Experience, Knowledge, and Democracy: Television through a Deweyan Lens

While there have been numerous studies regarding television and its influence on modern life conducted in the past sixty years, there has not yet been a critique of television grounded in the work of John Dewey. John Dewey died when television was still a new technology; however, I believe that Dewey would have been critical of television had he lived to further experience it. One need only look to Dewey’s writings regarding mass communication and media to see that he was critical of how communication technologies influence human society. Television programming is nearly ubiquitous today and it requires ongoing inquiry as its influence is widespread and continues to grow. This dissertation extends television studies by developing a Deweyan critique of the medium. I assert in this dissertation that Dewey’s philosophy, especially his notions of experience, knowledge, and democracy can inform a current critique of television

A Content Analysis of Advertising on Children’s Television Networks

This content analysis study on licensed characters in advertising collected data in summer 2015 from three children’s cable networks: Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Using Social cognitive theory and based on past research (Barcus, 1975; Atkin, 1976; Calcott & Lee, 1994; Stitt & Kunkel, 2008; LoDolce et al., 2013; Castonguay et al., 2013), the study examined whether the use of licensed characters and emotional appeals varied in advertising for healthy or unhealthy foods, mass media genre and the character’s gender. The study found licensed characters are more likely to be used to promote unhealthy foods, originate from movies and reinforce gender stereotypes

TELEVISED RELIGIOUS REALITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL ATTITUDES AMONG YOUTH

Among many crucial factors of personality, social attitude is considered among the prioritized ones. There are many contributors in the development of personality, however, televised religious realities seems very essential because of linkage to religion. Therefore, the research aimed to examine the relationship of televised religious realities with social attitude of youth. The methodology opted for the research was correlational. Population of the study was University students. There was total 607 respondents in the study. A self-developed questionnaire containing 16 items was developed. The analysis of the data revealed that televised religious realities correlate poorly with social attitude. Moreover, the results revealed that televised religious realities impact social attitudes poorly. The research implies that televised religious realities needs significant attention because of having relationship with social attitudes of youth

TV Series Exposure and Its Influence on American People’s Social Judgments toward Asian Americans

As television plays a crucial part in people’s social life and ethnicity on the screen both reflects and influences the minds of the audience, this research focuses on the TV representation of Asian Americans and tries to explore how TV series exposure influences American people’s social judgments toward Asian Americans. The status quo of Asian Americans on TV is discussed and cultivation theory is utilized to explain how television influences the audience’s perceptions and judgments. The Asian group is faced with a low representation and a highly stereotypical image on the TV screen thus this study hypothesizes that more television exposure leads to more negative social judgments toward Asian Americans. Based on cultivation theory, this study applies survey method to test the Heuristic Processing Model of Television Effects and introduces accessibility as the mediator, motivation, ability and interracial contact as the moderators into the model. Findings have shown that Asian character exposure has a negative impact on audience’s social judgments toward Asian Americans and self-perceived motivation partially moderates this process. Hierarchical linear regressions are applied to analyze the data and an overall cultivation effect of television is also found

Diversity in “the Korean Way”: Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Diasporic Korean Literature and Media in North America

Literary and visual media representations of diasporic Koreans in Canada and the U.S. have noticeably grown in the twenty-first century, (re)shaping popular culture imaginations of South Korean and Asian subjectivities. From globalized sitcoms such as Kim’s Convenience to novels, memoirs, and animated cartoons, recent portrayals of “Koreans” by diasporic Koreans increasingly depict the multifariousness of “Korean,” “Korean Canadian,” and “Korean American” identities through various lenses and vehicles such as local and trans-national/trans-historical perspectives, transnational Korean adoption, and comedy/humour. To capture the significance of what I discuss as the transculturality of diasporic Korean identities, I suggest in this dissertation that new frames of comparison and examination beyond geographical, temporal, and disciplinary borders are required. By demonstrating shared and different geopolitical histories and their effects among diasporic Korean populations in North America in tandem with the diversity and politics of representation within literatures and media produced by diasporic Koreans, I unsettle the knowledge of “the Korean Way”—being or becoming “Korean”—and simplistic nationalist imaginations of hyphenated Asian identities, within histories of Western colonialism and exclusion and marginalization against racial minorities in North America. The first chapter broadly traces: 1) the history of Korean Canadian and Korean American literature and media, 2) the respective political contexts shaping such representations in Canada and the U.S., 3) the development of anti-Asian Racism, racialization, and stereotypes in North America, 4) the modernization and economic rise of (South) Korea since the early-twentieth century. These historical and theoretical frameworks of the first chapter inform the second and third chapters, respectively exploring women’s narratives and televisual comedies of diasporic Koreans in North America since the 2010s. Chapter Two comparatively analyzes two novels and a memoir by female diasporic Korean authors, Anne Y.K. Choi, Frances Cha, and Jenny Heijun Wills. In this chapter, I pay careful attention to how Korean-born women negotiate their sense of identity and sexuality within contexts of race relations and racism, racial and gender capitalism, and postcolonial histories of marginalization and oppression in settings in Canada, the U.S., and South Korea. Chapter Three examines different forms of televisual comedies, Kim’s Convenience, Dr. Ken, and Angry Asian Little Girl, to underscore the influence of humour as an emerging strategy for diasporic representation, and at the same time, how such new vehicles of inclusion are surrounded by conditions of White-centred and commercial logics as well as internalized racism

