40-3212
Television is the primary source for the transmission of information, politics, entertainment, and our collective and dispersed cultures in the United States, surpassing even film and newspaper because of its combined accessibility and visual appeals. Further, TV has for decades now shaped how we tell and understand stories about the worlds we live in and those we hope to live in, from notions of race and gender to presidents and child-rearing. In your aspiration to become a professional in the field of television, understanding how TV operates culturally and socially in a sophisticated manner will ultimately make you a better creative artist, producer, manager, screenwriter, etc.! We work from the premise that there is no such thing as "just TV," for certainly the industry wouldn't survive if everyone really could care less about what they watch. Thus, we will seek to master methods of analysis that "get beneath" TV: historic and industrial, auteurism and genre, semiotics and psychoanalysis, postmodern, and ideological.
Course descriptions are stored in OASIS and are maintained by the Associate Dean for each School.
* Prerequisite Required.
