Media Analysis Project - Thesis and Outline

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“The tribe has spoken.” If you don’t own a TV or don’t watch

it, you will probably have trouble identi- fying that catchphrase. Host Jeff Probst always speaks the words toward the end of each episode of the consistent CBS hit, “Survivor.” The implicit meanness of the phrase, which no contestant wants to hear because it means you are voted off the show, says a lot about the state of television programming and modern society as well. The phrase also signifies that reality or unscripted television has come a long way from “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera,” the innocent ending to a mild practical joke in the 1950s classic (Weblink 13.1).

Reality television includes an amaz- ing number of unscripted programs. Besides the traditional offerings such as news, sports, and talk shows, included in the reality mix are programs based on

documentaries, historical re-creations, dating, law enforcement and military subjects, makeovers, life changes, docu- soaps, hidden cameras, games, spoofs, talent searches, fantasies fulfilled, cooking, commercial sales, and situation comedies where actors ad-lib dialogue without a script (Figure 13.1).

Since 2000, the reality television genre has been a ratings powerhouse with real- ity shows such as “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” in 2000, “Survivor: The Aus- tralian Outback” in 2001, and “American Idol” from 2005 to the present topping the charts over all other shows. One might think there is nothing but reality shows on television, but that is not the case, of course. Nevertheless, reality still dominates schedules and viewer preferences and is the hope for the relatively new broadcast network, The CW. Formed in 2006 after a merger with UPN, a Paramount/CBS

Television Chapter

Television enables you to be

entertained in your home by

people you wouldn’t have in

your home.

David Frost, b. 1939 WRITER, HUMORIST, JOURNALIST

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network, and The WB, a joint venture of the Tribune Broadcasting and Warner Bros. Studios, The CW debuted with a two-hour season premiere of the quasi- talent show “America’s Next Top Model.” To attract the desired 18- to 34-year-old viewing audience, The CW plans to only air young prime-time soap operas and reality shows.

According to Nielsen Media Research for the 1994–1995 season, only two shows could be considered reality-based: “NFL Monday Night Football” and “60 Min- utes.” The ABC sitcom “Home Improve- ment” was the number one show. For the 2008–2009 season, six of the top ten rated programs were reality shows, with more than one quarter of the prime-time episodes as well as cable channels A&E, Bravo, Discovery, and the History Channel dedicated to the genre. “American Idol” topped the list and charges up to $1 mil- lion for a 30-second advertising spot. In a testament to the enduring popularity of “Idol,” it was reported that home view- ers cast almost 100 million votes during the final showdown of the 2009 season between favorite Adam Lambert and dark horse Kris Allen, with Kris winning the competition. Furthermore, the judge everyone loves to hate, the British music entrepreneur Simon Cowell, is also a judge for the Independent Television Network’s (ITV) program “Britain’s Got Talent,” which received international interest after a 48-year-old Scottish church volunteer, Susan Boyle, stunned Cowell and the audience with her beautiful singing voice. A media blitz followed, resulting in over 100 million users watching her perfor- mances on YouTube. In a surprise finish, Boyle ended up taking second place, with a dance group taking first.

The founder of reality programming is Allen Funt (Weblink 13.2). During World

War II while serving in the Army Signal Corps, he experimented with portable radio equipment. He was a writer for “Sweetheart Soap,” which was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s radio program; he came up with funny skits for the popu- lar “Truth or Consequences” show; and he headed what he called “the stupidest show in radio,“ a program called “Funny Money Man,” which was turned into a syndicated comic strip. His interest in gags that made fun of ordinary persons led to “Candid Microphone,” which aired on the ABC Radio Network in 1946 (Weblink 13.3). The next year he took his show to television where it eventually became the smash hit “Candid Camera” in 1953. At one time or another it aired on all three major networks. The show originally consisted of good-humored practical jokes pulled on unsuspecting individuals who were unaware they were being filmed. When the joke had run its course, the catchphrase, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera” would be spoken amid laughter. But not everyone laughed. In an era in which security cameras were

Figure 13.1 In 2003 “The Joe Schmo Show” on the Spike TV cable channel parodied the reality game format by using actors to fool one contestant who thought the game was being played for real. Matt Kennedy Gould (center) never guessed that he was the star until he was told during the final epi- sode. Receiving all the prizes and money offered during the show ameliorated some embarrassment he might have felt. But in a 2008 interview he confessed, “If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t do the show at all. Honestly, the show really made me feel dumb. And I never felt like that before. I did it because I needed the money.” In 2004 the same producers debuted “Joe Schmo 2,” which parodied the reality dating show genre.

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not common, few appreciated the joke played on them. For every scenario that aired, about 20 were rejected because the person did not smile or sign a neces- sary release form for the show. Funt later produced a feature-length reality-based motion picture, What Do You Say to a Naked Lady? (1970).

The first documentary-style reality show seen in America, “An American Family,” was broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network in 1973. Directed by Alan and Susan Raymond, the 12-part series followed the highs and lows of an actual family—Bill and Patricia Loud of Santa Barbara, California, and their five children (Figure 13.2). The series became controver- sial as the family dealt with highly personal issues, including an impending divorce and their son Lance’s homosexuality, using nonintrusive camera techniques similar to today’s “Survivor.” In 2002 TV Guide maga- zine listed the program as number 32 of the “50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.” The family reunited 30 years later for “A Death in An American Family,” which documented Lance’s addiction to crystal meth and his struggle with HIV/AIDS.

In March 1988, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), two important Hollywood unions that represented thousands of actors and writers, went on strike. The SAG strike was less than a month, but the WGA strike lasted five months and devastated the fall lineup of scripted shows. Since television producers did not have shows to air, many popular programs delayed their start until December. However, inno- vative executives realized, as some already knew, that there could be programs with- out the need for actors or writers.

Two hits begun in 1989 required little writing and acting—“Cops” and “Ameri- ca’s Funniest Home Videos.” “Cops” used actual footage from videographers riding along with police units. It was the brain- child of John Langley and Malcolm Bar- bour, who pitched the concept to Stephen Chao, a Fox television programming exec- utive who liked the raw edge of the show, its inexpensive production costs, and its appeal to a young, male demographic valuable to advertisers (Weblink 13.4). Fox, the network that gave “The Simpsons” the green light, is known for being innovative when it comes to programming. “Cops” garnered four Emmy nominations and concerns from social critics about stereo- typing African Americans and southern Anglos. “Funniest Home Videos” was produced by Vin Di Bona for the ABC network and was based on a popular Japanese show, “Fun TV.” Each week the studio audience voted for a top video, with an end-of-the-season winner receiv- ing a $100,000 prize. Originally hosted by comedian Bob Saget, Tom Bergeron is the present host (Weblink 13.5).

“Home Videos” put entertainment producers on notice that everyday per- sons with their video camcorders were potential contributors to their shows.

Figure 13.2 A family portrait of the Louds of Santa Barbara, California, doesn’t reveal the hidden tensions that “An American Family” on the PBS network revealed. The show was the first documentary-style reality program on television.

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In 1991 this trend led directly to what is considered to be “the most famous home video of all time”—the beating of Rod- ney King by members of the police force, taken by amateur George Holliday. King was a recently released convict whose alcoholic father died at age 42. Holliday was an upper-middle-class son of an oil executive, who had been born in Canada but lived most of his life in Argentina. King was out of work and angry. Holliday was a manager of a plumbing company and contented. King was beaten severely by members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Holliday was watch- ing the beating through the viewfinder of his new $1,200 (about $2,000 today) Sony Handycam. King was African Ameri- can, Holliday was Anglo. Excerpts were shown throughout the world, and when the police officers were initially found not guilty in April 1992, many blamed the video for causing unrest that led to the worst civil disturbance in the history of the United States (Weblink 13.6). The vio- lence claimed over 50 lives, caused 2,300 injuries, resulted in hundreds of arrests, and cost more than $1 billion ($1.6 billion today) in property damage (Figure 13.3).

The year 1992 also introduced televi- sion producers and audience members to the strange world of voyeurism. “The Real World,” the first reality-based series to appeal to an enormous television audi- ence, premiered on MTV (Figure 13.4). Co- created by soap opera producer (“As the World Turns” and “Search for Tomorrow”) Mary-Ellis Bunim and documentary film- maker Jon Murray, “The Real World” fea- tured a familiar scenario of several strangers living together in a beautifully furnished house in a major city while viewers watched how their relationships disintegrated or prospered. After a long battle with breast cancer, Bunim, 57, died in Burbank, Califor-

nia, in 2004. Nevertheless, Murray continues to produce reality-based programs. In 2009 MTV aired Pedro, a movie based on the “Real World: San Francisco” cast of 1994, which featured the sad but inspirational story of Cuban American HIV/AIDS victim Pedro Zamora (Weblink 13.7).

Figure 13.3 This high-contrast and blurry still image taken from a television monitor shows Los Angeles police officers Wind and Powell standing over the crouched form of Rodney King in front of his automobile.

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Figure 13.4 In this publicity photograph of the fourth-season cast of “The Real World” (set in Lon- don), all act like the best of friends until they live together with intrusive microphones and cameras.

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In 2009 the genre was criticized for seemingly exploiting willing, yet naïve par- ticipants by airing their public confessions and unusual behavior such that as shown on “The Bachelor” and “The Real House- wives of New Jersey,” as well as the sensa- tional breakup of Jon and Kate Gosselin in “Jon & Kate Plus 8” and the inner life and struggles of the single mother of 14 Nadya Suleman in “Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage.” There was also concern among critics and television executives that some members of the general public might perform dangerous and unethical acts in order to get the attention of real- ity show producers. Richard Heene and his “balloon boy” hoax as well as Michaele and Tareq Salahi who crashed President Obama’s first state dinner were all hoping to attract attention by their antics.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARK BURNETT

Despite the criticisms of reality televi- sion, the title of “king of reality TV” has to go to a British citizen, Mark Burnett, 49, who almost single-handedly defined the reality genre. His list of hits is impressive: “Eco Challenge,” “The Apprentice,” “The Contender,” “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?,” and of course, the winner of them all, “Survivor.”

His life sounds like a pitch for a new situation comedy show (Figure 13.5). Mark Burnett was born in England in 1960. At 18 years old he joined the British Army Para- chute Regiment. He fought in Northern Ireland and in the Falkland Islands. After his discharge in 1982, he left for America. Since he had only $600 (about $1,500 today) in his pocket, he stayed with friends in Southern California. He hoped he might become a mercenary who helped train

Central American military forces in the ways of weapons, explosives, and tactics. But a talk with his mother convinced him to pursue a less romantic lifestyle—at least for the time being. Instead, he was hired as a babysitter for a Beverly Hills couple with a young son and then as a nanny for two boys in Malibu. His selling point to the par- ents was that he could do the dishes and be a bodyguard to his young charges. Not surprisingly, “Commando Nanny” was the name of a scripted pilot he sold to the WB network based on his early experiences liv- ing in Los Angeles.

From that toehold in America, he quickly advanced from selling himself to selling insurance, T-shirts, real estate, credit cards, and television programs. In fact, as a T-shirt salesman in Venice Beach, California, he realized that “the same strategies that applied to selling T-shirts apply to selling TV shows. I still use them today.” His love for physical challenges and salesmanship came in handy when in 1992 he joined a team of fellow adventur- ers for the grueling “Raid Gauloises,” in which four-person teams from around the world competed in a variety of athletic tests for five to seven days over four con- tinents. Seeing the potential of “Raid” as a television program, Burnett sold the idea of his renamed “Eco-Challenge” to MTV executives with teams who biked, rafted, and climbed their way around Moab, Utah, in 1995. With the success of the show, Burnett was on his way to becom- ing a full-time television executive.

“Survivor” has its roots in Burnett’s home country. In 1988 British television pro- ducer Charlie Parsons conceived of a show he called “Survive!” in which four contes- tants were shipwrecked on a desert island. The concept was inspired by William Gold- ing’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies. Renamed “Castaway,” the concept was pitched to the

Figure 13.5 As his towering pose and rugged, accessorized outfit suggest, Mark Burnett is a macho dude. He is a survivor not only of the British Army Parachute Regiment, but also of network television.

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British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) by Parsons for the Planet 24 television com- pany, owned by the Irish political activist and rock star Bob Geldof. The BBC liked the idea so much they decided to produce their own version of the show, “Castaway 2000.” Parsons and Geldof then sold the idea to a Swedish production company with the new name “Exhibition Robinson,” in honor of the novels Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss. The Swedish program featured the setup now familiar to American audi- ences—16 contestants and a camera crew were left on an island for six weeks. Every week, one contestant was voted off until there was a winner. Controversy ensued after the first contestant voted off tragically killed himself. Nevertheless, by the fourth season the last episode was one of the high- est rated shows in Swedish television history.

