Transparent Critic Becomes Television Confidant

You may be wondering whose blog you have stumbled upon. I may not be an accredited writer, and you may not know my name, but I know a thing or two about television (or at least I like to think I do). That being said, I hope to use my blogs as a guide for television viewers. I want viewers to question what they are seeing and hopefully make a connection with a program. By pursuing these goals I will further my study on the ideas that audiences have different values that effect how they interpret shows and how television programs take these interpretations into effect. These ideas will help me to situate myself as an ordinary audience member who is trying to find meaning in what I am viewing as a transparent critic. By finding meaning in programs and relating to my audience I will act as a television confidant rather than an expert.
My goals for my television criticism include persuading my audience to take a different approach to the programs they are watching, furthering my exploration of the connection between television and an audience, all while bringing a unique perspective to the text I am analyzing. It is important for viewers to approach programs in multiple ways. By keeping an open mind the viewer allows themselves to see many aspects of a show. As a critic I hope to open the viewer up to these new aspects so they can start to see the entire creator’s work coming together. This will help the viewer to find what is important to a particular editor, director, or writer. After viewing shows in this manner the viewer will be able to establish their likes and dislikes for stylistic choices. These stylistic choices will provide a background of knowledge that the viewer will be able to use to make comparisons between multiple shows.
Another key tool that I will push my viewer to use is their cultural background. This tool will help further my exploration of the connection that is created between television programs and their audiences. O’Donnell points to the connection when he states, that it goes “beyond description and evaluation…to a level of deeper cultural diagnosis” (9). Audiences use certain cultural discourses to help interpret what they see. Cultural discourses are often rooted in set value systems and personal experiences. Values such as loyalty, respect, honesty, and reliability are often at the center of television programs. By reaffirming or challenging these values programs help us to determine what we find degrading, heartbreaking, humorous, or uplifting.
Corner and Butler’s view of television draws on the idea that the viewer uses their own cultural beliefs and values to evaluate television and establish a meaning within a program. They believe that audience members bring their own pre-constructed thoughts to a program, but these thoughts may not always align with other audience member’s views. This is why I am interested in television as an object of study with focus on Corner’s idea of centripetal force (5). Corner’s centripetal force is the thought that television unites multiple perspectives. The idea that television is established by bringing together a wide array of meanings can be linked to the humanities approach. This approach states that people find their own multiple meanings through their thought process.
The idea of multiplicity is also linked to Butler’s idea of polysemy, or many meanings (7). The two ideas, centripetal force and polysemy, just go to show that the viewer has an opportunity to make their own judgments and conclusions based on what they see along with their previous knowledge. An example of this could be seen with one of my favorite shows, MTV’s the Real World. I can see that the show is trying to demonstrate the struggles of personal life and the pressures of society on our age group, because this is something that I can relate to as a college student. However someone of the Baby Boomer’s generation may simply see the show as a bunch of drunken college kids with anger issues.
For me this is the most interesting part of television. The thought that the same program can convey a range of different thoughts is fascinating. As a television critic I plan to explore the complexity of having such a wide array of meanings in such a short time span.
While exploring these thoughts I hope to establish myself as a transparent critic (Brudson 312). I want to situate myself as part of the audience. After reading my critiques I want the reader to feel like they are at the same level as me. By making myself into a transparent critic I will take on the challenge of writing a solid critique while keeping the state of mind that the audience and I must be on the same level. I would like to establish a sense of camaraderie with my reader so they will listen to my thoughts and trust what I am saying is valuable information.
As a critic I will use my goals of persuasion, exploration, and meaning making to draw my reader in. By finding the meaning in programs and relating to my audience I will act as a television confidant rather than an expert. I will guide my reader to new possibilities and use evidence and previous knowledge to establish credibility. My readers will come to find that there are various meanings in each television program, but it is the way in which you choose to interpret each meaning that gives the program its true purpose.
References
Brunsdon, C. (1993). Identity in feminist television criticism. Media, Culture and Society, 15: 309-320.
Butler, J. (2002). Television: Critical Methods and Applications (2nd ed). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Corner, J. (1999). Critical Ideas in Television Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Donnell, V. (2007). Television Criticism. New York: Sage.