Seldes - The Public Arts

Seldes, Gilbert. The Public Arts. New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A.: Transaction, 1994.

Argument:
"Popular Culture can be both democratic and distinguished." - (Lynn Boyd Hinds, Reviewed work(s): The Lively Arts: Gilbert Seldes and the Transformation of Cultural Criticism by Michael Kammen Pennsylvania History Vol. 64, No. 1, Regional Perspectives On Early American History (Winter 1997), pp. 133-134)

Seldes's short, sweet chapters are best touched on one at a time:

Introduction: Arthur Asa Berger credits Seldes as one of the first scholars to take popular culture seriously. He also summarizes the two paradigms of cultural studies in Stuart Hall's aptly named "Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms." 1. Culturalism-does not see the economic system as fundamental but rather defines culture as encompassing "both the meanings and values which arise amongst distinctive social groups and classes" based on conditions and relationships, as well as the "lived traditions and practices through which those 'understandings' are expressed..." 2. Structuralism - Out of anthropologists like Claude Levi-Strauss, de Saussure, semioticians, and linguistics. Culture is read as a text with structures people were generally unaware of but which nonetheless shape their behavior.

1. The Revolution: Loosing defining the start of the revolution as late summer 1929 when Americans chose to listen to Amos n Andy for free on the radio. Thus public arts began to control and direct the actions and behavior of the people consuming it.
2. The Lovely Art: Movement: The lovely art is film. Movement was its first quality that amazed people.
3. The Lovely Art: Sound: writing ascends in importance, dialogue becomes critical.
4. The Lovely Art: Magic: He is primarily talking about the importance of animation, particularly Disney, in dazzling the audience.
5. The Lovely Art: Space: Larger movie theaters, 3D experimentation try to enhance the space within which the audience experiences a film.
6. The Useful Art: Radio. Differs from film in the way it can be a constant source of communication: information and/or entertainment.
7. Sounds and Echoes: Audience has a different, more intimate relationship with radio characters than the distant awe they feel towards move stars. For example, they have shown a propensity to respond to radio characters in writing. Also notes that both radio and TV suffer from the human instinct to appeal to a broader public through a lowering of artistic standards.
8. Personality Business: The struggle artists go through to remain true to their vision in the midst of a business that has numerous gatekeepers undermining their efforts based on preconceived notions of economic gain.
9. The Threshold of Entertainment: Case studies of panel shows (talk and game) that succeed and fail.
10. The Anatomy of Misery: The audience identifies with the contestant in game shows like $64,000 question, in victory and defeat.
11. Domestic Manners in the 49th State: People on TV (AK, HI not in yet!) Notes the different type of programming in daytime compared to night (prime-time programming/sitcoms)
12. "What a Work is Man!": Murrow as the pinnacle of host, delving both into the news AND into the life of famous guests (Person to Person).
13. The Incomparable Bing: Raves about Bing Crosby's success in radio and TV, which does not translate to film because of his more laid back personal style. (See Ch. 7)
14. The Prevalence of Comedy: Emphasizes the personality of the star comedian as the carrier of a very prevalent genre. "Comedy is the axis around which broadcasting revolves." (133)
15. The Good-Bad Berle: "Uncle Miltie" a.k.a. "Mr. Television" pushed the envelope of his popular show too far from rowdy to bawdy. He managed to dial it back and more or less regain his position at the top of the pack.
16. Ave, Vale, and Wait: Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, succeeding in sketch comedy.
17. Mr Benny: Jack - the professional comedic host
18. The Gleason Case: Jackie - the mass-appeal comedian. Broad experience and talents, but not a particular genius.
19. "Me and the Camera and the Folks...": Jimmy Durante - the most lovable comedic host.
20. "What'll we do for Laughs, Celeste?": Begins with a question (173) "Does the prevalence of comedy prevent us from having as much of other entertainment as we might be getting?" Yup. More potential for art and information than just comedy.
21. "The 52-Minute Hour": The ongoing decline of dramatic works, and the threat of Hollywood taking over production. (See: Boddy - Fifties Television)
22. The Consequences of Time: The importance of scheduling in TV
23. Blessed Necessity: The disconnect between the criticisms of the critics and the fulfillment of public need by TV networks who put on shows that the public does indeed watch. This is a prelude to the final section, which attempts to offer guidance for the future of TV
24. The Stiuations of Edward R. Murrow: Discussion of Murrow's role in McCarthyism, which is praises as important and good but cautions against the precedent of directly attacking someone without equal time.
25. A Primer of Problems: Notes economist Harold A. Innis's observation that "whenever you have a far-reaching change in the means of communication, a social change of equal consequence must occur." (230)
26. Rights and Duties I: Freedom of the Air: Balancing the right to broadcast with the duty to broadcast.
27. Rights and Duties II: The Right to Persuade: Editorials are OK.
28. Rights and Duties III: The Limitations of Freedom: Cautions against aggressive censorship of crime and violence.
29. Problems of Power I: The Politics of Color: The wranglings between NBC and CBS over when to mandate a change to color TV.
30. Problems of Power II: The Ultra-Highs: Balancing anti-monopoly efforts with the need for TV signals to reach certain places.
31. Problems of Power III: Programs for Pay: The dangers of charging the public for TV.
32. Problems of Power IV: The Educational Nexus: Should there be separate channels for educational programs.
33. A New Approach: Broadcasters must be open to public opinion, and be open with the public.
34. The Trinity of the Arts: Older forms of arts are all imports. Popular arts are American-made.
35. The Public Arts: The cultural institutions belong to its inhabitants.