In 1996, Burnett talked with Parsons at a party and discussed buying the U.S. rights to the program. Burnett pitched

the show to all the major networks with- out success. Finally CBS reconsidered and gave it a try. The first U.S. “Survivor” aired during the summer of 2000. It became more than a hit—it was a cultural phe- nomenon, watched by over 70 million viewers. It earned over $50 million for Viacom, the parent company of CBS. It gave its 16 contestants their 15 minutes of fame and then some. The star of the show and winner of $1 million was a “gay, over- weight corporate trainer from Newport, Rhode Island,” Richard Hatch. Later, Hatch was sentenced to four years in prison after he was convicted for not paying taxes on his winnings (Figure 13.6).

Since 2000, Mark Burnett has been the executive producer of more than 40 televi- sion programs, including “The Apprentice” for NBC, in which contestants or B-level celebrities vie to work for real estate tycoon Donald Trump and his comb-over; “The Casino” for Fox, which documented the efforts of owners, employees, and

Figure 13.6 Although the infographic at the right of the website page indicates that viewers thought former Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch would win the $1 million, Richard Hatch came away with the cash. This website for the first “Sur- vivor” contains familiar fea- tures—top four final words, profiles of the contestants, the logo and slogan “Outwit Outplay Outlast,” and three promotional references for the next show, “Survivor: The Australian Outback.”

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gamblers during the reopening of the Las Vegas Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino; “The Contender” for NBC, produced with DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and actor Sylvester Stallone of Rocky (with boxers Sugar Ray Leonard and George Foreman conducting on-air interviews); and “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” hosted by comedian Jeff Foxworthy for Fox. In 2009 Burnett ventured into the genre of documentaries when he produced a series for the History Channel, “Expedi- tion Africa: Stanley & Livingstone,” in which four adventurers retraced the 19th century journalist Henry Stanley’s search for the explorer Dr. David Livingstone.

ANALYSIS OF “SURVIVOR”

Schadenfreude is a German word that literally translates to “harm’s joy,” but roughly means taking pleasure from

another’s misfortune. This concept might explain why the personal shortcomings of celebrities are so popular in tabloid maga- zines and on television. It also explains why it is amusing to learn that “Survivor” host Jeff Probst “was stung by a jellyfish during Survivor 1, received an electric shock when he relieved himself on an electric fence in Survivor 2 and was stung by a scorpion in Survivor 3.” Certainly the Emmy awards he won in 2008 and 2009 for his work as host of the show made him feel better (Figure 13.7).

Although there is little doubt that the popularity of the show is because it “is part escapism and part game show, a chance to watch attractive, scantily clad contestants battle physically and psycho- logically in beautiful, contrived settings, and guess who will be voted off the island each week,” a chief factor in its success is also that each contestant is humiliated and humbled. With a wide range of ages, genders, races, ethnicities, and lifestyle choices among the participants, chances are a viewer somewhere will either iden- tify with or wish ill of someone who hap- pens to make it on one of the most popu- lar television shows in America.

Toward that end, the application that everyone must fill out for the show is quite egalitarian. All are welcome to apply: You need only be at least 21 years old and willing to travel at your own expense for an initial interview, have a lot of time on your hands during the sum- mer, be a U.S. citizen who is not running for a political office, be in excellent physi- cal and mental health, and be able to pro- duce a three-minute video about yourself. Those who are picked for the 16 spots are a familiar representation of people you might find standing alongside you in a post office or at a driver’s license bureau. Mark Burnett makes that aspect of the

Figure 13.7 Jeff Probst shows off his Emmy award in 2009 after winning it for hosting “Survivor.”

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show clear when he states, “My goal with ‘Survivor’ was to show how a small group of normal people would interact with one another when stranded under harsh con- ditions, while at [the same] time trying to win one million dollars.”

“Survivor” works because we can all see ourselves as a survivor; but as most of us did not apply to be on the show, we take pleasure in passively watching our sur- rogate selves search for water, sleep in the rain, eat bugs, and survive the vote off the show. As Ghen Maynard, a CBS executive who was an early advocate of the show, admitted, “‘Survivor’ is very much about two things: The effect of deprivation and the fear of rejection. Both are social issues.”

With humidity, rain, sand, and electri- cal power concerns, running, shooting, and editing the show is no easy matter. The 39-day shooting schedule requires a crew of 85 members. Ten teams of film- makers—each consisting of one camera and one audio technician as well as sev- eral editors, art designers, construction personnel, island guides, a medical team, a makeup person, and various other techni- cal members—are only part of the “Sur- vivor” production team. Available light is used during daytime scenes, whereas the “Tribal Council” meeting scenes have stage lighting powered by portable gen- erators and car batteries. Night scenes back at the camps are filmed with special low-light cameras.

One of the reasons Mark Burnett has been financially successful is that he has redefined the way advertising is shown; in fact, much of it is sold by Burnett him- self. Because of its popularity, “Survivor” receives more than $400,000 per 30-sec- ond commercial. But Burnett also has been a leader in product and marketing “integration,” in which he gets advertisers to pay extra for product placements. That

is why Jeff Probst, the host, often entices hungry and exhausted contestants with “a bag of Doritos and a can of Mountain Dew” as prizes for that week’s competi- tion. But those aren’t the only sponsors. Contestants are also teased with products from Tylenol, Home Depot, Proctor & Gamble, and Chevrolet, among others. Mixing advertising and programming is unfortunately a fact of doing business in this age of TiVo, Video on Demand, and web television viewing options in an era in which viewers can control when and what they watch.

The most dramatic part of any episode, when members discuss each other and vote one of the group off the game, is a product of sophisticated editing tech- niques. The dénouement takes several hours of carefully worded questions from Probst with the scene edited down into a seven-minute segment. “At its purest level, there is really no such thing as real- ity TV,” says Chris Cowen of the canceled show “Temptation Island.” “As soon as you start condensing the minutes or hours of a day, it ceases to be reality and is now a manipulated form of reality.” In addition, the producers do not always tell contestants all the information they need to know about living in the remote area. For example, in an episode of the “Sur- vivor All-Stars,” Sue Hawk caused other contestants to worry when she drank water right out of a well before it had been boiled to kill any parasites. But the water was safe to drink. The producers of the show didn’t reveal that information to members of the tribe in order to heighten the drama.

The unscripted reality program format has inspired other producers to try a similar technique with their shows. Criti- cally acclaimed but often audience- challenged shows such as HBO’s “Curb

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Your Enthusiasm,” Comedy Central’s “Reno 911!,” and the cancelled Fox pro- gram “Arrested Development” all allowed the actors to ad-lib their lines after being given brief outlines with plot points. Such techniques may be the answer to any future writers’ strike, since extensive writ- ing is not required.

In many ways, “Survivor” and other game-oriented reality programs feature the best and worst elements about televi- sion and American society. The people chosen for the unscripted program, the situations and challenges they must overcome, and the dramatic camerawork and careful editing help sustain interest for 13 one-hour episodes. Each season epitomizes all the elements needed for a top television program when characters, situations, words, pictures, and audio come together within the confines of the screened medium and are combined with the comfort of watching the show at home (Weblink 13.8).

TELEVISION AND THE SIX PERSPECTIVES

Personal Perspective

Television is easy to criticize. Former Fed- eral Communications Commission (FCC) chair Newton Minow in a 1961 speech called the medium “a vast wasteland.” Philosopher Bertrand Russell growled that it is nothing more than “chewing gum for the eyes.” In some cultures, it is hip to criticize “the boob tube.” Mark Miller, in his book Boxed In, writes that “a great deal of the time when we are watching TV we know that it is stupid and enjoy the feeling of superiority.” Mark Frost, co-creator with David Lynch of the short- lived and critically acclaimed “Twin Peaks”

television series, admits, “In this country, television is used primarily as a narcotic to prepare people for the commercial.” David Chase, the creative force behind HBO’s successful series “The Sopranos,” also has a dim view of television. In a 2004 interview Chase said, “Television is at the base of a lot of our problems. It trivial- izes everything. So there’s no more mys- tery, we’ve seen it all 50,000 times. And in order to make the boring interesting, everything is hyped.” Tough words from someone who has been so successful with the medium.

Many viewers use a remote control device to flip from one program to another in the sometimes frustrating effort to find something interesting to watch. Called channel grazing, the curi- ous habit of discovering a good program without the aid of a television guide evokes the wide-open plains of the Old West—the metaphor of a better life over the next hill or around the bend. That promise of a better program through the next push of a button is where television gets its power.

In the early history of the medium, viewers were content to be intrigued by the low-quality flickering pictures. With few stations and programs, people watched whatever was broadcast because they were easily fascinated. Today, view- ers are more fickle, demanding constant entertainment. The reason is simple— television actually is radio with pictures, and radio has roots deep in vaudeville the- ater. Consequently, television always was meant to be more of an entertainment than an educational medium. The high ideals and educational hopes came later. If you learn something from “The Beverly Hillbillies” or “Masterpiece Theatre,” it is only because entertainment has been made educational. Conversely, producers

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of more serious television fare hope that they make education entertaining.

Whether you don’t watch television at all or watch it for several hours each day, one conclusion is clear: TV is a medium in which the viewer is charged with the task of making sense of it all. Jack Perkins said of the Arts & Entertainment cable network that it “shows the entire scope of television, which is, of course, the entire scope of life.” Television is life because it reveals much about the lives of those inside and outside the screen. Whether conscious of television’s effect or blissfully unaware, people eventually succumb to the enticing images that flicker across the glowing glass or plasma frame.

Probably the chief reason why televi- sion is so routinely criticized is the queasy feeling that comes from the thought that despite all the great moments pre- sented—all the news, drama, comedy, and sports—television never has lived up to its potential. One source that helps to improve the medium’s credibility is the Archive of American Television. It pro- vides one of the best resources for the appreciation of television in a collection that contains more than 1,000 hours of interviews with producers, performers, and production personnel (Weblink 13.9). Regardless, there is always a feeling that television should be something more— something better. Stay tuned (Figure 13.8).

Historical Perspective

In the 1930s when Hollywood executives first learned about the new medium of television, they laughed at the idea of a radio with pictures. In the 1940s they were concerned enough to reduce ticket prices and offer double features. In the 1950s the war was over—television had

become the single most popular form of entertainment for Americans. The laugh- ing stopped.

The birth of modern television began in 1922 after two scientists with West- ern Electric, the research arm of AT&T, started selling the cathode ray tube (CRT), a vacuum tube that accelerates a beam of electrons onto a florescent screen (Figure 13.9). That same year, an Idaho high school student, Philo (or Phil, as he preferred) Farnsworth, 14, inspired by the rows of upturned soil after plow- ing his family’s field, invented a model for television (Weblink 13.10). Five years later, Farnsworth transmitted a vertical black line on a CRT that moved back and forth like his plow against a lit background. He

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Figure 13.9 This diagram for a black-and- white television receiver (color sets have three cathode ray tubes [CATs], one for each pri- mary color) identifies its vari- ous parts. Within a vacuum tube, electron beams are focused on a fluorescent screen to make it glow with a picture. For the most part, plasma, liquid crystal, digital light processing (DLP), and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have replaced the CATs.

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Figure 13.8 Old, small-screen television sets are a part of this histori- cal display in the Amberley Working Museum, England.

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called his device an “image dissector.” In 1928, at 20 years old, he demonstrated his invention to investors at his San Francisco laboratory by showing them a transmis- sion of, perhaps fittingly, a dollar sign. In 1929 his wife Elma, known as “Pem,” posed for a live image with her eyes closed because of the bright light needed for the picture. Farnsworth later established research centers in Indiana and his birth state of Utah. He is credited with 300 U.S.

and international patents contributing to advances in radar, the electron micro- scope, and the astronomical telescope (Figure 13.10).

Because of the interest in television, GE, RCA, and Westinghouse scientists merged their research operations in 1930. Russian immigrant Vladimir Zworykin headed the television team. He visited Farnsworth and was impressed enough to have his engineers produce a copy. In their labora- tory in New Jersey, the scientists improved on Farnsworth’s invention with what they called the iconoscope electronic scanning tube for television with patents purchased from Kálmán Tihanyi. The Hungarian inventor introduced his Radioskop system in 1926. RCA’s variation of television was more practical than Farnsworth’s process because it required less light. Nevertheless, the first transmission was a crude, 60-line reproduction of a small cartoon drawing of the popular character Felix the Cat, the work of Australian cartoonist Pat Sullivan and American animator Otto Messmer. However, the first networked demonstra- tion of television in the United States occurred on April 7, 1927, via the technol- ogy of AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories. The live picture and voice of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover was broadcast from a funeral home in Washington, D.C., to a receiver in an auditorium in New York City. “Today we have, in a sense, the transmission of sight for the first time in the world’s history,” Hoover said. “Human genius has now destroyed the impedi- ment of distance in a new respect, and in a manner hitherto unknown.” Later that same day another demonstration sent a televised image via a radio transmission.

