Television and Common Knowledge

by Gripstrud,Jostein

• ISBN13: 9780415189293
• ISBN10: 0415189292
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-06-21
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Television and Common Knowledgeconsiders how television is and can be a vehicle for well-informed citizenship in a fragmented modern society. Contributors first examine how common knowledge is assumed and produced across the huge social, cultural and geographic gulfs that characterize modern society, and investigate the role of television as the primary medium for the production and dissemination of knowledge. Later contributions concentrate on specific TV genres such as news, documentary, political discussions, and popular science programs, considering the changing ways in which they attempt to inform audiences, and how they are actually made meaningful by viewers. Contributors: Suzanne de Cheveignon, John Corner, Daniel Dayan, John Ellis, Jostein Gripsrud, Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Anders Johansen, Peter Larsen, Sonia Livingstone, Graham Murdock, David Morley, Roger Silverstone and Eliseo Veron

Author Biography

Jostein Gripsrud is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	x
Television and common knowledge: an introduction	1	(4)
PART I Public sphere(s)	5	(48)
Rights and representations: public discourse and cultural citizenship	7	(11)
Graham Murdock
A tale of two narratives	7	(1)
From simple to complex citizenship	8	(2)
Underwriting rights	10	(1)
Defining cultural rights	11	(2)
Questions of representation	13	(1)
Discourse/image/form	13	(1)
The political economy of populism	14	(1)
Public space and public discourse	15	(2)
References	17	(1)
Media and diasporas	18	(16)
Daniel Dayan
Fragile communities, particularistic media	18	(1)
The context of globalization	19	(1)
Identity as process: production, confrontation, adoption	20	(2)
Medias and diasporas	22	(6)
Conclusions	28	(3)
Acknowledgement	31	(1)
References	31	(3)
Scholars, journalism, television: notes on some conditions for mediation and intervention	34	(19)
Jostein Gripsrud
Introduction	34	(1)
Television, knowledge and postmodernism	35	(2)
Enlightenment, the public sphere and broadcast television	37	(2)
Journalism and academia as social fields	39	(2)
Journalistic v. academic habitus	41	(1)
Scholars mingling with the media: motives and consequences	42	(3)
Television, stereotypes and audience perceptions of academics	45	(3)
Television's priorities and the hierarchies of scholarly disciplines	48	(1)
The conditions for acting as public intellectuals	49	(3)
References	52	(1)
PART II Sociocultural functions	53	(70)
Television as working-through	55	(16)
John Ellis
Introduction	55	(5)
Soaps	60	(1)
Documentaries	61	(3)
In praise of uncertainty	64	(1)
Sport	64	(2)
Narrative forms	66	(1)
In praise of discontinuity	67	(1)
Conclusion	68	(1)
Notes	69	(1)
References	70	(1)
Rhetoric, play, performance: revisiting a study of the making of a BBC documentary	71	(20)
Roger Silverstone
Introduction	71	(1)
The nature of a return	71	(3)
Discursive spaces	74	(2)
Rhetoric	76	(3)
Play	79	(3)
Performance	82	(3)
Conclusion	85	(1)
Notes	86	(2)
References	88	(3)
Mediated knowledge: recognition of the familiar, discovery of the new	91	(17)
Sonia Livingstone
Mediated knowledge and active audiences	91	(2)
Towards a research agenda for mediated knowledge	93	(2)
Theorizing knowledgeable audiences	95	(1)
Recognition of the familiar, discovery of the new	96	(2)
Knowledge, space and time	98	(2)
Mediated and non-mediated knowledge	100	(1)
Implications for audience-reception research	101	(2)
Notes	103	(2)
References	105	(3)
Imaginary spaces: television, technology and everyday consciousness	108	(15)
Peter Larsen
You press the button, we do the rest	108	(1)
Bearings	109	(1)
Places and spaces, maps and tours	110	(2)
An institutional story	112	(1)
Travel stories	113	(1)
Tour guides	114	(1)
In the flow	115	(1)
Screen: opening, window pane, borderline	116	(1)
Mapping	117	(3)
Acknowledgement	120	(1)
Notes	120	(1)
References	120	(3)
PART III Genres	123	(76)
Knowledge as received: a project on audience uses of television news in world cultures	125	(11)
Klaus Bruhn Jensen
Introduction	125	(1)
The flow of international news	126	(3)
News of the World: project outline	129	(2)
Preliminary findings	131	(2)
Implications for theory and policy	133	(1)
Acknowledgement	134	(1)
References	135	(1)
Finding out about the world from television news: some difficulties	136	(23)
David Morley
Introduction	136	(4)
Decoding the television news	140	(1)
The world and the television world	141	(2)
Evaluating things you do not know about	143	(1)
Media dependency theory: real confusions	144	(3)
The sitcom and the vice-president: paradoxes of the real	147	(4)
Polysemy, ambiguity and contradiction	151	(4)
Postscript	155	(1)
References	156	(3)
Credibility and media development	159	(14)
Anders Johansen
References	171	(2)
Documentary: the transformation of a social aesthetic	173	(12)
John Corner
Introduction	173	(1)
Public television in the 1990s	174	(1)
Documentary: a flawed genre?	175	(2)
Documentary modality: four primary ingredients	177	(2)
Four trends in recent British documentary	179	(4)
Acknowledgement	183	(1)
Notes	183	(1)
References	184	(1)
Science on TV: forms and reception of science programmes on French television	185	(14)
Suzanne De Cheveigne
Introduction	185	(1)
Identifying the forms	186	(1)
Two essential variables	187	(1)
The intellectual reading	188	(1)
The beneficiary reading	189	(1)
Disappointed beneficiaries	190	(1)
The intimistic reading	191	(4)
The excluded position	195	(1)
Conclusion	196	(1)
Notes	197	(1)
References	197	(2)
Index	199