The History of Television is designed to introduce students to the technological origins, cultural and political impact, and ongoing evolution of TV, a medium that has come to permeate private and public space with a never-ending flow of sounds and images since the 1940s. TV has become the medium through which we experience mass spectacles like the Super Bowl and make judgments about candidates for public office; it tells us stories about what other people are like at work, at home, at play, in big cities and small towns—as heroes, criminals, and clowns, and as mothers, fathers, and children. Its genres and conventions have migrated from traditional broadcasting to cable, DVD, and the laptop screen, yet TV programs remain recognizably TV. In this course, students will examine both TV’s emergence as a distinct medium, as well as its role as a funhouse mirror held up to a changing American society.
Your grade will be determined on the basis of your participation in class discussions, as well as your demonstration of skills such as analyzing primary and secondary sources, correctly citing sources, making clear and effective arguments, and adhering to standards of intellectual honesty and integrity in your work.
The course syllabus provides a general plan for the course; deviations may be necessary. Your constructive assessment of this course plays an indispensable role in shaping education at Georgia State. Upon completing this course, please take time to fill out the online course evaluation.
Students who wish to request accommodation for a disability may do so by registering with the Office of Disability Services. Students may only be accommodated upon issuance by the Office of Disability Services of a signed Accommodation Plan and are responsible for providing a copy of that plan to instructors of all classes in which accommodations are sought.
Assignments and Evaluation
- 20% E-mail responses
- 20% Participation and in-class writing
- 20% First exam
- 20% Second exam
- 20% Final Essay
May 7: Introduction
- Read
- Kartina Richardson, “The Great Sitcom Divide”
- Alana Semuels, “Television Viewing at an All Time High”
- Guiding Questions
- What is a medium?
- What are immediacy and hypermediacy?
- What is the public sphere?
- How did mass media emerge historically?
- How do people decode texts?
May 8: The Nature of Television
- Read
- Raymond Williams, “Programming as Sequence and Flow”
- Sut Jhally and Bill Livant, “Watching as Working: The Valorization of Audience Consciousness”
- Sources
- Guiding Questions
- Why do we watch?
- What is medium specificity?
- How did Marshall McLuhan reshape our understanding of media in the 1960s?
- Is the medium the message?
- What are hot and cool media?
- How is television content organized?
- How is it different from or similar to other media?
May 9: Technological Origins
- Read
- Gary Edgerton, Columbia History of American Television, 113-155
- Sources
- Guiding Questions
- How was television invented? How was it first envisioned?
- How was TV brought to the market?
May 10: From Vaudeville to TV
- Read
- Susan Murray, “Ethnic Masculinity and Early TV’s Vaudeo Star”
- Sources
- The Goldbergs
- Milton Berle and Gertrude Berg
- Jack Benny and Milton Berle
- Your Show of Shows: “The Recital” and “The Professor on Archaeology”
- The Daily Show on Will & Grace
- Red Channels - the Hollywood “blacklist”
- Guiding Questions
- How were conventions of vaudeville and radio translated into the new medium of TV?
- How did broadcasters, writers, and performers invent the basic genres of TV programming?
- How did TV content change over the course of the 1940s and 1950s?
- How did the race and gender politics of TV storytelling change in the medium’s early years?
- How did the geographic setting of TV sitcoms and drama change?
May 11: Race and Gender in Early TV
- Read
- James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, “From Rosie to Lucy”
- Sources
- I Love Lucy
- The Dick Van Dyke Show
- Patricia Heaton on Everybody Loves Raymond
- Henry Youngman on The Ed Sullivan Show
- Newton Minow on “Vast Wasteland” speech
- “Daisy” political ad (1964)
- “Freedom 101”
- Guiding Questions
- How did early sitcoms depict the family?
- How were the roles of men, women, boys and girls defined?
- Who was depicted and who was excluded from the domestic tableaux of American life in the 1950s and 1960s?
- Was TV more a force for replicating and enforcing social norms during this period, or challenging them?
May 14: The Family in the 1970s
- Read
- Jane Feuer, “Narrative Form in American Network Television”
- Sources
- All in the Family
- The Jeffersons
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- What’s Happening!!
- 200 – The United States Bicentennial (1976)
- Exam 1
May 15: Television in Crisis and Transition
- Sources
- The Buggles, “Video Killed the Radio Star“
- Network, dir. Sidney Lumet (view in class)
May 16: The Challenge of Cable and Video
- Read
- Sources
- Videodrome, dir. David Cronenberg (view in class)
- John David Ebert on Videodrome
- Footage of O.J. Simpson murder trial
- Roots part 1
- Willie Horton ad (1988)
- Guiding Questions
- How did TV create a sense of shared participation in public events?
- What were the “imagined communities” that broadcasters promoted through television?
- Does TV still play the same role of uniting audiences in a widely shared experience?
May 17: Film Discussion
- How did the traditionally dominant broadcast networks adapt to the changing social and technological conditions of American society in the 1970s and 1980s?
- How did the creation of new viewing options (including cable, VHS, and satellite) change the experience of viewing?
- With the advent of cable and video, TV definitely began to cater more specifically to particular demographics, with greater freedom from regulation and censorship–but did it also become more manipulative, violent, and/or cynical as a result?
May 18: Class and Cosby in the Reagan Era
- Read
- Cummings, “Gizmo: The Model Minority”
- Sut Jhally, Enlightened Racism, 1-8
- Sources
- The Cosby Show
- Cheers
- Family Ties
- Who’s the Boss?
May 21: Gentrification and the 1990s
- Read
- Julie Bettie, “Class Dismissed? Roseanne and the Changing Face of Working-Class Iconography“
- Ian Svenonius, “The Seinfeld Syndrome“
- Sources
- Roseanne
- Seinfeld
May 22: Global TV
- Read
- Exam 2
May 23: Reality TV and Neoliberal Media
- Read
- Sources
- COPS
- Extreme Makeover
May 24: TV Goes Online
- Read
- Sources
- Talking Points Memo, “Terrymania”
- Josh Marshall, The Set Up
- DJ Le Clown, “X-mas in New York City” (2007)
May 25: The Revival of the Sitcom and Drama
- Read
- Willa Paskin, “What’s ‘Community’ without Dan Harmon?”
- Bolter and Grusin, “The Double Logic of Remediation”
- Sources
- 30 Rock
- Mad Men
May 29: Final Paper Due to Instructor