However, with RCA’s head start and financial advantage, the AT&T system couldn’t compete. The iconoscope was soon improved with a 441-line picture

Figure 13.11 More than 44 million people attended the 1939 New York World’s Fair held in Flushing Meadows, the author’s birth- place. Part of the attraction was the NBC exhibition that featured television. President Franklin Roosevelt delivered an opening day speech that was televised by NBC for about 1,000 viewers watching on 200 sets in the New York area.

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ryFigure 13.10 “Philo Farnsworth with a television set he invented,” 1928. The profile of the woman on the small, round screen is most likely simu- lated for this publicity shot, because the quality of the TV image was never that good.

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scanner. The success of these experiments led David Sarnoff, president of RCA, to decide in 1932 to invest heavily in this new technology. It was Sarnoff who came up with the word television. The New York World’s Fair in 1939 first introduced the American public to the new medium (Figure 13.11).

Concerned about competing tech- nologies that would delay the spread of television, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a U.S. regulatory body overseeing radio and television, autho- rized sets to contain a 525-line electron scanner for black-and-white transmission in 1941. World War II temporarily halted the spread of television because of the need for the country to concentrate on the war effort. During the war years, only six stations were broadcasting to about 10,000 sets in the United States. Most of them were in bars, bowling alleys, appli- ance store windows, and the homes of wealthier families. Broadcasting was lim-

ited to a short time in the evening. Radio employees re-created their popular pro- grams, announced some news, and nar- rated sporting events.

After the war, attention once again turned to television, and commercial television broadcasting began in earnest. NBC, CBS, and ABC dominated the mar- ket because of the expense of establish- ing a network and the limited number of stations operating in any one area. The popular vaudeville-style variety shows of Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan were typical broadcasts (Figure 13.12).

Many writers have dubbed the 1950s the “golden age” of television because of technological and programming innova- tions. One fact is clear: During the decade, television gained a tremendous number of viewers and became a true mass medium.

Fifteen million homes in the United States had television sets by 1956, and 500 broadcast stations in the United States were generating more than $1 billion

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Figure 13.12 “The Ed Sullivan Show” was one of the most popular variety shows on television. Broadcast from 1948 to 1971, it was hosted by the genial yet awkward host Ed Sullivan. Elvis Presley and The Beatles are among the countless acts that were introduced to the American public on the show. Today the theater where the show originated is named after Sullivan, and it is where “The Late Show with David Letterman” is produced.

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($8 billion today) in advertising sales. In addition to movie stars, theater actors were persuaded to perform on television in the mid-1950s. For example, the “I Love Lucy” show was a landmark produc- tion in 1951 for many reasons. Produced by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz through their Desilu production company in studios purchased from the failed movie studio RKO, the situation comedy was filmed with three cameras in front of a live audience and was enormously suc- cessful. Filmed productions meant that the shows could be shown again and again as reruns for additional profits.

Several attempts were made in the 1950s to censor content and individu- als. In 1950, Senator Estes Kefauver led a movement to curtail violence por- trayed on television programs. Kefauver’s attempts at censorship coincided with another senator’s effort to root out alleged Communists in the government and media. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin helped publish Red Channels: The Report

of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. The report listed 151 suspects, whom the networks blacklisted because of fear of advertiser boycotts. In 1952, the FCC, concerned about the content of pro- grams sent into homes, required that 10 percent (later increased to 35 percent) of a day’s broadcasting be educational. This regulation marked the beginning of the FCC’s shift from technical issues to con- tent regulation. McCarthy was discredited and later censured by the Senate in 1954 after a news broadcast by Edward R. Mur- row, the CBS journalist, who revealed McCarthy’s unfair smear practices.

In 1958 a quiz show scandal rocked the television industry. A congressional inves- tigation discovered that contestants had been coached with the correct answers in order to make the programs more dra- matic. The networks canceled many quiz shows after Charles Van Doren testified that he had been given the answers for the show “Twenty-One” (Figure 13.13). Quiz shows soon returned to daytime

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Figure 13.13 Host Jack Barry of the tainted television quiz show “Twenty- One” turns toward contestant Charles Van Doren as fellow contestant Vivienne Near- ing looks on. Canceled in 1958 after a congressional investigation discovered that the show was rigged, the “Twenty-One” scandal had a lasting effect on all televi- sion game shows and their participants. Jack Barry was forced into exile and didn’t work again on television until a decade later. Nearing, who at the time was a lawyer for Warner Bros. and beat champion Van Doren, was disbarred for six months after being convicted of lying to a grand jury about the show. Charles Van Doren resigned his position as an assistant professor at Columbia Uni- versity, but he became an editor for the Encyclopædia Britannica, author of several books, and is now an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut, Torrington, for the English department, along with his wife, Gerry. Sponsor- controlled involvement in the playing of game shows was eliminated, and contestants were forbidden to have any personal conversations with a host.

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television, but under much stiffer regula- tions. The controversy was examined in the 1994 movie Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford (Weblink 13.11).

Color, videotape, and cable were intro- duced in the 1950s. However, CBS and RCA proposed two different systems for camera and receiver color. The FCC tried to delay the switch to color, fearing that the transition would be too expensive. Nevertheless, the FCC approved RCA’s color technology as the industry standard. The first color television set was intro- duced in 1954 at a cost of $1,000 (about $8,000 today). Because of the high cost of the sets and the time required for stations to convert to color, they were not imme- diately popular.

In the late 1950s, a southern California company, Ampex, who was more known for its sound equipment, began working on a videotape system. At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) annual convention in Chicago in 1956, Charles Ginsburg demonstrated the new method for recording programs. The convention was set up with closed-circuit televi- sion for those not able to get into the auditorium. Ginsburg tapped into the system, recorded a few minutes of the proceedings, and played the tape back for astonished attendees. Within days of the NAB convention, Ampex received about 50 orders for its $74,000 videotape system (about $600,000 today). CBS was one of the first customers and began rebroad- casting its nightly news program called “Douglas Edwards and the News” to its West Coast affiliates at a normal viewing time (Figure 13.14).

Another innovation of using videotape was that it allowed high-quality reproduc- tions of programs, so that huge amounts of money could be made from showing reruns of previously aired shows. Desi

Arnaz no longer had a monopoly with his filmed reruns. In 1967 the public became aware of the potential for videotape tech- nology to add to their viewing pleasure when instant replay was introduced dur- ing a Super Bowl football game. With the advent of instant replay technology for sports programs, ABC became a leading network. In addition, new sports leagues were formed to take advantage of the tremendous profits by selling commercials during televised sporting events.

Cable or pay television began as a way to bring television to communities in Pennsylvania that were nestled among mountains that prevented over-the-air reception. The cable company received television signals and then piped them into individual homes through coaxial cable links. Customers paid about $10 a month for the service (or about the price of cable today, $80). By 1960, more than 90 percent of the homes in the United States had at least one television set. Cable companies flourished, with more than 650,000 subscribers and 640 differ- ent cable firms. Besides better reception, viewers with cable could get many more channels and commercial-free sporting events and movies. In 1962, AT&T and Figure 13.14

Begun in 1944 by the Rus- sian-born engineer Alexander M. Poniatoff, Ampex (his ini- tials combined with “EX” for excellence) is an electronics company more known for its audio equipment. However, in 1956 the VR-1000A shown here was the first videotape recorder introduced by the company. One reel of tape cost $300 ($2,400 today), and the entire machine was priced at about $100,000 ($803,000 today).SS

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NASA collaborated to develop and launch the first communications satellite, Telstar I. With other launches, live same-time programming across the United States became popular.

Action-adventure dramas produced outside of theater studios were the most popular shows. One of the most controversial was the Desilu production of “The Untouchables.” With its Elliot Ness–inspired stories, car crashes, and fly- ing bullets, the show, according to a Sen- ate subcommittee, was “the most violent program on television.” Concerned that Congress might seek censorship through legislation, network executives moved most of their production facilities to Cali- fornia, where Hollywood was responsible for mass appeal, inoffensive sitcoms such as “Mr. Ed,” “Gilligan’s Island,” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Although most of these entertainment programs were criticized, news and sports during the politically troubled 1960s

were experiencing their own golden age. With satellite and videotape technology, news programs could cover many social and political events. The 1960 televised presidential debate between John Ken- nedy and Richard Nixon demonstrated to political managers the importance of a candidate’s image on television for the first time (Figure 13.15). Vivid images of assassinations, civil rights marches, politi- cal speeches, and the Vietnam War had a tremendous impact on viewers who watched them on their home screens. The effect of bringing the outside world’s problems into the home was that the social problems protested in the 1960s could not be ignored.

In the 1970s, the federal government became much more proactive in regu- lating television content. Congressional action banned cigarette commercials from television in 1972. (To avoid a similar fate, beer company advertisements never show a person actually drinking.) In that

Figure 13.15 During the 1960 presidential campaign, Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon agreed to have one of their debates televised for the first time ever. Broadcast from NBC studios in Washington, surveys con- ducted afterward indicated that those who heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won, whereas those who watched it on television thought Kennedy came out ahead. Consequently, the visual image of candidates became a serious consideration for politi- cians and their handlers even though the next televised presi- dential debate didn’t occur until 1976, between Governor Jimmy Carter and President Gerald Ford. Be

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same year, cable became competitive with the broadcast networks when Home Box Office (HBO) started to air second-run movies. Also, spin-offs, or shows based on characters from previously broadcast pro- grams, proliferated. For example, the pop- ular sitcoms “All in the Family” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” resulted in 15 separate spin-offs and gave independent television production companies—Tan- dem for “Family” and MTM Productions for “Moore”—as much financial clout as the movie studios.

During this era, professional electronic news gathering (ENG) videotape trucks were equipped with all the switching and editing equipment found in a station’s control room. Large ENG trucks became common sights outside sports stadiums when games were televised. When the technology became linked with satellites and the equipment grew smaller, local news stations could send news teams to cover events anywhere in a city or the world. To further increase the popular- ity of home video recording equipment, in the 1980s Sony introduced its Video 8 camera (the palmcorder). It was a small, lightweight camera that used high-quality 8-mm tape. Home users also desired the ability to record and watch feature-length movies. When videotaped movies became available for overnight rental in 1977 from a single store in Los Angeles, they were instantly enormously popular. That led Mel Brooks, the director of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, to remark that “pictures never die. They go to heaven. It’s called video.”

An economic downturn in the 1980s caused companies to merge to save money. Capital Cities Communication bought ABC, General Electric purchased NBC’s parent company RCA, and West- inghouse bought CBS. Cost-cutting mea-

sures at all three networks resulted in fewer highly trained journalists in their news divisions. This move allowed Ted Turner’s 24-hour news channel, the Cable News Network (CNN), to become the preeminent source for worldwide news. To further protect their investments, television networks, cable companies, and movie studios formed partnerships. In 1985, Australian tabloid mogul Rupert Murdoch bought half control of the movie studio 20th Century Fox. Two years later the Fox Broadcasting Company, a fourth broadcasting network, introduced one night per week of Fox-produced shows to its 105 independent stations. With the success of “The Simpsons” and “Cops,” its programming, once dominated by reruns, expanded to include several original productions and news shows.

In 2009 a technological shift as funda- mental as the move from black-and-white to color television sets took place: the transition from analog to digital broad- casting and receiving. Implementation of the switch to high definition, digital television (called HDTV or simply DTV) was delayed several times while regula- tors worked with manufacturers to make sure the technology was the best possible and the government worked with vari- ous agencies and public groups to make sure citizens were informed fully of what would be needed for the transition to digital. Despite all the publicity about the switch, anywhere from one to three million lower-income, elderly, disabled, young, and non-English-speaking U.S. households lost their television signal because they watched television via an antenna and failed to get a converter box for the DTV digital signal.

Equally transformational to the his- tory of television is the way viewers can now watch their favorite programs. Seth

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MacFarlane, the creator of the animated situation comedy “Family Guy” on the Fox network, said, “I think what we’re seeing right now is a great cultural shift of how this country watches television.” He was referring to the trend toward seeing shows on a computer. A Nielsen Media Research survey discovered that 25 percent of all internet users watch televi- sion episodes online. And with all those viewers, more programs are produced. For example, the successful team of Mar- shall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick (“My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething”) produced “quarterlife,” a drama that was originally available to users of the MyspaceTV.com social networking site in 2007. The series also aired on NBC and Bravo (Weblink 13.12). Some critics have predicted that because of the switch to DTV, more viewers will forego watching programs on their actual television sets and use their computers and cell phones instead as higher-quality 4G (or Fourth Generation) wireless internet connections become the norm.

