How to Study Television — Comprehensive Notes
Central aim and method
- The book aims to show how, starting from a few basic principles, you can build your own analytical response to any television programme.
- Key problem addressed: television’s bulk and production complexity can overwhelm analysis; a clear method helps structure coherent critical thinking.
- Core method: begin with a few clear ideas about distinct areas (the five central concepts) and use them to direct all subsequent thinking.
- The book concentrates on general, workaday TV output (advertising/TV as industry) but the method applies to any media text.
- Rationale for starting with a still image from an advertisement: to teach visual literacy first, as television is primarily a visual medium; once skilled at reading images, the step-by-step method can analyse more complex programmes.
- The book’s shape: first two chapters analyse a single still; later chapters apply the method to various types of TV programmes with a step-by-step approach.
- Acknowledgement of debates about advertisements (materialism, creativity, advertising as art) but emphasis on analytical investigation beyond surface impressions.
- Important shifts from textual study to contextual study (production context, scheduling, funding, policy, political biases).
Five central concepts for analysing media texts
- Construction: how media texts are built using a media language; codes shape meaning; texts are products of cultural pressures and constraints.
- Audience: texts are consumed by audiences who bring knowledge; audiences are positioned by the text; meanings are not fixed; multiple interpretations exist.
- Narrative: how the story unfolds is constructed through editing and selective timing; narrative manipulation conceals its artificiality.
- Categorisation: how texts are classified (genre conventions, media form) and how audiences bring expectations; campaigns exploit genre conventions.
- Agency: production context – the relationship between creative workers (agency as creative activity) and media organisations (agency-as-agency); external pressures (ASA, Parliament, funding) shape the final product.
- Media language and codes drive what viewers read; codes can convey specific meanings (soft vs. harsh lighting, focus, framing).
- Outside pressures shaping media production: financial (profit) and moral (censorship, public taste) constraints.
- Reality vs representation: media outputs are representations of reality influenced by pressures; the perceived realism is a constructed narrative rather than a direct mirror of reality.
- Narrative construction and time manipulation: editing can manipulate time and information to create a particular telling of the tale.
- Setting: the physical and social environment in which the scene takes place; affects meaning through cultural associations.
- Props: objects used in the scene that carry associations beyond their utilitarian role.
- Non-verbal communication (NVC): actors’ posture, gaze, gestures – all contribute to implied meanings.
- Dress codes: clothing informs character, mood, social status, and era.
Case example: Royal Mail advertisement (Melt her to the Coeur)
- Setting: Paris; Eiffel Tower visible; implied romance, sophistication, youthfulness; a Parisian setting signals romance and cosmopolitan life.
- Props: a woman’s roadster bicycle; evokes tradition, stability, freedom associated with student life.
- Non-verbal communication: the woman leans on a bridge lamp, relaxed and at ease; directed gaze toward the letter, implying reliability and the service’s role in enabling connection.
- Dress codes: cardigan, jeans, T-shirt, waistcoat suggest casual, Bohemian, free-spirited youth.
- Overall mise-en-scène takeaway: the ad frames a realistic, everyday scene (romance in Paris) to imply that using Royal Mail International Airmail can make that everyday reality achievable.
- Lenses: standard or slightly wide-angle; chosen to affect viewer perception; the viewer is positioned as a witness to the scene.
- Codes of composition (shot size, camera angle, lens choice): mainly symmetrical vs asymmetrical; static vs dynamic composition.
- Royal Mail ad composition is asymmetrical (subject off-centre to the right) creating calm repose and avoiding a rigid, overly staged feel.
- The image uses a static composition (horizontal/vertical lines dominate) rather than dynamic angles.
- Lighting: high-key, low-contrast image; conveys relaxation and everyday realism when combined.
- Colour and film stock: black-and-white with fine (close-grain) film stock; contributes to realism and restraint; absence of color reinforces a serious, controlled tone.
- Black-and-white enhances realism and perceived quality; close-grain film provides a smooth, less ‘picture-postcard’ look.
- Lighting, colour, and grain together shape the ad’s meaning: high-key + low-contrast + B&W + fine grain signal realism, order, and balance.
Narrative: how the story is constructed (2.3)
- Narrative levels for analysis:
1) Descriptive level: state what happens in the story in detail.