Newcomb - TV: The Most Popular Art

Newcomb, Horace. TV: The Most Popular Art. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1974.

Argument
As the title suggests, this is an early attempt to apply a critical lens to television as an art, rather than merely dismiss it as low because it is popular. I don't think he uses the term, but Newcomb breaks television down, chapter by chapter, into genres.

Genres (with chapter noted)
2 - Situation Comedy - A group of characters, usually a family, is placed in some zany set of circumstances. Each week the star of the show navigates a problem to solution. Ex. The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched
2 - Domestic Comedy - Built more specifically around a family, with a more heartfelt conclusion. Less slapstick, less hysterics, deeper character, a touch more seriousness. Ex. Father Knows Best, My Three Sons
3 - Westerns - Similar to its film and radio predecessors, but Newcomb argues television has come to make the Western into a lens to view contemporary culture, thus complicating the code of the West. (82) Ex. Gunsmoke, Bonanza
4 - Mysteries - The tension of the mystery drives a story that presents a united pattern of contemporary values enforced by the policeman or the detective. Ex. Dragnet, Police Story
5 - Professional Shows (Medical and Law) - Centered on a series star, these shows deal with human issues as they solve medical or legal problems. Ex. Marcus Welby MD, Perry Mason
6 - Adventure Shows - A character or set of characters (loners in the U.S. and explorers in space) confront a complication, extricating themselves by the end of the episode. Note that these series tantalize the audience with continuity (although they fall well short of current shows!). Ex. The Fugitive, Star Trek, Route 66.
7 - Soap Opera - Newcomb is especially defensive of this oft-maligned genre. He discusses how the flimsy sets are actually part of the genre's feel. He also emphasizes their serialization as allowing them to be the most realistic of any genre.
8 - News/Sports/Documentary - Present reality, but in a way that is more similar to fictional shows than might be expected because these shows emphasize the star - newscaster, sportshero, etc.
9 - The New Shows - Newcomb partly forsees but could not possibly fully predict the changes television would undergo in the next decade. He notes the serialization of primetime dramas, and the social consciousness of Norman Lear's shows. He does not, however, envision the great blending of genres that would come far into the future.

Also Note
Chapter 1 is a decent historiographical essay of "Responses to Television" from its early history to the early 1970s.

Hall - Encoding/Decoding

Hall, Stuart. “Encoding/Decoding.” From Durham, Meenakshi Gigi, and Douglas Kellner. Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 2001, 163-173.

Argument
Television communication theory can best be understood through a consideration of the relationship the viewer (decoder) has to the media apparatus (encoder).

Rooted in Marxism, Hall begins with an extensive discussion of semiotic theory, also using Eco and Barthes.

Specifics/Key Terms

• It is important to recognize the inequality of the positions of encoder and decoder. Thus, the meanings produced by the encoder are not necessarily the meanings understood by the decoder.
  
• Misunderstanding - a result of this lack of equivalence
• The televisual sign is complex, in part because it is composed of both visual and aural signs.
• iconic sign - a sign that has some of the properties of the thing being represented (Charles Peirce), because it reproduces the conditions of perception in the viewer (Eco).
• visual sign - an iconic sign, such as the image of a cow on television. It is important to recognize that visual signs are arbitrary to varied degrees.
  