Technical Perspective

Movie studio executives laughed when they first saw television because they never believed that the small, fuzzy black- and-white picture, with its poor audio component, would ever be a serious threat to their industry. What they did not imagine was how resourceful techni- cians would be in improving the medium. Over the years, cameras, transmission modes, and receivers have been refined continuously.

Cameras

A video camera’s controls are similar to those of a still camera, and shot

considerations are determined in the same way as those in motion pictures. A camera has a tube or microchip, called a charge-coupled device (CCD), that con- verts the image into an electrical equiva- lent. When a television operator focuses on a subject with the camera’s lens, the picture strikes a layer of photosensitive material consisting of dots, which emit an electrical charge. A dot in a light part of a picture sends a higher charge than one in a darker part of the image. All the electri- cal charges from the dots strike a target and compose an electrical version of the image in the form of 525 lines (or 636 or 840 lines for non-U.S. systems). An elec- tron gun in the back of the camera gener- ates a steady stream of electrons that scan the target. In the U.S. system, the electron scanning starts with the odd-numbered lines and repeats the process with the even-numbered lines. The two scans take 1/30th of a second, or accomplishes the scanning at a rate of 30 frames a second.

The scanned electrical images are sent through a wire to monitors in the master control area of the station, where a direc- tor composes the program by switching from one camera’s image to another. These images are recorded on videotape to be broadcast at a later time or are transmitted immediately.

Transmission Modes

Television signals can be sent to a home through the air and picked up from rooftop antennae and satellite dishes or by telephone lines and coaxial or fiber optic cable. Originally a home required a large roof-mounted antenna to pick up the audio and video signals sent by a broadcast television station. The sound signal was sent via an FM radio frequency. The pictures came from either VHF or UHF channels on the electromagnetic

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spectrum. Both VHF and UHF are known as line-of-sight carrier waves. The more powerful VHF stations can usually go around barriers such as buildings, moun- tains, or large weather systems, but UHF channels are susceptible to interference. The broadcasting of television programs by VHF and UHF stations first introduced television into people’s homes. However, such methods are obsolete since the switch to DTV.

Since the 1970s, consumers have been able to buy large and expensive receiv- ing dishes and point them in a southern direction to capture television images from a satellite in a geosynchronous orbit around the earth. People living in rural communities, where broadcast stations didn’t reach and the distance

was too far for the local cable company to string wire to their houses, first used these dishes (Figure 13.16). But viewers in cities learned that they could receive hundreds of channels from all over the world and many premium cable net- works (e.g., HBO, Showtime, the Playboy Channel, and others) without having to pay a monthly charge. Direct broadcast satellites (DBSs) are the new genera- tion of reception technology that use digital transmission to send hundreds of channels to 18-inch-diameter, window- mounted dishes with high-quality images and sound. For example, Hughes Elec- tronics Corporation, with its DirecTV service, has three high-powered satellites in space that enable home users to receive more than 185 television channels.

Figure 13.16 Many people living in rural communities are too far away to receive television broadcast signals and find that getting a cable connection is too expen- sive. Consequently, they are forced to buy satellite dishes. This photograph is a study in contrast. A woman outside Bloomington, Indiana, burns her own trash—an ancient chore—amid two satellite dishes; she explains, “I have two TVs.”

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However, most viewers of television don’t use an antenna. The most com- mon home connections for television are through cable. Coaxial cable comprises two wires that are separated by insula- tion; one cable transmits the sound, and the other transmits the picture. A cable company pays a fee to receive signals from program producers via a large satel- lite dish. The coaxial cable connects the operator’s facility to a person’s home. Depending on the services desired, a home can receive anywhere from 50 to 500 channels. The cable company sup- plies a converter box that connects to the television set and changes the cable signal so that the receiver can show the images. However, most new TV sets are “cable- ready,” having a built-in signal converter.

Receivers

High-definition digital television (HDTV or DTV) presents pictures as sharp as high-quality photographs—ten times the picture resolution obtained by traditional analog television broadcasts. In addition, the sound is of DVD quality. In order to receive the digital signal, home users either are connected through their cable com- pany or have a set-top box that converts the digital signal from an antenna to an analog version for a TV set. Many of the

estimated 15 million households who use antennas to receive a TV signal com- plained that the picture was poor and they lost some channels in the transmission.

With digital transmissions, television sets are interactive computers in which users can order shows when they want to view them, watch sporting events from specific cameras on the field, learn more information about a program’s topic through the web, order products seen in shows, and so on (Figure 13.17). In 2009, plasma slim-screen DTV manufacturer Fujitsu offered a 50-inch monitor for $4,499. It was a bargain when compared with the 65-inch model, which was originally priced at $17,999. In addition, most plasma television sets require much more electrical power to operate, which adds, depending on the size, more than $100 to an annual bill. Panasonic makes a 103-inch plasma display that is too big for most home dens, but it can be seen in shopping areas and bars (Weblink 13.13). An alternative is a backlit LED (light-emitting diode) receiver such as Vizio Inc.’s 55-inch receiver, which is far less expensive and uses less energy as well. The granddaddy of big screens is the pair of HD monitors that hang over the play- ing field of the Dallas Cowboys football stadium. The largest in the world—60 yards wide and 20 yards tall—they use 36 million LEDs that show 25,000 square feet of football action. This Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision System cost $40 million. With such a huge, clear picture, will fans bother to watch the live action?

Receiver add-ons, such as amplified “surround sound” speaker systems and digital video players and recorders like those available from TiVo and other com- panies, are a necessity for many home viewers who want to duplicate a movie theater experience and/or watch a show Co

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Figure 13.17 Perhaps it’s a bit much to ask of a big-screen TV set, but according to promotional material from Hitachi, the “Inspire the Next” slogan refers to the company’s “being a new breath of air that will infuse the next gen- eration and future societies, and expresses our attitude of applying the ‘pioneering spirit’ . . . to confront the challenges of that next generation.”

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at a later time. Similar to the technological war in the 1970s between videocassette tape formats Betamax and the Video Home System (VHS), the Japanese cor- porate giants Sony and Toshiba fought over the format of high-definition DVDs. Although named Blu-ray, Sony’s discs actually use the violet-colored part of the electromagnetic spectrum and thus can hold much more video, audio, and text data than red-light CDs because of their faster wave frequency. Toshiba’s HD DVD competing blue laser format was discontinued in 2008 after major movie studios and retailers went with the Blu-ray format.

Ethical Perspective

If you let water gush into a kitchen sink for hours, keep all the lights on during the day, or leave the doors and windows wide open at your home, chances are that eventually you will be criticized for such careless behavior. But a television set left on, even when no one is watching, is a cultural standard. Over a 20-year period, the average household will have a televi- sion set operating for almost six years. More disturbing, a 2004 study of 2,600 kids from birth to age seven found that for every hour preschool children watch television, their chances of acquiring a form of attention deficit disorder (ADD) go up to about 10 percent. Another study conducted by the Kaiser Family Founda- tion found that 36 percent of the 1,000 families surveyed had the TV on all day, and 43 percent of children between four and six years old had a TV in their bed- rooms where they could watch programs unsupervised. Not surprisingly, it has been found that children who watch 10 or more hours of television a day have lower

reading scores than those who watch less TV. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of two not watch any television.

It is no coincidence that a television set usually sits in the most comfortable room in a home. Although an impersonal appliance, it evokes the same emotional response as a favorite chair, a soft pillow, or an interesting friend. Television char- acters become comfortable personalities whom we invite into our lives. Talk-show hosts and nightly newscast announc- ers look right into the camera and talk directly to us. The television set must remain on—no one wants to offend a friend.

Television demands a price for its friendship. The cost is acceptance of the image of the moment as real and rep- resentative of society as a whole. Such a belief comes from the cultural notion that education and learning are bitter-tasting medicines that end once you are out of school. Acceptance of this notion comes from laziness and peer acceptance. The popular notion is that television is only a form of entertainment, meant to give a laugh or a thrill. Serious, sensitive social issues do not belong on television. Such programming is considered boring, high- minded, and elitist.

Entertainment and education have been merged into something called “edutainment.” Programs and com- mercials all have the same interest level and visual style. Fiction and nonfiction in drama and news shows are jumbled together. Small, insignificant issues become important trends because the medium blows them out of proportion. Vital, important concerns get reduced to a small screen over dinner. Simpleminded stereotypes about people and generaliza- tions about communities are reinforced.

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As much as we love television, it is a medium that we love to hate—especially for its reliance on ratings, stereotyping, and sexual and violent themes.

Ratings

Lynn Gross, in her textbook See/Hear: An Introduction to Broadcasting, writes that an unnamed television executive once said, “There are only two rules in broad- casting: Keep the ratings as high as pos- sible and don’t get in any trouble.” The only networks that sell entertainment in the tradition of Hollywood are the pre- mium cable channels. All other networks, especially the “big four,” rely on ratings. Shows need not only large audiences but also viewers who are younger, upscale, and likely to buy the advertised products. An emphasis on ratings relegates high- quality broadcasting to the low-rated Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which depends on government support and viewer and corporate donations.

Stereotypes

Expecting television programs to be completely free from some kind of ste- reotyping of individuals is unreasonable. Someone, somewhere, is bound to object to a media characterization. But because of the enormous scope and influence of television, producers need to be especially sensitive to characterizations that have the potential to cause harm. The problem is that Anglo producers often are unaware of the concerns of those from other cul- tures. One way of ensuring sensitivity to cultural awareness is by hiring people from diverse cultures. The National Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) released a report in 2008 that chastised the industry for its Anglo-

centric programs. But a surprising devel- opment of all the reality television shows is the diversity that can be seen on the programs. Asians, African Americans, and Latinos are often featured contestants in such shows as CBS’s “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor,” ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars,” and Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen” and “American Idol.” However, two exceptions are ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “The Bach- elorette.” According to the Los Angeles Times, in 17 seasons, “neither show’s main role has even been filled with a person of color” (Weblink 13.14).

Sexual and Violent Themes

A recent study of viewer behavior esti- mated that an American child who watches three hours of television a day will see 8,000 murders and some 100,000 other acts of violence by the time she is 12 years old. However, television critic Howard Rosenberg makes the point that, although the medium shows thousands of acts of violence, television also displays just as many acts of kindness. “Television violence,” Rosenberg writes, “is too simple a solution for violence in the country. It’s human nature to seek easy answers to complex questions. Rather than acknowl- edge the root causes of violence as being deep and complicated, there’s a tendency on the part of many to automatically blame television.” Sexual aggression and other violent acts committed by members of a culture are partly a result of societal factors—the easy availability of guns, few employment and educational opportuni- ties, and family hardships—and not sim- ply violent portrayals on the screen.

The best defense against gratuitous sex and violence, as well as stereotyping and an emphasis on ratings, is to make intelligent viewing choices. Parents should

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monitor the viewing habits of their chil- dren and explain scenes that disturb them. Offensive shows should not be watched, and uplifting shows should be supported. Because the content of televi- sion programs is a result of the collective will of at least part of the culture, each viewer has an ethical and moral respon- sibility to ensure that positive values are communicated through the media.

Cultural Perspective

Television actually is a mix of four pre- ceding media: the theater, radio, motion pictures, and, perhaps more importantly, the comic book. From the theater came the familiar stage sets so common in sitcoms. The vaudeville theater also con- tributed the idea of variety acts to the medium. Radio brought its characters, personalities, and story-telling ideas—and the technology to broadcast programs to homes. From motion pictures, televi- sion producers learned how to tell their stories in a visual format with the use of multiple cameras and editing techniques. Finally, the comic book gave television its most important concept. Except for made-for-television movies, the basic unit of television isn’t an individual program but a continuing series of episodes with the same characters in comfortable sur- roundings. From week to week and from episode to episode, viewers may live with television actors and their problems over a period of several years. Consequently, television is more a medium of person- alities than stories. The screen is a poor place for dramatic action and spectacles. But subtle character development rein- forced by close-up shots that fill the frame with the face of a friendly actor works well for television (Weblink 13.15).

