Consider the changes that the television industry has undergone in the last half-century. Now consider the ever-expanding, complex interests and issues that drive those changes. Next think about the ultimate impact on not just the TV industry, but our entire culture. That’s exactly what Amanda Lotz, assistant professor of communication, challenges her students to do in her class, Critical Issues in Television: The Post Network Era.
To guide this inquiry, Lotz developed a case study titled “Outside the Box: Redefining Television,” in which teams of students assume perspectives of various industry segments – broadcast affiliates, creative guilds, consumer electronics industry, media conglomerates, etc. Teams “are charged to re-imagine the television industry with all the present day technological potential and are free to forget all the entrenched practices and interests,” Lotz explains.
The study’s deeper meaning, says Lotz, is to get students to think about the consequences of TV dynamics in a democratic society. With an industry that offers such a broad range of technology and programming, she asks, “what does it mean that we don’t share a common cultural text? It ultimately leads to the question of ‘what is television?’” In January, the study design earned Lotz the prestigious Coltrin Professor of the Year honor from the International Radio and Television Society.
Here are the proposals for “redefining” various segments of the television industry, as submitted by student teams in Lotz’s spring 2004 class:
- Move existing broadcast networks to cable where they would be free of public interest requirements; auction off the spectrum space broadcasters had used; use the proceeds to create an endowment that would support a reinvented public broadcasting system.
- Create a technology called “iprogram” that expands existing digital cable box/DVR controls, allows viewers to select their own package of cable channels, is programmable by phone, and allows viewers to learn more about or order an onscreen product.
- Create a new recording technology with more memory than DVD, higher quality recording than DVR, and that cannot duplicate the content it records.
- Require that networks must include in their primetime schedule four shows per week that are produced by companies unaffiliated with the network, that they must buy a full or half season at a time, and must air all episodes purchased.
“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.” —Albert Camus
Existential unreality: What a concept for TV
Denison philosophy major Kropf – now a U.S. State Department attorney by day, writer and dad by night – has his own ideas for television of the future, which are reprinted here with permission from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
It’s been widely reported that scripted television is back in the ascendant, with the failure of all the reality TV shows introduced last fall. Worried about exhausting the reality TV concept, television producers have turned to the philosophy departments of major universities for help. Philosophers have assured them that there is no end to reality alternatives — not just in life, but on TV as well. Certainly there is no shortage of theories about the nature or, indeed, existence of reality.
Deep thinkers around the country are ready to entertain with a full stock of metaphysical soap operas, existential comedies and Marxist game shows.
Since nothing attracts viewers like raising doubts about their empirical worldview, networks have embraced a development slate with the slogan, “I watch, therefore I am.” Here are some of the projects awaiting a green light:
Fallacy Factor A logical positivist must lie on a bed of untamed metaphysical dilemmas for an unknowable length of time. Will he risk it all for this week’s jackpot: empirical knowledge?
The Pedagogue Aristotle uses his new teleological management techniques at Trump’s Atlantic City Casino only to be fired by The Donald for stealing the idea from an earlier pedagogue, Plato.
Existential Celebrity Poker Challenge Tune in to a high stakes game of Texas Hold ‘Em to see if Camus bluffs Soren Kierkegaard with a bet of eternal nothingness and whether Jean-Paul Sartre folds pondering the absurdity of his inside straight.
Cooking with Kant Celebrity chef Immanuel Kant spices up his classic recipes, cooking a delicious synthesis of rationalism, categorical imperatives and cayenne pepper.
Desperate Logicians Things get hot and heavy when logicians swap sentential logic for predicate logic. Don’t miss this syllogism’s steamy results.
Weltanschauung SmackDown! Reigning champion Friedrich Nietzsche defends his title against spirited challenger St. Augustine. Find out if the German’s killer “God-is-dead” move can make the holier-than-thou A-man regret his Confessions.