
Project 180°: Tabloid Television & News CultureWine & Cheese
Fencing with Alex and Rob
Project 180° (2008) 26 HBO 8–10pAward winning journalists Erin Robinson and Andrew Wood investigate the many sides of tabloid television and news culture (120 minutes)
Follow the Road…
• Tabloid Culture
• Irreverent Coverage
• Two Arguments
• Storytelling
Huey Lewis and the TV News
• The word ‘tabloid’ has taken a derogatory turn for the worse
• Think of ‘Television News’ as a cultural institution which produces meaning
A WAKE FOR TELEVISION NEWSA WAKE FOR TELEVISION NEWS
The ‘Lament’ for Television Journalism• Television News is, and always will
be, a business.• Television News is overly
dependent on images and sensationalism• TV News traffics in trivialities/
deals with emotionalism
THE CREATION OF TABLOID TVTHE CREATION OF TABLOID TV
HIGH FLAMES & CRYING NUNSHIGH FLAMES & CRYING NUNS
• Television has critically undermined the Television has critically undermined the relationship relationship between democracy and its citizensbetween democracy and its citizens
• The ‘Lament’ argument fails to… The ‘Lament’ argument fails to…
The ‘Not-so-serious’ Serious News
• Recognize television news as a form of cultural discourse
• See how television news creates a ‘communicative power’ that can be used for ideological study
• Think of TV News as a ‘genre’ film
• What has worked in the past, works today
• Treat the TV News program as a ‘cultural text’
• It then becomes a cultural artifact
Gratuitous Graph Shot
Sports
Fluff &HumanInterest
Commercials
No News
News Summary
Advertising Rules
Who won the game?
Cat in a Tree
Economic Collapse of the United States
Start to Take Away These Points• The ‘Lament’ argument
sees TV news in a decline, moving away from its informational model
• It argues that TV News can be a ‘window to reality’
• TV news can also be seen as a ‘cultural discourse’ with a distinct communicative power
• By acknowledging TV news as a ‘cultural artifact’, meaning is produced through its images.
• This meaning leads to deeper latent messages concerning irreverent news.
The Especially Remarkable
Holding Power
Powerless Elite
Acting-as-he-never-does . . .
The power of‘The’ Triumph
Victims & Tears
Norm & Agent
• Disruption of normal routines
Accounts & Witnesses
• Newsmakers no longer narrators – merely capturing the story• Overlapping points create emotional charge
Impact
• Looking Backwards via remaining evidence, good victims and images that trigger sympathetic responses
Communicative Power
Domination
• Making your fate
Subordination
• Subject to fate
• Lived reality: Physical, Psychological, Personal, Social and Economic
This World is a Dangerous Place
• Irreverent coverage ------ popular wisdom
• Someone is always worse off….
• Who dares, wins.
• Leave it alone
• Stray bullet story
• English channel swimming report
Token YouTube Clips
• Stray bullet story
• English channel swimming report
Questions
• Do you see irreverent news stories as important? Can they be seen as cultural texts?
• Why do we allow news to be pleasure-giving versus informational?
And now it’s time for …