In his book TV Genres, Brian Rose lists 18 different types of programs that have been shown on television since its inauguration: police, detective, western, medical melodramas, science fiction and fantasy, soap opera, made-for-television movies, docudramas, news, documen- tary reports, sports, game shows, variety shows, talk shows, children’s program- ming, educational and cultural shows, religious programming, and commercials. Any classification scheme is bound to omit some types. For example, legal melo- dramas, adult programming, reality-based shows, instructional courses sponsored by local colleges, infomercials, home shop- ping programming, music videos, and web access and services also are impor- tant categories. The reason for the large number of categories for television, as compared with the number of categories for motion pictures, is that television is an intimate medium. Television images come right into the homes of viewers, whereas movies are a social experience separate from everyday home life. Consequently, television is able to explore many more commonly held cultural beliefs and values within a much more varied array of for- mats than motion pictures.

Critical Perspective

Television caused serious declines in all other mass communications media. But the media that survive are those that can adapt to the challenge offered by televi- sion. Many magazines in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, Life, and Look, ended publication because national advertisers preferred television. With advertisers tightening their belts during the 2009 economic downturn, present conditions are not

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much better. The Magazine Publishers of America reported that the industry suf- fered a 20 percent loss of revenue for the first three months of 2009 compared to the previous year. In response, newsmaga- zines such as Time, Newsweek, and others produce thoughtful, in-depth stories that try to take readers “beyond the headlines” of the 24/7 internet and cable television news channels. Newspapers also suffered severe declines because of television, with some offering web-only presentations and others quitting publication all together.

Polls show that 50 percent of those under 35 years of age prefer to learn about news events from television. But the news shows they are watching are more likely to be produced by MTV, “Entertainment Tonight,” or Comedy Central. Many newspapers have folded, but others have hung on because of chain ownership, a more feature-oriented approach, zoned editions, colorful graph- ics, and engaging interactive web presen- tations. Radio quit airing dramatic serials and concentrated on obtaining specialized audiences for specific kinds of music and programs. Motion pictures made their screens larger, their pictures more vivid, the sound clearer, and the seats more comfortable. But more important, Hol- lywood swallowed its pride and accepted the power of television. It now works with TV producers instead of against them. Most sound stages on movie backlots are devoted to television production.

Commercial television emphasizes mainstream political, economic, and cul- tural values—and champions consumer- ism. It is no wonder that television can be both addicting and alienating. A research study released in 2009 found that the more time teenagers watch television, the more depressed they were as older adults. Wars and other personal tragedies

reduced to a small screen suddenly segue into a commercial. These curious transi- tions occur because the bottom line for television executives isn’t to sell programs to audiences but to sell audiences to advertisers.

Until that system of funding changes, few innovations will occur in the types of shows the medium offers. But for the first time in its short history, television is getting serious competition from other media, which may fundamentally alter the way television is presented. More people than ever are spending less time watch- ing network offerings, preferring cable programs, DVD movies, video games, and the web. The reason cable and alternative video sources are successful is that they rely on the diversity of audience interests—not advertisers’ preferences.

As we gradually become a society that doesn’t write letters and is dependent on visual signs and language, television can remind us, if we let it, that it is an important part of the making of history. More and more, we will be connected to the past by the images we have made. They become what we call our collective memory that will be passed to future gen- erations. Television may be “a vast waste- land,” but it allows a lot of space for the creation of memorable visual messages if a culture demands value from it. Viewers need to graze less and learn to settle for more.

TRENDS TO WATCH FOR TELEVISION

The old-fashioned idea of television as a one-way, anesthetizing viewing experi- ence soon will be an anachronism. The days of videotape and DVD presentations may be numbered, as viewers become

TELEVISION 343

users able to download any program from web-based menu choices. Rental compa- nies such as Blockbuster and West Coast Video long ago quit offering videotapes, making the switch to more durable and convenient DVD discs (Figure 13.18).

Television is being replaced by large, flat-screen, high-resolution digital com- puter monitors in which viewers can watch almost any program or movie made at any time, connect to the web to watch or learn more about a presentation, and talk to a friend over the telephone, all with the same device. Digital video players such as the Roku Netflix Player and the Apple TV connect a computer to a television monitor for easy viewing of movies and television programs. Web- sites such as Hulu.com, a joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp., CBS Interactive’s TV.com, Sony’s Crackle.com, and Google’s YouTube.com allow users to access videos of current and canceled television shows and movies, with many preceded by commercials just as with traditional TV. The Disney-ABC television group also includes its popular hit shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives” on Hulu (Weblink 13.16). The media giant felt that ABC and Dis- ney needed a “broader distribution for is shows” than its dedicated websites. In 2009 Disney launched its Stage 9 website that featured original online series such as the 10-episode science fiction thriller “Trenches” and “Squeegees,” a comedy about window washers (Weblink 13.17). Satellite TV for cars à la AT&T’s Cruise- Cast, attachments to cell phones so you can project your favorite show on any surface available from Samsung, and large screen receivers that use less energy are becoming more common (Weblink 13.18). In addition, 3-D TV screens like those offered by Panasonic and Sony

will gain in popularity as more 3-D pro- gramming is offered. As a test of viewer acceptance, in 2009 ESPN broadcast the first college football game, USC vs. Ohio State, in 3-D to audiences in venues in Los Angeles, Ohio, Connecticut, and Texas. In 2009 the Ubisoft video game company introduced “Avatar: The Game” based on James Cameron’s motion picture with a version that plays on 3-D TV sets with users wearing special glasses.

As videotaped movies and programs for rent or sale are a quaint anachro- nism, so too will be DVD rentals. In 2009 Blockbuster teamed with TiVo to deliver movies on demand—users can collect and watch their favorite shows from the com- fort of their homes on television, comput- ers, game players such as Xbox, or on a cell phone screen.

How we access and watch televi- sion programs will change as well. South Korean subway riders were the first in the world to be able to watch TV from their cell phones in 2005. In 2009 the cable arm of media giant Time Warner announced “TV Everywhere,” which allows subscrib- ers to watch on-demand cable shows

Co ur

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Figure 13.18 A typical array of videotapes line a shelf at the author’s home. Many people predict, however, that soon the for- mat will be outdated as cable and wireless connections make them obsolete.

344 TELEVISION

online—either through a home computer or a portable device such as a Black- Berry Storm, Pearl, or Curve, a Palm Inc. Pre, or an Apple iPhone, while Comcast Corp. started a wireless television service in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Portland, Oregon, using the high-speed WiMax network for laptop computer users only.

Since many people carry and use video and digital cameras as part of their cell phones, news organizations can now show dramatic video of tragic events shot by amateurs. Making video is made easier with the UltraHD camcorder from Flip video (Weblink 13.19). George Holliday’s video of the Rodney King beating is a case in point, but “Seinfeld” actor Michael Richards also learned to be wary of the technology after shocked audience mem- bers recorded and uploaded to YouTube a racist rant he spewed at a comedy club in 2006 (Weblink 13.20). Reality-based television programs and electronic video monitoring systems are also common uses for the equipment. Security systems at homes and businesses record the actions of every passerby; police officers have digital cameras in their patrol cars to monitor the actions of those detained or arrested; and news teams hide cameras in their clothing to record illegal practices for the visually oriented nightly newscasts. Sometimes gruesome shootings during convenience store robberies captured by digital monitoring equipment are aired on newscasts. Made possible by the digital revolution, the spread of sensational news is a chief concern of many of television’s social critics.

With the global economic downturn of 2009, many traditional television cus- tomers such as national car dealers have pulled their commercials off the air.

Consequently, TV executives who need the revenue are allowing once taboo products and services. Liquor ads are rarely seen on TV, but Absolut Vodka brought them back during the Grammy Awards show in 2009. The NBA reversed a long-time ban and allowed courtside liquor ads that can be seen by viewers at home. In addition, infomercials, once seen only in the middle of the night, can be seen during prime-time hours and hawk everything from “extramarital affairs and the intimate uses of K-Y Jelly” to Vince Offer’s favorite product ShamWow! (Weblink 13.21).

The Emmy, one of the most prestigious awards given to television programs, and those who are responsible for them made history in 2008 with the 60th presenta- tion as it was the first time a basic cable show—AMC channel’s “Mad Men,” about those who work for a 1960s-era adver- tising agency—won for best dramatic series (Weblink 13.22). The “Mad” feat was repeated the next year. Non-network programs won 59 of the 55 awards given out in 2009. HBO took 21 and AMC had 5. NBC led the networks with 16 Emmy statuettes. Consequently, there were more than a few nervous laughs from the audi- ence after comedienne and former “Sein- feld” actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus remarked during the Emmy presentation that this is “the last official year of network televi- sion.” Many broadcast executives don’t find the joke funny.

NBC is a case in point. The Nielsen Company reported that during the 1952- 1953 season, more than 30 percent of viewers watched NBC prime time pro- gramming. In 2010 that figure is down to about five percent. No wonder America’s largest cable company, Comcast pur- chased NBC Universal from its parent

TELEVISION 345

company General Electric—but not because of the broadcasting network. The reason for the sale is to obtain the more lucrative cable channels—Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy.

With cable as a model for future programming, television channels will necessarily become as content-specific as specialized magazines. NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox can survive the competition from cable networks by sticking with a concept originated by the early motion picture studios—the star system. The big four can differentiate from all the other channels (as many as 1,500) by establish- ing a stable of well-known performers who are cast in familiar situations and dramas, always the most successful tele- vision strategy.

KEY TERMS

• 15 minutes of fame • Ad-lib • Analog • Big Four • Carrier wave • Coaxial cable • Digital • Digital television

(DTV) • Electron scanner • Federal

Communications Commission (FCC)

• Green light • HIV/AIDS • Iconoscope

• On-demand • Pilot • Plasma television • Prime time • Screen Actors Guild

(SAG) • Situation comedy • Soap operas • Tabloid • Time shifting • Upper-middle class • Vaudeville theater • WiMax • Writers Guild of

America (WGA)

To locate active URLs for the weblinks mentioned in this chapter, please go to the compan- ion site at http://communication.wadsworth.com/lester5 and select the proper chapter.

411

15 minutes of fame: The phrase coined by pop artist Andy Warhol in 1968, “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” as a commentary is con- cerned with the rise of the entertainment industry and the discounting of celebrity status (13).

9/11: On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, 19 members of the terrorist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes that were used in attacks on American property and civilians. The twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were hit and destroyed as well as a sig- nificant portion of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth airliner, bound for the Capitol or the White House, was overtaken by passengers and crashed in a field out- side Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 victims were killed, and billions of dollars in damages resulted (1).

Abstract: A form of expression that may use the standard tools employed by artists of other forms of art but does not employ elements that are easily identified as being from the real world. The most obvious examples are paint- ings whose main subject matter are geometric forms (1).

Abu Ghraib: The name of a prison in Baghdad, Iraq, that became a symbol of American military misconduct after it was learned from a “60 Minutes II” television report and a Seymour Hersh The New Yorker magazine article in 2004 that systematic torture had been performed on numer- ous, mostly innocent prisoners. Much of the evidence of

the torture came from snapshot photographs taken by American military guards (11).

Ad-lib: An abbreviation of the Latin ad libitum meaning “at one’s pleasure,” it refers to the dramatic technique in which actors are asked to improvise dialogue with their own, unscripted words and actions based on what they think their characters would say and do (13).

Adjusted for inflation: A comparison of the rise or fall of the price of goods and services for a time period based on the Consumer Price Index. The greater the difference in two dates, the more the comparison reflects the actual costs to citizens at the time (9).

Advertising campaign: A term used whenever an adver- tising agency develops a series of messages for a particular product or service within a set time frame (2).

Airbrush: An artistic technique that uses air to spray paint, ink, or dye on a substrate. It is also a pejorative term used to describe the manipulation of photographs by the removal of unwanted elements for political, economic, or aesthetic reasons (11).

Allegorical: Developed first by the Greeks with their mythic stories and later employed by interpreters of the New Tes- tament, this analytical technique gives literal, sometimes ordinary events significant symbolic meaning (6).

Alloy: A solid solution of one or more elements combined to enhance the properties of both for a specific purpose.

Everything looked at closely

is full of wonder.

Jacob Grimm, 1785–1863 AUTHOR, LAWYER, AND PHILOLOGIST

Glossary

412 GLOSSARY

Big Four: Originally the “Big Three,” referred to the American broadcast companies of ABC (American), CBS (Columbia), and NBC (National). The Fox Broadcasting Company was added to the list in 1986 (13).

Binocular vision: The act of using both eyes or two lenses at the same time (2).

Bitumen of Judea: Also known as asphalt, it is a sticky, molasses-like form of petroleum mainly used for paving roads. It was used in early photographic processes, most notably for heliography because it hardens from 10 min- utes to several hours, depending on the amount of light it receives (11).

Black Power: A political and social movement begun in the 1960s in which African Americans communicated racial pride and economic advancement (12).