2) Explicit meanings: interpret what is directly shown or stated; identify the surface messages of the text.
3) Implicit meanings: relate the text to wider societal values and themes (dominant beliefs about gender, romance, youth, etc.). - Descriptive level example: describe the key elements of the Royal Mail still (setting, subject, actions).
- Explicit meanings example: a young woman reading a letter on a Paris bridge suggests romance and connection; jeans may signify youth and freedom.
- Implicit meanings: the ad naturalizes femininity, romance, and youthful freedom as desirable social values; these values are embedded in the image and context and encourage a particular reading of the product.
- The process moves from concrete description to connections with broader social values, enabling a critical reading of how advertisements shape and reflect culture.
Connotation, explicit meaning, and implicit meaning in narrative (2.3.2–2.3.3)
- Explicit meanings depend on what is shown and how it is shown; connotations arise from cultural associations attached to images (e.g., jeans = youth, freedom, rebellion; Eiffel Tower = romance).
- Implicit meanings require linking the text to dominant social values (gender roles, family, success, love, etc.).
- Examples: romance and youth in the Paris scene naturalize a lifestyle; time and place imagery (letter, Eiffel Tower) contribute to romance and distance from everyday life.
- Analysis method: connect the central themes of the advertisement with broader societal beliefs to understand how the text invites particular readings and reinforces cultural norms.
- Advertising is a media form rather than a strict genre; genres themselves have subject matter, themes, and stylistic conventions.
- Advertisers exploit audience genre expectations to shape responses and to play with those expectations (1980s–1990s campaigns).
- The Royal Mail ad is not strongly genre-bound but taps into recognizable cinematic/romantic tropes (e.g., light-hearted romance) to situate itself within familiar cultural frames.
- The analysis would also examine product relationships, selling strategies, and brand identity, but this book emphasizes reading the text itself and its general production logic rather than campaign-specific marketing details.
- Noting that advertising is not itself a genre but a form; advertisers rely on audience expectations linked to genres to elicit responses.
- Royal Mail ad’s place in society is inferred from its messages and its use of visual cues rather than from a fixed genre label.
- The concept helps explain why campaigns borrow conventions from genres like romance, thriller, or sitcom to shape interpretation.
Agency: production context and external influences (2.4)
- Agency refers to both the creative activity of those producing the text and the organisational/industrial context that shapes production.
- Two dimensions of agency:
- Creative agency: the work of photographers, art directors, graphic designers, etc.
- Agency-as-agency: how the media company is organized and governed by external rules and laws (ASA, censorship boards, legislation).
- Production realities shape final form: budgets, studio constraints, and internal/public governance influence decisions about visuals, technology, and presentation.
- The relationship between text and agency is central: the final text looks the way it does because of customer requirements, internal structures, and external regulatory frameworks.
- Although access to high-end media technologies is not universal, understanding these pressures helps explain why media texts appear as they do and how they might be read differently by various audiences.
Putting it all together: using the five concepts to build analysis
- The five concepts provide a practical, step-by-step framework for analyzing any media text, especially television and advertising.
- The next chapters promise deeper development of each area using a single still, then broader applications to various programme types.
- The author emphasizes that readers should focus on significance within each area and fit observations into a coherent, personal analytic reading.
- The book also reassures readers that developing a coherent interpretation takes time and practice; it serves as a reference guide as you gain experience.
Practical study tips and takeaways from the introduction
- Start with five areas: Construction, Audience, Narrative, Categorisation, Agency to structure your analysis.
- Begin with close visual analysis (mise-en-scène and technical codes) before expanding to audience and production contexts.
- When analysing audience, distinguish between demographic (traditional) and psychographic (needs, aspirations, lifestyle) approaches; understand audience positioning and mode of address.
- For narrative, practice three levels: description, explicit meaning, and implicit meaning, linking imagery to broader social values.
- When considering categorisation, identify both genre conventions and how advertising uses or subverts those expectations.
- Always consider Agency to recognize external forces shaping the final product; relate the text to its production and regulatory environment.
- Use the case study (Royal Mail ad) as a concrete example of applying all five concepts to a single image before moving to full-length programmes.