• linguistic sign - the word "cow," a much more arbitrary sign.
• denotation - generally understood to mean the literal meaning of a sign
• connotation - generally understood to mean less fixed meanings associated with a sign
• HOWEVER, Hall stresses that this distinction (denotation/connotation) rarely happens in real life
• Finally, he comes to the climax of his essay: the three hypothetical positions which television discourse is decoded:

1. dominant-hegemonic - operating inside the dominant code, the viewer is able to take the full and straight meaning. i.e. Members of the ruling elite, members of the profession able to understand professional code.
   
2. negotiated position - Most audiences understand what is being signified, acknowledgin the legitimacy of the hegemonic discourse while making exceptions for local conditions. i.e. Corporate positions, laborers who approve of a legislation for national interest while opposing in their own case.
3. oppositional position - retotalizing of the message in an alternative framework. Don't identify with the message.
   

Boddy - Fifties Television

Boddy, William. Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics. Illinois studies in communications. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.

Argument
Boddy's stated aim "is to suggest that the development of American television, and specifically the era of network hegemony which stretched from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s, was not "natural" or inevitable, but indeed the result of specific economic and political forces and structures with complex determinants." (8) In thematic chapters, arranged in a rough chronology, Boddy explains these factors. He claims to be one of the first to bring together more specialized research into 50s television with broader social science perspective. However, his discussion is mostly focused on the effects of networks, studios, advertisers, the government and the FCC on the transition out of the "Golden Age", and the critical response to this transition. Other than critics and passing mention of ratings as they were being understood by networks and advertisers, he leaves out audience reception. The actual programs are mentioned only in passing. (see Critique) To his credit, Boddy takes a neutral - even contrarian - position to the standard narrative that television got worse in this period (typified by the work of Erik Barnouw).

Key Points

Chapter 2 - Early hopes for television were that the medium would not be "corrupted" by advertising as radio had been.
Chapter 3 - NBC, owned by RCA, tried to block attempts at opening up the UHF bandwidth as its produced televisions were exclusively VHF. CBS, the second largest early network, wanted the UHF bandwidth opened to allow for more stations.
The Freeze - between Sept 1948 and April 1952 the FCC suspended license approvals (50-51). This was the result of an earlier ruling to narrow station separations, which resulted in disastrous station interference and a flood of license applications. At the same time, the number of stations on the air exploded (50 to 108), as did the number of television sets (1,200,000 to 15,000,000). The result was a firming up of network control over the industry. NBC and CBS benefited hugely, while ABC and DuMont were (respectively) almost critically and critically effected.
Chapter 4-6: The Early 1950s - To the approval of critics, networks avoided Hollywood-produced content intent on reaping the rewards themselves of produced shows. Live television tended to be single-sponsor. Programs were created in New York in the dramatic theater style rather than the "lower" Hollywood style.)
Chapter 7-10: Eventually, networks (led by ABC which charged back from behind) found it cost-effective to buy Hollywood studio-produced content. Live broadcasts, which were praised by critics as the epitomy of the artistic possibilities of the medium, faded away. Multiple sponsors moved in, and the prestige of writing for television declined, ex. Rod Serling. Meanwhile, the FCC did its best to break up Network control of too many stations and too much of program creation, further incentivizing the network search for programs created by Hollywood studios.
Chapters 11-14: 1958-60 - The Quiz show scandal, followed by Newton Minnow's "Vast Wasteland" speech led to a public relations crisis for the networks. Boddy argues the Minnow speech had less of an effect than the Quiz show scandal. Advertisers blamed networks, networks blamed advertisers. Network presidents changed the way they talked about their programs, turning towards an argument that "mass audience indicates serving the mass public interest." Critics screamed, but at the same time the newspaper TV column disappeared accross the country, as critics had less serious drama to comment about and were left mainly criticizing the medium as a whole over and over.

Critique
This book has to be read along with Castleman and Podzrazik's "Watching Television" to get a sense of what the networks were actually putting on, because Boddy barely does that. He merely describes the type of show on TV rather than the actual show. Without examples, the prose is terribly dry. It was a fast read, quickly digestible, but largely because it is written plainly with little attempts at argument and insight. Perhaps Boddy takes his claim at being a neutral observer of the decade too seriously. This is yet another book about television that I feel could be written much better.