Blog: A contraction of the word weblog (web log), it was invented by the American computer programmer Jorn Barger to describe his activity of listing what he had read each day as “logging the web.” Later, weblog was short- ened to blog and now refers to any website that provides commentary in any form (text, audio, and/or video) with feedback possible from readers (3).

Blue-collar: A member of the working class who receives an hourly wage and engages in manual labor (10).

Bollywood: The Hindi-language film industry that originated in Mumbai, India, with most movies in the genre being melodramatic, love triangle, and daredevil musicals (10).

Bolshevik: A faction of the Marxist political party founded and led by Vladimir Lenin that took control of the Soviet Union during the 1917 Russian Revolution (6).

Bookmark: Originally a paper or leather insert to mark where you stopped reading a book, it can also mean a web address saved on a web browser so the user can easily return to the website without typing the entire address (15).

Briefs: As with an abstract for a research paper, it is a short synopsis of a story stressing its main points. They can be included in print and online editions as a list to update readers of public events or sent to editors by public relations personnel as a press release in the hope of getting coverage (3).

Broadsheet: Originally referring to one, large sheet of paper for the printing of news first used by a Dutch paper in 1618, it is the largest of the newspaper page formats that can be 22 inches or longer (3).

Bronze Age: An era of prehistoric times, estimated to be about a 2,000-year period from 3300 to 1200 bce in which alloys, particularly the melting of copper and tin to create bronze, were used for art objects, weapons, and other items (7).

Browser: A software application intended for the purpose of retrieving information available from the web (15).

Bullet points: Named for the tip of a rifle’s projectile, it is a graphic mark used to stress an item in a list (9).

For example, steel is made stronger by an alloy of iron and carbon (7).

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): Begun as an orga- nization formed to protest America’s involvement in World War I, the ACLU’s mission statement is “to defend and pre- serve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” As such, it regularly offers legal advice and representation for liberal and conservative causes (11).

American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA): First orga- nized in 1914, it is a professional and student organization composed of typographers, graphic designers, photogra- phers, and other media artists. AIGA currently has more than 20,000 members in 65 worldwide chapters (7).

Analog: The term can apply to numerical information that is represented by measureable quantities, such as lengths or electrical signals, as well as real-world activities without the aid of a computer (7).

Anime: A term for Japanese-inspired animated cartoons (10).

Anorexia nervosa: A serious psychiatric eating disorder marked by extremely low body weight. About 90 percent of those affected are women (4).

Aperture: The opening or hole of a lens that allows light to travel through it. As the opening gets smaller, the image is more sharply focused (11).

Archetypal or archetypes: The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the American mythologist Joseph Campbell theorized the existence of universal stories through a “collective unconscious” that contain original models that inspire other things or ideas and teach about the commonalities of human nature (6).

Aspect ratio: The look or appearance of a screen or frame. Film and television screens originally used an aspect ratio of 4:3 in which the screen is four units across by three down. Movie theaters and digital television sets now use a ratio of 16:9 for a widescreen or letterbox view (12).

Assimilation: Sometimes termed “The Melting Pot,” the blending of diverse cultural groups into the dominant society (5).

Atari: An arcade game company founded in 1972 that created the popular tennis-like game “Pong.” Atari is a Japanese word meaning to hit the target (14).

Aztec culture: Refers to a group of ethnic peoples of central Mexico that dominated the region for about 300 years from the 14th century (5).

Banner: A form of advertisement or a title for a newspa- per story that displays a message across an entire printed or web page (2).

Beehive hairdo: An elaborately high and teased head of hair invented in 1958. It was originally called a “B-52” after the shape of the front of an Air Force bomber of the same name (10).

Beta: A prototype version of a software product usually released to a select few for testing and comments before a general release to the public (15).

412 GLOSSARY

GLOSSARY 413

Calligraphy: Greek for “beautiful writing,” it is a style of handwritten letters originally used by Chinese scribes and can be found on the bones of animals and shells of tor- toises dating from the 14th century bce ().

Camcorder: A portable camera recorder for video and audio. One of the first was Sony’s Betacam in 1982 with the recording tape holder built into the camera. Analog videotape camcorders are quickly being replaced by digital formats that can plug directly into computers for editing (12).

Caption: Informational text accompanying a picture (4).

Carrier wave: An electromagnetic frequency that can be used to transmit text, sounds, and images over long distances (13).

Cel: Short for celluloid, it is a clear sheet on which hand- drawn animated cartoons are created. Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989) was one of the studio’s last films to use cels in its production (10).

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research): Established in 1954 in a suburb of Geneva, Switzerland, it provides particle accelerators and expertise for nuclear physics research for educators, scientists, and engineers. In 1991 the first website, developed by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Calilliau, went online from the facility (15).

Chief executive officer (CEO): A high-ranking corporate employee who is responsible for the overall management of a company (14).

Chip speed: Sometimes called clock speed, it is a mea- surement of a computer processor’s efficiency in calculat- ing math, logic, and data functions (14).

Cholera: A highly infectious bacteria transmitted to humans through contaminated food and water. At the first sign of symptoms, a patient experiences a drop in blood pressure and can die within three hours without treatment (9).

Chroma key: Commonly used for background images during televised weather reports and special effects in motion pictures, it is a computer technique in which two images can be superimposed on one another. The process uses a large blue or green background screen, because skin is not one of those colors (9).

CinemaScope: A widescreen motion picture format that used special lenses to project the picture onto the screen. It was popular for 14 years from the release of The Robe (1953) (12).

Cinerama: A widescreen movie format that used three projectors with left, center, and right parts of the picture. Since the technique was enormously expensive and required specially designed movie theaters, it was soon replaced by single-projector Super Panavision 70 and then Ultra Panavision 70 formats (12).

Clip art: Inexpensive and usually simple illustrations used for personal and professional presentations, although many times their use is discouraged (10).

Closure: In graphics, it is the perception of elements within a layout when they are not a part of the design.

For example, a circle or line with gaps can be perceived as being whole. It is related to the gestalt law of continu- ation (3).

Cloud computing: A concept that can mean using an inexpensive computer and accessing software programs from an internet source whenever they are needed, or it can also mean the extent of a wireless reception area (15).

Coaxial cable: A transmission line comprising a wire (usually) surrounded by another wire that is insulated (13).

Cold War: The name of an era in which there was serious political tension between the United States and the Soviet Union from the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 (15).

Collodion: A substance produced when highly flammable nitrocellulose is dissolved in ether. It was used as a tem- porary dressing for wounded American Civil War soldiers and as a photographic emulsion to coat glass plates by photographers who might have taken pictures of those injured soldiers (11).

Composition: The arrangements of visual elements within a frame. In a 1957 interview, the photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson defined his concept of the “decisive moment” as the instant when “Your eye must see a com- position or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.” (2)

Computer agent: A software program that performs its tasks in the background, often with the user unaware of its operation (15).

Computer tomography (CT or CAT scan): A way of cre- ating a three-dimensional image from a two-dimensional X-ray picture (2).

Consumerism: Any economic policy or habit that emphasizes consumption, usually with the assumption that such activity produces happiness (8).

Contrast: The relative extent of the difference between light and dark areas in a picture (11).

Convergent Era: A concept proposed by MIT professor Henry Jenkins in which the mass media are combining both technically and socially. As he puts it, “We are living in an age when changes in communications, storytelling, and information technologies are reshaping almost every aspect of contemporary life—including how we create, consume, learn, and interact with each other. A whole range of new technologies enable consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and re-circulate media content and in the process, these technologies have altered the ways that consumers interact with core institutions of govern- ment, education, and commerce.” (14)

Copy: The words or text supplied by a writer for a print or screen media graphic design (4).

Cornea: Since this clear, outside layer of the eye does not have blood vessels—it gets nourishment directly from air—it was the first part of the body to be transplanted to another (2).

Cortex: See Visual cortex (2).

414 GLOSSARY

Crash: Whenever a software application or operating sys- tem stops working and freezes a computer. Oftentimes the only remedy is to restart the machine. However, if the hard drive has failed, data may be lost. It is always a good idea to regularly back up data onto an external hard drive (14).

Cropped: A picture with the edges removed (6).

Cultural relativism: The philosophy that states that a person’s attitudes, beliefs, and activities should be under- stood within that person’s own cultural understanding and values without input from ideas from other cultures (3).

Cut: The smallest portion of a film, the name is a holdover from when film was a physical object requiring the slicing of it for editing purposes. Several short cuts in a motion picture scene can add dramatic tension, whereas a long stretch of film without cuts can convey a calm, hypnotic rhythm (8).

Cyberspace: From the Greek word for “rudder,” it refers to the various global communications technologies that make such tools as the internet and the web possible (8).

Dark Ages: A period of time in Western European history from the fall of the Roman Empire until the invention and widespread use of the commercial printing press, from about 476 to 1500 ce (7).

Darkroom: A specialized space with plumbing and con- trolled lighting to allow the processing of negatives and printing of photographs in the dark, or with non-photo- sensitive safelights (11).

Death penalty: A government’s sanctioned murder of another person because of a major offense or capital crime (4).

Demographics: Data such as race, age, gender, economic status, and so on that is usually obtained through surveys and used in research about cultural trends and other purposes (15).

Depth of field: A term used in image making that describes the relative extent to which a scene is in focus. With a small aperture and longer shutter speed, the ele- ments in the foreground to the background are more in focus than if a large aperture and a quick shutter speed were employed (6).

Digital: Within this book’s context, it is any information or practice that must use a computer for its inception and presentation. Editing a document or a photograph is digi- tal; holding a printout is analog (9).

Digital television (DTV): Part of a worldwide technologi- cal movement, it is the over-the-air reception of televised signals through computer rather than analog, broadcast transmissions. Several European countries made the switch to digital television starting in 2006. The United States switched on June 12, 2009. Japan and Canada will make the change in 2011, Great Britain in 2012, and China in 2015 (10).

Dioramas: Full- or small-scale models of usually a historically or environmentally significant event often seen

in museum displays. They originated in France in 1822 by the co-inventor of the daguerreotype photographic process, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. He created elabo- rate staged illusions in which audience members thought they were viewing reality. Modern examples can be found in the “Universe of Energy” pavilion at Epcot outside Orlando, Florida, “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride at Disney World and Disneyland, and in the movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) (11).

Discrimination: To act in a prejudiced or biased way toward people (usually) who have apparent, but not essential, differences (5).

DIY (do-it-yourself): A self, home, and world improve- ment philosophy that advocates creating and repairing things without resorting to paid experts. Activities that fall under the DIY umbrella can also include music recordings, website creation, and zine production (7).

Doctors Without Borders: A worldwide volunteer orga- nization founded in France in 1971 composed of physi- cians, nurses, and journalists that provides aid to persons in need and publicizes their plight and recovery. As stated in the relief organization’s website, it is “committed to bringing quality medical care to people caught in crisis regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation [and acts] independently of any political, military, or religious agendas.” (10)

Double exposure: It traditionally refers to a negative image superimposed or overlaying another as a procedure within the camera or a darkroom, but can mean any mul- tiple image effect regardless of how it is achieved (2).

Download: Refers to the act of transferring information— whether textual, audio, and/or visual—from one computer to another. To download means to receive, to upload means to send (15).

DRAM (dynamic random access memory): A form of computer memory that can contain a lot of information but is lost once the power supply is turned off (14).

Dust Bowl: An environmental catastrophe occurring in the United States for a decade starting in about 1930. Severe and continual drought conditions coupled with inefficient and ill-conceived farming methods (e.g., deep plowing, lack of crop rotation) affected more than 156,000 square miles of land, larger than the state of Montana, and was centered in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandle regions. Much of the topsoil of the region was blown away in powerful windstorms that blackened East Coast cities. The soil eventually was deposited into the Atlantic Ocean. More than half a million persons were left homeless, with more than 100,000 families arriving in California to find work (11).

eBay: Begun as an online auction website in 1995 named AuctionWeb, the name was changed to eBay two years later. Today it is the largest online auction and shopping website in the world (11).

Editorial picture: A photograph usually taken by a photojournalist for use within a news context (1).

GLOSSARY 415

Electromagnetic spectrum: Named by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, who also invented the first color photography process, it is a range of wavelengths, some as long as the height of the tallest buildings in the world that support radio broadcasts and others as small as atomic nuclei known as gamma rays (2).

Electron scanner: A process in microphotography that uses beams of electrons instead of visible light, as with most microscopes, to provide extremely close-up pictures (13).

Electronic highway: An early metaphor to describe the internet. See cyberspace (15).

Emulsion: For analog photographic films, it is a layer that contains light-sensitive material within a medium of col- lodion, starch, or gelatin on a sheet of metal, glass, paper, or plastic (11).

Engraving: A technique used for printing illustrations that employs a steel tool called a burin to carve an image onto a metal plate. The plate is then used in the printing process (7).

