Television makes you smarter! I knew all those hours invested in LOST and 24 and The Sopranos were worthwhile (though Reynolds will want to smack Steven Johnson for not mentioning his faves Deadwood and The Wire). I say more TV shows that traffic in a “thick network of affiliations.” For the uninitiated click here (you may need to register but I’m assuming you already are).
If you can post pro-TV nonsense from the NY Times, then I’ll rebut by merely posting a link to Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2117395/
And a quote: “As far as I can tell, his thesis is that television shows have slowly grown more and more complicated over the last two decades (this paradigm shift apparently having begun with Hill Street Blues, the Gutenberg Bible of the smart-TV era), so that now, like rats in a behaviorist’s maze, trained viewers can differentiate among up to 12 distinct plotlines in shows like The Sopranos. (The technical term for this great leap forward in human cognition: “multi-threading.”) In other words, if I understand correctly, watching TV teaches you to watch more TV—a truth already grasped by the makers of children’s programming like Teletubbies, which is essentially a tutorial instructing toddlers in the basics of vegging out. ”
Finally, I’ll note that we are two days into TV Turnoff Week, which seems like a harmless enough cause.
I read through the article and was grateful to find that all that TV viewing has made me smarter. however, I’m somewhat disturbed by the cognitive psuedo-science which appears to treat every narrative as though it’s ideology-free and with structural consequences only (many intersecting narratives,characters, etc.). While 24, for example, may keep my mind firing in order to follow the plotlines, I don’t feel it makes me the least bit smarter in the areas of, say, technology and politics. In fact if I took its viewpoing regarding those areas seriously, I’m afraid it would make me dangerously stupid; technology is presented with the utmost “transparency” where every cell phone and laptop is a jim dandy always functional tool in the service of freedom. as for its politics, well they’re nothing more than comic book stuff, ludicrously centered around a few individuals. I don’t know how seriously to take the article–its attempt to save television seems in its way as simple-minded as the attacks against it for promoting short attention spans and the need for “instant gratification.” I think to come to terms with the effects of these various narratives we would have to discuss all of their components, not merely their sophisticated structures. By the way, I have a “thick network of affiliations” I’m treating with cortisone.
i think it is an interesting analysis, even if its lack of attention to “content” is limiting. then again this is pretty much how i approached “sin city” myself so i’m one to talk.
I would say that watching 24 this season makes me a little bit smarter about the conservative ideologies that fuel this season’s dramatic action with its “between the lines” take on The Patriot Act and its willingness to buy into gross cultural stereotypes about Islamic cultures. And there I am buying into Jack’s need to torture cause there is a nuke out there (I saw it . . . in Iowa of all places) and damnit Jack needs to break a few fingers. And didn’t Cloe, god bless her, mow down a suburb with the largest gun in the world this past Monday? Now that’s entertainment.
I like cute anti-social blondes with machine guns…can anyone suggest a website?
Dana Stevens seems to address many of Frisoli’s concerns in her conversation with the writer of this book over at Slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/2118550/entry/2118588/
It’s a smarter debate about the values (or lack thereof) of popular culture than the Times article.