Score! Check it out mom – I am totally blogging! For all you others, hello and welcome to my very first blog AND my very first blog post. Oh, and hi. My name is Cara.
But enough with introductions, let’s get down to business. This first post is written with the intention that you will not only come to know who I am as a person but who I am/who I plan to be as a critic. After learning about my relationship with television, the goals I have for this blog and what I would like our relationship to be like, you will be able to better decide if this is a blog you would like to actively follow and engage in (please, oh please say yes!).
You may ask why I would start a blog after twenty-one whole years of being just an ordinary television viewer. Currently, I am what the experts in the field would call a mindless television watcher and I am defiantly someone who enjoys the casual experience it provides. My view of television reflects this experience. As discussed in the article “Television’s Ebb and Flow in the Postnetwork Era”, I find television to be “the principal medium through which most people obtain visual entertainment and information and through which advertisers reach the largest audience” (Butler, 3). I am one of those people.
But… I have learned that that pure entertainment is not always a good thing. The authors of the article “Communication Criticism Today” write that public communication (television being a type of this) is a central part of our personal and social lives (Sillars and Gronbeck, 4). I think we would all agree with that statement; television today is a large part of our culture. However, they go on by saying that analyzing the communication messages we encounter, even the messages we get from our television, prevents us from becoming victimized by misunderstanding (Sillars and Gronbeck, 4). Since I do not (nor do I believe many viewers out there) actively engage with the information I am presented, I am ultimately being victimized and taken advantage of by producers, advertisers, and the like. This point is further developed in the article “Introduction: Research and Criticism” when it is said that whenever we watch television, we some how and in some way modify “our knowledge and experience, however minor and temporary” (Corner, 6).
After realizing that I believe these claims, I got a little nervous. I am not someone who wants to be victimized or affected without even knowing it! Therefore, I want to change. I want to be less of a casual viewer and more of a critic, hence the creation of this blog. By taking on more of an active role, I hope to learn what it is like to be on the other side of the TV watching spectrum. I want to learn if television different for people who are actively engaged in the program. Does actively questioning the program and criticizing it’s content completely change television for the viewer? O’Donnell, in the article “The Work of The Critic” seems to think so. She says that when a television as causal enjoyment is coupled with critical insight a fuller, richer understanding of the material emerges. She also says that this deeper understanding of television material can enhance the critic’s understanding of culture, human nature and interpretation (O’Donnell, 3). I am curious to see whether or not these ideas hold true and therefore am making it one of my goals for doing television criticism. Specifically, I hope that by actively engaging in and criticizing television I will gain a better understanding of both the material presented and our culture as well as avoid victimization and determine whether or not television is better as a casual viewer or as an involved critic.
However, to accomplish these goals, I need your help. In the beginning of this post, I called this place my blog but really, I want this to be your blog too. I want us to be in this together or involved in a transparent relationship as far as television criticism goes. By this I mean that I want you and I to be on the same side, no different from one another (Brundson, 311).
As I learn about the world of criticism, I will need your help to get the most out of the experience. Criticism, as defined in the article “The Work of the Critic”, is the understanding, analyzing, interpreting, judging and communicating of a material or a text (O’Donnell, 15). I can criticize and criticize until I am blue in the face but if I have no one to communicate with, it seems like a waste. But I hope that by engaging with me and with what I have to say, I hope that you too will gain a more comprehensive understanding of television and our culture. We will indeed learn together and undeniably learn from each other.
As you ponder these ideas and reflect on my relationship with television, what I want to gain from being a television critic, and what I would like your role to be in this blog, I will leave you with one last thought/cheap ploy to get you to continue to hear what I have to say. One of my first experiences with television was with Mr. Rogers. It seems fitting to include him on the next step of my television life. He too wants you to come back and visit me again. Just listen. . .
(It is a little more fitting if you replace the word
“neighborhood” with “blog”
and “neighbor” with “supporter”/”audience”/”reader”.)
References:
Brundsdon, Charlotte. "Identity in feminist television criticism.." Media, Culture, and Society 15 (1993): 309-320
Butler, Jeremy G. Television: Critical Methods and Applications (2nd Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002.
Corner, John. Critical Ideas in Television Studies (Oxford Television Studies). New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1999.
Gronbeck, Bruce E., and Malcolm O. Sillars. Communication Criticism: Rhetoric, Social Codes, Cultural Studies. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2001.
O'Donnell, Victoria. Television Criticism. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 2007.
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