Existentialist: A type of analysis that tries to find mean- ing by concentrating on actual human existence as an observer and participant of the world and espoused by such philosophers as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus (6).

Family values: A political and cultural philosophy that has different meanings depending on your point of view. For conservatives, the most stable unit within society is a family with a married father and mother and their chil- dren that is pro-religion and against abortion. For liberals, it may mean that families are supported through childcare and maternity and paternity leaves (8).

Fascism: Perhaps best exemplified by Mussolini’s pre– World War II Italian government, it is an authoritative ideology that is in constant conflict with its own citizens and other countries (3).

Federal Communications Commission (FCC): Established by the Communications Act of 1934 to regulate radio and television broadcasts and interstate wire, satellite, and cable, its five commissioners are selected by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Congress (13).

Feminist movement: Begun in the 19th century by women advocating the right to vote (that privilege was granted in 1920), it progressed in the 1960s to include protest against cultural restrictions placed on women including unfair pay structures compared with men; currently the movement attempts to celebrate the achievements of women in order to expand its political membership (2).

Field dressing: In hunting, a technique to preserve the meat of a killed animal by removing its organs from the carcass while in the wild (6).

Filmsetting: Also known as phototypesetting, it is a method of projecting pictures of typefaces at various

sizes onto a photographic film that are then used in the printing process (7).

Flash: A technique used in photography in which artificial light is supplied by flash powder, bulbs, cubes, and/or electronic units (1).

Flash mob: Usually an event organized via e-mail in which mostly strangers gather at some public site and perform a group activity that either delights or annoys passersby (11).

Freelance: To sell work or services to clients without per- manent employment status (9).

Freudian: Relating to an analytical technique inspired from the writings of the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud in which a person’s subconscious mind is evoked in order to discover personal meaning for symbolic signs (6).

Frieze: An artistic expression usually found in classical architecture in which bas-relief, painted, or calligraphic figures are displayed between the roof and columns on exteriors and between the ceiling and moldings inside.

Functionalism: An analytical philosophy in which an object’s role in society is valued more than its composition (8).

Gallup poll: Developed by the American educator and statistician George Gallup in 1935, it charts the public’s opinion on a variety of political, social, and economic issues (5).

Gelatin: A by-product of the meat and leather industries, it is a clear protein substance derived from the bones and internal organs of cattle, pigs, and horses that is used for a variety of purposes including photographic film (11).

Geneva Conventions: A set of four international treaties first adopted in 1864 in Geneva, Switzerland, that details how prisoners and civilians should be treated during wars (11).

Genre: A particular type of written or visual work (2).

Geosynchronous orbit: Also known as “Clarke’s orbit” after the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s initial proposal, it is a procedure for stationing satellites in space with their speed the same as the Earth’s rotation (2).

Gesture: A form of nonverbal body language that is used for communicative purposes, such as a finger to the mouth to indicate quiet or a wink when flirting (2).

GIF (graphics interchange format): Introduced by the bulletin board service CompuServe in 1987, it is a simple picture format often used for the web that also supports animation. GIF files are mostly used for company logos (11).

Globalization: A condition of cultural and/or economic development in which a local trend becomes accepted on a worldwide scale (16).

Golden Raspberry Award (The Razzie): Started as a parody of Hollywood award presentations by media critic John Wilson in 1980, it annually reports the worst motion picture performances and has become “the foremost authority on all things that suck on the big screen.” (12)

416 GLOSSARY

Grain: A term that was originally a property of analog photographic film in which silver particles can be seen randomly dispersed throughout an emulsion. For digi- tal materials, the condition is called “image noise.” The amount of grain or noise that can be noticed by viewers is a creative option of photographers and directors (11).

Green light: As with a green traffic light that signifies “go,” it refers to a company’s approval after a creative pitch to start production of a television program or motion picture (13).

Hack: An activity by a hacker in which a computer pro- gram is changed from its original purpose either for a positive or a malicious reason (15).

Halftone: A printing technique for photographs in which the image is converted to tiny, differently sized dots through a screen, reproducing the tones on a printing press. First conceived by photographic inventor William Fox Talbot in the 1850s, the process was practically intro- duced by Stephen Horgan and later perfected by Frederic Ives, George Meisenbach, and Louis and Max Levy (2).

Handbills: A printed notice, usually related to advertising, and distributed by hand (7).

Hijab: Unlike a chadri or burqa in which a woman’s entire body is covered, from the Arabic word meaning “to cover,” a hijab is a head covering or scarf worn by Muslim women as a symbol of their religious and cultural heritage (5).

Hit: Usually refers to a successful web destination from using a search engine, but can also mean a request from a user to download a file (7).

HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus)/AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome): AIDS is a chronic, life-threatening pandemic disease caused by HIV. First recognized in 1981, it is estimated that more than 2.1 million persons have died from the virus, about 300,000 of them children. Currently about 40 million persons world- wide have HIV/AIDS supported by expensive medications that slow its growth. There is no known cure (4).

Home page: Usually the first page that is presented on a website (15).

Hospice: A form of medical care available usually within special wings of hospitals reserved for terminally ill patients with a diagnosis of less than six months to live in which the physical needs, including pain management and emotional wants of the patient and friends and fam- ily, are supplied (4).

Hot spot: Refers to an area on a webpage, usually within a picture, that acts like a hypertext link. It also means an area where a Wi-Fi wireless connection is possible with a properly equipped computer (9).

Hypertext: One of the chief differences between print media and the web, it is text that is usually underlined to indicate a hyperlink where additional information is avail- able from some other webpage or website (15).

Iconoscope: An early television camera tube developed by the Russian-born scientist Vladimir Zworykin for RCA

that was used by German technicians to televise the 1936 Olympic Games and employed in American sets until it was replaced in 1946 by the highly light-sensitive image orthicon tube (13).

Ideograph: Unlike its cousin the pictograph that shows an actual object, it is an illustration of a concept or idea. Numbers, musical notations, emoticons, and the Blissym- bolics from Charles Bliss are examples (7).

Impressionism: Inspired and influenced by the new invention of photography, Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas broke many established “rules” of fine art with their choice of colors, brush strokes, and outdoor, natural settings (1).

Inca culture: First established around 1200 ce in the Cuzco region of southeastern Peru, the Inca empire even- tually stretched from Colombia to southern Chile. The society was known to worship a sun god, were advanced architecturally as evidenced by the Machu Picchu site, used knotted strings in the accounting of inventories, and fabricated elaborate mountainside terraces for farming. With the 1533 invasion of the Spanish conquistadores, the Inca were practically wiped out (5).

Indie: An abbreviation of “independent,” it is a term used mostly for music and filmmaking producers who sidestep major companies to create and distribute their art on their own. Indie also refers to a free, break-the-rules kind of attitude (12).

Industrial Revolution: Dated from improvements made by the Scottish inventor James Watt to the steam engine in 1775, the era lasted roughly until the end of the 19th century. It was marked by several applications of the engine—in train and boat travel, in mining, and in iron and textile production—as well as urban overcrowding, factories with their accompanying pollution, great differ- ences in salaries and lifestyles between owners and work- ers, and the expansion of printing with advertisements to entice the new middle and upper classes (11).

Infomercials: Paid announcements in print or screen media masked as entertainment or educational presentations (9).

Islam: Based on the teachings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad who died in 632 ce, it is the second most prevalent religion in the world after Christianity. It is a monotheist religion with its religious history, principles, and social rules outlined in its holy book, the Qur’an. A person who practices Islam is called a Muslim (5).

Isobar: In meteorology, it is a line that indicates equal barometric pressure on a map (9).

Joe the Plumber: During the 2008 presidential campaign, it was the nickname given to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher after he questioned then-candidate Senator Barack Obama about his tax policies while videotaped by an ABCNews cameraperson. Although not a licensed plumber, he was supported by the Republican Party and

GLOSSARY 417

candidate Senator John McCain for his outspoken opin- ions. By 2009, he had worn out his 15 minutes of fame (4).

JPG or JPEG (joint photographic experts group): A picture file format common to the web that compresses the file so it takes up less memory space on a computer (11).

Jungian: Inspired by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, it is an analytical method that attempts to understand sym- bolic images and concepts through the analysis of human archetypes and myths (6).

Killer app: A computer application that is such an inno- vative and desired program that it is an instant public success. Spreadsheet, banking, and communications soft- ware are popular examples (14).

Kinemacolor: A two-color (usually red and green) filter system for the taking and projecting of color motion pictures. It was the first color movie technology and was invented by British George Smith in 1906 (12).

Kinetograph and Kinetoscope: Although the American inventor Thomas Edison first thought of the technology, two of his employees, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson and William Heise, invented the movie camera and viewer. As a camera, the Kinetograph recorded images on long rolls of 35-mm-wide photographic film supplied by George Eastman’s Kodak company, and mounted on perforated cylinders. Viewers watched the films through a peephole of a Kinetoscope (10).

Ku Klux Klan: A United States domestic terrorist organization founded in 1865 with veterans from the Confederate Army that was anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-Communism, and racist. By the 1870s the Klan was mostly suppressed due to the federal government’s pros- ecution of members’ crimes. However, with the popular- ity of and controversy surrounding D. W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation that celebrated the Klan, membership increased so that by the 1920s it claimed more than six million members. Today the estimated membership is about 6,000 (3).

Large-format camera: Generally speaking, any analog camera that is 4 × 5 inches or larger, usually requiring a tripod and a black cloth over the head of the photogra- pher for a clear look through the viewfinder (11).

Layout: The arrangement of all graphic elements for print or screen media (2).

Lexicon: Compared with the word “font“ that refers to all the graphic variations of a typeface, it is all the words and expressions that make up a vocabulary (16).

Life magazine: A name for a publication with three major iterations—as a humor magazine from 1883 to 1936, a weekly news magazine from 1936 to 1972, a monthly from 1978 to 2000, and finally a weekly newspaper supplement from 2004 to 2007 when it quit publishing. During its second heyday, publisher Henry Luce helped make it one of the premiere places to see the best of pho- tojournalism (4).

Literal: A term that refers to concepts and objects that are easily understood (1).

Lithography: A printing method that allows artwork and type to be printed at the same time (7).

Live-action: Works that are performed during the taping of television shows and the filming of motion pictures by human actors (10).

Logo: A distinctively identifying symbol for a company, publication, or screen presentation (2).

Long-term memory: In physiological terms, thoughts that stay in a person’s mind from a few days to as long as a lifetime (1).

LP (long playing) record: A round vinyl phonograph album about 12 inches in diameter that played music stored in an analog format when amplified through a needle and spun on a turntable (4).

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): A medical tech- nique that uses a powerful magnetic field to show highly detailed internal structures of the body (2).

Mainframe computer: Originally large, room-sized computers capable of complex and fast calculations for government and corporate purposes. Personal computer networks are gradually replacing them (14).

Manga: Graphic novels, often containing violent and sexual content, that are popular in Japan and other Asian countries (10).

Marxism: A political philosophy originating from the Ger- man economist Karl Marx and the German social scientist Friedrich Engels that presents a non-capitalist and non- religious view of how the world should work (6).

Maya: With its capital in the Yucatán Peninsula, the Maya civilization spanned from southern Mexico to western Honduras from about 2000 bce until the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores about 900 ce. At its height the society was one of the most complex cultures in the world with advances in art, architecture, writings, and political systems (7).

Meme: Invented by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), used to describe the spread of musical, fashion, and religious ideas. It can be a familiar phrase or popular cultural concept such as the YouTube video of a piano-playing cat featured on the 2009 “MTV Movie Awards” show or “All your base are belong to us” from a poorly translated bit of dialogue from the Japanese Sega video game “Zero Wing.” (8).

Memory card: A small electronic storage device used in digital cameras, audio devices, and as a stand-alone por- table plug-in for the easy transfer of computer files (1).

Microelectrode: An electrode with an end so small it doesn’t damage a cell’s outer membrane that is used for monitoring electrical impulses (2).

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab: A department of the School of Architecture and

418 GLOSSARY

Planning, its personnel have a reputation for innovations in communications including an initiative to develop a $100 laptop computer to improve educational opportu- nities for children around the world (14).

Moiré pattern: From a French word for a type of textile, it refers to visual interference that creates the illusion of internal vibration when an illustration with a set of paral- lel lines overlays another at a slight angle (2).

Montage: An artistic composition of several different parts (8).

Morphing: A computer-generated cross-fading special effect that seamlessly combines one image with another (10).

Mouse: Named by researchers at the Stanford Research Institute because of its small size and cord that looked like a tail, it is a sophisticated pointing device that allows a user to interact with software programs on a computer (8).

