Television and Common Knowledge

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

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

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

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

FREE SHIPPING

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Television and Common Knowledge

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials