Television, Culture, and Society Practice Flashcards

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering the history of television, media theories, industry practices, and audience analysis based on lecture notes.

Television (Institutional context)

A set of institutions and relationships among institutions, as well as the social experience of producing, viewing, and being influenced by them.

The Frankfurt School

A perspective revealing that media is a culture industry driven by business and profit rather than art, which standardizes content and manipulates audiences.

Lasswell Model

A communication process model focused on: who says, to whom, through what channel, and with what effect.

Hypodermic needle / Magic bullet

A theory suggesting that media is direct and powerful, exerting an immediate influence on passive audiences.

Moral Panic

An overreaction in society created by media that generates exaggerated public fear.

Encoding and Decoding Model

A model by Stuart Hall suggesting that media meaning is not fixed; producers package a message and audiences create their own meanings.

Dominant Interpretation

A decoding position where the audience member agrees with the intended message of the media content.

Negotiated Interpretation

A decoding position where the audience member partially agrees with the media message but may modify it based on their own context.

Oppositional Interpretation

A decoding position where the audience member rejects the intended message of the media content.

Technological Determinism

An argument stating that technology shapes society by changing how people think, live, and how society functions.

Symptomatic Technology

The view that technology develops in response to specific social needs and conditions.

Private Mobilization

A term from Raymond Williams describing a social condition where people are physically isolated in homes but remain connected to the outside world through media.

David Sarnoff

A key figure who advocated for bringing media into the home to make television a household necessity.

Flow

A concept by Raymond Williams describing television as a continuous, uninterrupted stream of content, advertisements, and news.

Media Event

A live, preplanned transmission framed in time and space, featuring high dramatic significance and the force of a social norm making viewing mandatory.

Coronation

A type of media event exemplified by the browning of Queen Elizabeth.

Conquest

A type of media event exemplified by the space race and the moon landing.

Contest

A type of media event exemplified by major competitions like the World Cup.

Collective Memory

A shared understanding and interpretation of the past within a society, largely shaped by how media like television frame and attach emotions to events.

Presentism

The act of judging the past according to contemporary values.

Pastism

The assertion that only historians have the authority to interpret history.

Mandate

The goals of a television industry, typically divided between profit-driven motives and public service.

Portfolio Strategy

An industry practice of creating a mix of safe, formulaic content and risky, original content to manage financial risk.

Europudding

A show produced by several countries to appeal to a broad audience, often resulting in a generic storyline that loses its cultural authenticity.

Canned Distribution

When a show is produced once in one location and exported globally in its original form, such as the show Friends.

Format Adaptation

A strategy where the concept of a show is sold and recreated locally in different countries, such as Love Island or The Voice.

Glocalization

The practice of creating television with both global and local cultures in mind to ensure global reach while maintaining local relatability.

Wallpaper Memories

A type of TV memory identified by Bourdon referring to the everyday habits of watching television, such as viewing with family.

Flashbulb Memories

A type of TV memory identified by Bourdon involving sudden and shocking news events.

Appisation

A term from Johnson describing the shift from traditional television to on-demand viewing through digital platforms and software apps.

Textual Poaching

A concept by Jenkins describing how fans take content from shows and remake it into new meanings and creations.

Showrunner

The creative and managerial leader of a TV series who combines the roles of writer and producer to ensure a unified vision.

Quantitative Audience Analysis

The study of numerical aspects of viewing, such as subscriber counts, viewership ratings, and demographics.

Qualitative Audience Analysis

The study of audience behaviors, identities, and how people emotionally engage with and interpret media.