Mug shot: A head-and-shoulders portrait of a person usually looking into a camera’s lens and displayed at a small size on a page whether for print or screen media (2).

Multi-User Dungeon (MUD): Online game playing with often-unknown partners on their computers anywhere in the world. An outgrowth of the board game “Dungeons and Dragons,” the first MUD was named “Colossal Cave Adventure.” Created by computer programmer and spe- lunker Will Crowther in 1975, the game’s pathways are based on the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky that he used to explore (15).

Muslims: See Islam (5).

Mythical: A form of analysis that evokes stories in words or pictures that persons in a culture understand because of their deeply held and common emotions (6).

News photograph: See editorial picture (1).

Newspaper chain: A family or corporate-owned business that owns more than one publication. Currently the larg- est chain in the United States is the Gannett Company that owns USA Today (9).

Noise: In visual communication, it can refer to the amount of grain that is noticed in a film or photograph as well as the number of elements within a frame or as part of a layout that distract from what should be the primary subject matter (9).

Olmec: A Mexican civilization occupying the south central part of the country for about 1500 years from 1200 bce. Best known for their huge stone head artworks, they also performed ritualized body piercing and played ballgames in which the losing team was sometimes executed (7).

On-demand: Any number of user-controlled features that include watching video, working on a computer, using software, or printing whenever it is convenient (13).

One-reel film: In the early history of motion pictures, a single reel was 35 mm wide, based on the Thomas Edi- son standard, and 1,000 feet long, or about 11 minutes. Today’s motion pictures comprise about five 2,000-foot

reels, although most theaters have converted to digital material (12).

Operating system (OS): A software program that man- ages a computer’s communication between an application and its hardware. Popular systems include Mac OS X, Win- dows Vista, Linux, and GNU, a free program created by the American developer and hacker Richard Stallman (14).

Optic nerve: Part of the central nervous system that con- nects visual information from the eyes to the brain (16).

Over-the-counter (OTC) stock: As opposed to exchange trading by large organizations such as the NASDAQ, New York, or London exchanges, it is the buying and selling of stocks directly from one party to another (14).

Pan or panning: A film technique in which the camera is moved horizontally (2).

Paparazzi: Usually freelance still photographers and/or videographers that take photographs and video of celebri- ties during public and sometimes private events (11).

Pater Noster House: With its slogan “Where Hope Comes Home,” it is a 28-year-old licensed home located in Columbus, Ohio, that offers transitional housing for those with HIV/AIDS (4).

Petroglyphs: Images made by scratching or carving into rock surfaces (7).

Phenomenological: Espoused by the philosopher Edmund Husserl and his student Martin Heidegger, it is an analytical method similar to existentialism in which the phenomenon is used as a way of understanding all human knowledge (6).

Photocomposition: See filmsetting (7).

Photo-optic printing: Also known as photo or optical lithography, it is a technique used in the making of inte- grated circuits (7).

Photoshop: A software program usually reserved for edit- ing still photographs created by the American software developer Thomas Knoll and introduced by Adobe in 1990 for Macintosh computers only. It has since been developed for almost all platforms and is the most popular program for photographic manipulation in the world (2).

Phototypesetting: A typesetting process in which different sized letters could be projected onto photographic paper, printed, and then set within a layout. Since the advent of personal desktop computers, it is now obsolete (7).

Pictographs: Also called pictograms, they are pictures that closely resemble a physical object they are meant to represent. In that way, they are similar to the semiotic iconic sign (7).

Pilot: A provisionary episode produced in the hope that a television series will be approved and financed (13).

Plasma television: A large flat-panel display in which two panels of glass confine a gas that when stimulated with an electrical impulse excites phosphorescent particles that creates a picture. The technology has been criticized for its excessive electrical expenditure (13).

GLOSSARY 419

Platen: Originally a wooden and later a metal weight pressed over a sheet of paper above an inked typeface surface during the printing process (7).

Plate: Made of paper, plastic, metal, stone, or other materi- als, an image on its surface is inked and transferred to paper directly, or in offset printing, transferred to a rubber surface that is then used to print the picture on paper (11).

Platform: It refers to all of the proprietary hardware and software components that allow a computer to work. The two major platforms are the PC, or IBM, computers and clones and Macintosh from Apple Computers (15).

Plug-in: Also known as an add-on or add-in, it is a soft- ware program that adds features to an application includ- ing ways to manipulate images and presentation formats for showing video (15).

Podcast: A digital media file that can contain still images, audio, and video that can be downloaded to a computer or portable player. A user can select a single program or subscribe to a producer’s work so that presentations are automatically downloaded on a regular basis (3).

Polio: Short for poliomyelitis, it is a highly contagious viral disease that can cause severe symptoms, from stiffness of the neck to paralysis, but only in about 5 percent of those affected. Since the medical researcher Jonas Salk introduced a polio vaccine in 1955, the disease has been essentially eliminated. However, in countries such as India, Nigeria, and Pakistan, the incidence of infection is still about 1,500 a year (11).

Portal: Sometimes called a gateway, it is a major starting site for mainly commercial website users (15).

Poster child: A young person with a debilitating disease selected to have her picture included on posters in addi- tion to making public appearances in order to generate sympathy and publicity to raise funds from the general public in order to provide for the treatment and research for the condition (5).

Prejudice: Bias for or against a person or idea without knowing all the facts (5).

Prime time: Regardless of the time zone, it is a three-hour fixed block of time from 8:00 until 11:00 p.m. when most viewers watch television and most surveys of audiences take place to establish ratings (13).

Proposition 8: A California voter-initiated ballot measure approved during a general election in 2008 that changed the state’s constitution so that only marriages between a man and a woman would be considered valid. The section with the Prop 8 amendment begins, “All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursu- ing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.” (5)

Public service announcement (PSA): Usually a radio, television, or web non-commercial message that raises awareness about a specific topic (2).

Ptolemy V: After his father died, he became Emperor of Egypt at the age of five in the year 204 bce. Known for his

cruelty in suppressing a rebellion and his skill at hunting, his main claim to fame comes from a scribe who wrote on the Rosetta Stone of a tax break he gave to a religious group (7).

Punch cards: Perforated stiff paper sheets with holes that defined quantitative data that could be input into early calculating machines and then computers. First used in 1725 in France for controlling the complex patterns of textile looms, their use could still be found by graduate students using university mainframe computers as late as 1985 (14).

Quantitative: Measurements such as time, distance, weight, public opinions, and demographics that can be defined by a specific unit and thus calculated, and conclusions made about any relationships between the measured elements (9).

Racial profiling: Discrimination usually conducted by law enforcement officials that is based on the assumption that some races are more suspicious or dangerous than others (5).

RAM (random access memory): A type of storage that is accessed quickly and is used to run software programs during a computer’s operation; once the computer is turned off, the memory is erased (14).

Random dot stereogram: Two images composed of dots that when viewed by focusing behind them generate a 3-D image in the mind. First created by the Hungarian scientist Béla Julesz in 1959, his student Chris Tyler in 1979 used the principle to make the effect with a single image, called an autostereogram (2).

Realism: An artistic style in which actual scenes found in life were preferred over mythical or fantastical constructs. The Italian Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in the 16th century as well as trompe l’oeil artists were advocates of the art genre (1).

Reductionism: A means of analysis in which complex ideas or images are reduced to their simplest element. It dates from the Greek philosopher Democritus’ theory of atomism and much later by the French philosopher René Descartes who thought of life like a complex clock with identifiable and explainable parts (8).

Renaissance: An era of intense cultural growth for about 300 years dating from the 14th century that began in Italy and then spread to the rest of the Western world largely because of the advent of Johannes Gutenberg’s commer- cial printing press (2).

Retinas: A lining of tissue within the back of each eye that contains the photosensitive cells known as rods, sensitive to low-light situations and movement, and cones, used for sharp focus and color perception (2).

Reuben award: An honor given to the “Cartoonist of the Year” by the National Cartoonist Society. Named after Rube Goldberg, a Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoon- ist, best known for his humorous comic strip in which he devised overly intricate and complex devices in order to

420 GLOSSARY

complete an ordinarily simple task. The first recipient was given in 1946 to Milton Caniff for his strip “Terry and the Pirates.” (10)

Rhetorical: An analytical methodology often used in persuasion scenarios in which often intriguing questions are asked and concepts pondered without the expecta- tion of receiving an answer (6).

Rituals: A wide variety of acts made by a single individual or a group usually performed on certain dates or for some known cultural reason such as birthday parties, weddings, and funerals (3).

Roman Empire: During its heyday in 117 ce, the Italian- based realm ruled north to England, south to Egypt, east to Mesopotamia, and west to northern Africa. Starting with ancient Rome in the 10th century bce and continu- ing through the Roman Republic that dated from about 510 bce and had a monarchy that could be influenced by its citizens until it was overthrown through civil wars, the Roman Empire had a single emperor that ruled dictatori- ally. The Empire had enormous influence over architecture, language, and political thought until its demise in 1453 when the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople (7).

Rule: A thin, usually horizontal line used in layouts to graphically separate different sections (8).

Sarcophagus: Any stone coffin, but usually Egyptian (7).

Screen Actors Guild (SAG): A union affiliated with the AFL-CIO begun in 1933 that represents about 120,000 actors in “motion pictures, television, commercials, industrials, video games, Internet and all new media formats.” (13)

Scribe: A person employed as a copyist of manuscripts (7).

SDRAM (synchronous dynamic random access mem- ory): A quick, powerful, and stable technology for deliver- ing data for computer operations (14).

Search engine: A software application that allows a user to find information on the web through keyword input (15).

Secularism: A manifestation of the concept of the separation between church and state, it is the idea that government agencies and their decisions should not be guided by religious beliefs (7).

Serial: A continuing plot for radio, television, and web sto- ries that reveal more plot twists as a season unfolds (10).

Serif: Seen in all the typeface families except sans serif, a continuation of a letter’s stroke that comes from the cursive writing style in which handwritten letters were joined (7).

Server: A broad term that can mean a software program that is a part of a dedicated computer that accepts data requests from users’ web browsers (15).

Shooter video game: A type of video game that can be “first-person” (e.g., “Bioshock” and “Doom 3” for Xbox 360), in which the player controls the firearms supplied by the game, or “third-person” (e.g., “Quantum” for Play- Station 3 and “Damnation” for Xbox 360) in which the player follows along with the action (12).

Short: In the early history of Hollywood, it was typically a two-reel film less than 25 minutes long. Today these “short subjects” are less than 45 minutes. The “Festival des Très Court” is an annual film festival founded in Paris highlight- ing films of three minutes or less (10).

Short-term memory: Lasting only a few seconds, it is the ability of humans to store brief bits of verbal and visual data such as phone numbers and visual arrays that some- times are used in the making of long-term memories (3).

Shot: A single photographic image or continuous take in motion pictures (2).

Shrine: Usually a religiously sacred place worshipped by those who believe in its historical significance, although it can refer to any setting where heroes and idols are remem- bered with wonder and admiration (3).

Shutter speed: A camera’s setting that determines the length of time an aperture allows light to strike the record- ing medium, either analog or digital. Settings of 125th of a second and longer are considered long or slow, whereas those that are over are considered short or fast (6).

Sidebar: Similar to a fact box infographic, it can be a text- related story, pictures, or a collection of hyperlinks, usually graphically separated from the main article for print and online publications (3).

Silicon Valley: Originally used in a trade magazine in 1971 to describe the burgeoning semiconductor industry centered south of San Francisco near San Jose, California, the Silicon Valley is home of some of the world’s leading high technol- ogy companies including Adobe Systems, Apple, Inc., eBay, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Yahoo! (14).

Silver bromide and nitrate: Crystalline halides (others are silver with chloride, iodide, and fluoride) used in black and white photographic film and paper because they turn dark when exposed to light (11).

Situation comedy (sitcom): A television episodic genre for animated or live-action actors in which continuing characters are presented with different and hopefully humorous conditions from week to week (8).

Slander: Unlike its print and broadcast counterpart libel, it is defamation of a person’s character that is made orally and in public (7).

Small press books: A concept related to the indie film movement, these are publishers that typically produce fewer than 10 titles per year. Many times they feature supe- rior, handmade papers, bindings, and graphic designs (7).

Soap operas: A television genre that features long-run- ning, continual story lines, usually shown during the day- time hours (13).

Social symbols: Verbal and nonverbal signs that have meaning to individuals in public settings that aid in human communication. Examples might be a greeting, handshake, kiss, or a brand name on a T-shirt (3).

Steadicam: A trademarked product of the Tiffen Manufac- turing Corporation, it is an aid to shooting motion picture film that produces a steady, jiggle-free shot regardless of