Without this user-generated flow, culturally and finan-cially powerful media platforms like Facebook, Twitter,Google, and YouTube would be empty software shells.
I agree with this statement and it just goes to show how flow depends on us, the users. Platforms like TikTok or YouTube only exist because we create content, watch, and interact, making us both the source and the audience, which blurs the line between entertainment and participation.
While much of these flows consist of the same sortsof social abstractions that Williams found on television,these information flows have a different and more inti-mate relationship to our lives: they are addressed directlyto us, and often require our response.
This shows that today’s flow isn’t just passive like TV. Social media targets us personally, demanding responses. It makes us part of the system, blurring boundaries between consumption and participation, like pressuring people to get the newest phone or app, which challenges how freely we choose where to focus our attention online.
hat many of us findtelevision very difficult to switch off; that again and again, evenwhen we have switched on for a particular ‘programme’, wefind ourselves watching the one after it and the one after that
It’s true that once we start watching, it’s hard to stop. This happens with social media too, where feeds and algorithm keep us scrolling. It makes you wonder how much we’re actually choosing what to watch, and how much we’re just getting pulled along by a flow that’s designed to keep us glued to the screen.
For the fact is that many of us do sit there, and much of thecritical significance of television must be related to this fact
Williams emphasizes that much of TV’s impact comes from viewers simply sitting and watching. Flow isn’t just a theory, it’s created by actual habits, showing how attention and cultural experience are shaped through continuous viewing.
the real programme that is offeredis a sequence or set of alternative sequences of these and othersimilar events, which are then available in a single dimensionand in a single operation
Williams argues that television’s “real programme” isn’t any single show but the sequence itself. This changes how we think and view TV, since what matters isn’t just each show on its own, but how all the shows, ads, and promos flow together to create the overall experience.
Indeed, when CBS did a MaryTyler Moore Show twentieth-anniversary retrospective in February 1991,they scheduled it to immediately follow Murphy Brown, billing the evening as "Murphy and Mary." The newer show features the same newsroomsetting, the same family of coworkers concept, the same home/office alternation, and the same sophisticated humor. Only the character of Murphydiffers significantly from the older model; she is a loudmouthed (but gorgeous), successful, single career woman in her forties, who would havebeen starting her career about the same time that Mary Richards (then30) joined the WJM news team in 1971. Mary represented the traditionalwoman caught in a network of social change; Murphy represents the fruition of the middle-class women's movement: tough, successful, and aloneas she approaches middle ag
This shows that even though Murphy Brown updates the Mary Tyler Moore formula, it still fits the same sitcom genre. It makes me think that genres can limit how we see a show, because labeling it a sitcom can make people overlook how it actually comments on social issues.
W hen genretheory is applied to the television medium, this danger is even greater, forwe already have cultural preconceptions as to the "sameness" of televisionprogramming-that is, "if you've seen one sitcom, you've seen them all;'
This makes me think about how easy it is to assume that all shows in a genre are the same, but I don’t agree. For example the movie Sinners is generally labeled as horror, but it also represents a metaphor for racism. It feels unfair to simply call it a horror movie when it explores such deep rooted controversial topics.
enres are made,not born. The coherence is provided in the process of construction, and agenre is ultimately an abstract conception rather than something thatexists empirically in the world
When it comes to productions, directors and actors often communicate to decide how certain feelings and scenes should be portrayed, but who interprets it (different social, religious, or racial groups) can view them differently, which shows that genre isn’t always fixed but shaped by the audience's perspective.
ome viewed the genre as a constraint on complete originality and self-expression, but others, following a more classical or mimetic theory of art, felt that these constraints were in factproductive to the creative expression of the author.
From a viewer’s standpoint, I agree with some critics that genres can be limiting. For example, Brooklyn Nine-Nine fits into the police procedural category because of its crime solving plots, but is also considered a sitcom because of the humor.
The very use of the term implies that worksof literature, films, and television programs can be categorized; they arenot unique. Thus genre theory deals with the ways in which a work maybe considered to belong to a class of related works.
It’s interesting that shows get stuck in categories and are considered to not be unique, but the actual aspects of a production, which including the writing, acting, and directing, can be far more unique than other productions in that genre.
bservers oen lamented the tendency of TV torecycle talent and material from radio, movies, and the stage; theyparticularly cited TV’s revival of vaudeville in the form of comedy-varietyprogrammes, among television’s most popular in the 1948–53 period.
This reminds me of how most movies/shows are/were based on fictional stories, and how these films often inspire(d) new movies or rewrites, just like how earlier TV comedy borrowed from older forms of humor from the radio.
e 1950 publication Red Channels: The Report on theCommunist Influence in Radio and Television, consisting largely of a list ofover 150 actors and other television personnel with purported le-wing ties,quily led to a decade-long pervasive political blalist in networktelevision.
Who decided these people were affiliated with communist views or influence, despite it being only alleged?
Faced with risingtime and production costs, television advertisers moved away from singlesponsorship of programmes to various forms of joint sponsorship, cedingprogramme licensing to the networks while retaining a censorship controlover program content in the form of informal or codified lists of proscribedsubjects, aracters, incidents, and languag
This makes me think about modern platforms like social media or AI, which also is used control what users see. Today’s platforms are far more developed can use algorithms to decide in real time what content reaches who. This means they can influence opinions, trends, and behaviors.
Stanton told a Congressional commiee that year that nothing lessthan America’s national unity was at stake: “To curtail or destroy thenetworks’ unique quality of instantaneous national interconnection wouldbe a colossal baward step.
It's interesting to see how TV was once considered essential for national unity, but now many news stations tend to be more in support of different political parties. Which often leads to information being heavily censored, misleading information, and disunity.
satisfying them both means abig problem for televisors”; the television audience in bars preferred sportsand news, industry observers believed, and programming intended for thehigher-income home audience le them cold
This statistic seems realistic because when most people go to bars it’s to relieve stress or have fun, and the news isn’t typically considered a source of entertainment compared to sports.
Typically also, television was considered a remedy for problem ildren.
Back then, TV was promoted as a way to help control “problem” kids, but today, although the internet isn’t exactly TV, things like online videos are a more developed version of television and are often blamed for influencing children’s juvenile behavior. It’s interesting how views on television have somewhat changed since then.
Bythe early 1940s, floor plans included a space for television in the home’sstructural layout, and television sets were increasingly depicted as everyday,commonplace objects that any family might hope to own.
As technology has developed, access to television has become easier to access on multiple devices, whereas back then homes usually aimed to have just a single TV that everyone shared.
e domestic womanneeded to save her energy for housekeeping, ildrearing, and an active(monogamous) sex life with her husband
Compared to the 1950s, women’s roles no longer follow the same standards. Today it’s less common to expect women to only focus on the home and family. Single mothers or working women are more normalized and in some areas even encouraged.
he television was shown to replacethe fireplace altogether, as the magazines showed readers how televisioncould function as the center of family aention
It’s interesting because although there was entertainment before the television, it’s surprising how magazines served as a vital source for entertainment back then, where as we don’t really use them as much in this day.
Televisionwas the great family minstrel that promised to bring Mom, Dad, and thekids together; at the same time, it had to be carefully controlled so that itharmonized with the separate gender roles and social functions of individualfamily members.
Watching TV is one of the few times my family will come together and spend time as a group, similar to families in the 1950s. We also have to unanimously agree on what to watch so everyone is satisfied and not complaining. This is similar to how families back then had to make sure TV was controlled to keep everyone happy and "harmonized".