The Surprisingly Fantastic Script: Imaginative Immaterial Labor, "Multitudinous" Screenwriting, and Genre Innovation Within Peak TV.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Reading Against the Goo: Goosebumps, YTV, and Canadian Children's Television

This thesis examines the oversight of Canadian children’s television through the Canadian-American co-venture Goosebumps (1995-1998) and the Canadian specialty children’s network YTV. Grounding Goosebumps within the North American post-network television landscape, this thesis argues that the show anticipates hypercommercialism, a term used to define “the way in which advertisers tend to colonize media spaces” (Asquith 2012). This thesis proposes that by detaching YTV and Goosebumps from the threatening connotations of hypercommercialism, scholars can better engage with the show’s reception. It further contends that Goosebumps is imbued with sensorial and perceptual operations which can help children achieve the “mastery of intertextuality” (Kinder 1999). Analyzing how the poetics of the children’s horror genre are articulated through the show’s form, this thesis argues that Goosebumps cultivates the child audience through sensorial and perceptual operations, preparing them to engage with increasingly hyper-saturated media spaces. This audience training is problematized by the suffusion of the aesthetics of children’s horror into the marketing efforts of Goosebumps and YTV. Analyzing two multi-part episodes of Goosebumps, this thesis argues for the merits of textually analyzing children’s programming, an approach that opens up inventive pedagogies through which young people and academics alike can critically engage with commercial children’s television

Smurto rodymas Lietuvos televizijos laidose

Constant demonstration of violence and aggressive models on television threatens to the safety of the society, as by this a young person’s knowledge of the world is perverted and the usage of aggressive behaviour is stimulated. The purpose of the present research was to identify the violence demonstrated on the main Lithuanian TV channels (LRT, LNK, TV3). For data collecting we were using a DVD player, which was programmed to record random 15-minute episodes three times per day on different TV channels on October and November in 2006 and on January, 2007. The total material contained 18 hours of recording. 194 occasions of violence captured were evaluated according to the criteria developed by the authors of this paper. It was looked at the type of the violence demonstrated, the complexion and purpose of the demonstration of the violence, the degree of its gravity and particularity, the final effects of the violence demonstrated, the presented evaluation of the violence and the frequency of violence acts in different channels and programs at different times of the day. Besides the authors of this paper, two independent members from the Board of Experts of the Office of the Inspector of Journalists Ethics were asked to evaluate the violence acts according to developed criteria. The results revealed that the average frequency of broadcasting violence on TV is 10.8 violence acts per hour. The highest frequency of broadcasting violence was on TV3 channel – it makes 16.3 violence acts per hour, while LRT channel had least rate of violence – 6 acts per hour (p ≤ 0.001). Most violence acts (38.1 percent) were recorded from 18.00 to 23.00 h, least (25.8 percent) – from 6.00 to 12.00 h (p ≤ 0.031). In this general complexion of all Lithuanian programs the most frequent is physical violence and both – physical and psychical – types of violence are shown only with a reason to call emotions and viewers attention to television. 46 percent of violent acts were demonstrated without any noticeable ravage to victim and 49 percent there were no clear evaluation of the violent act or aggressor itself. Contrarily, violent behavior was shown to bring positive after-effect to the aggressor. It was also noticed that the biggest number of physical and psychical violence acts occurs in cartoons, which is significantly different from the number of violence acts demonstrated in feature films (p ≤ 0.001) and during the announcements (p ≤ 0.024). As cartoons are aimed at the audience of children of the preschool age and early school age, the conclusion can be drawn that the youngest and the most sensitive group of habitants in our country is under the biggest threat of the violence broadcasted by the Lithuanian television programs.Šio darbo tikslas – įvertinti pagrindinių Lietuvos televizijos kanalų (TV3, LNK, LRT) rodomą smurtą. Duomenims rinkti buvo naudojamas skaitmeninių vaizdo diskų grotuvas, kuris tris kartus per dieną po 15 minučių įrašydavo atsitiktinai pasirinktas šių trijų televizijos kanalų laidų ištraukas. Visą tyrimo medžiagą sudarė 18 valandų įrašai. Smurto aktai buvo vertinami remiantis mūsų sudarytais kriterijais (atskirai vertinome fizinį, psichinį smurtą, smurto padarinius, ginklų ir kitų su smurtu susijusių daiktų rodymą ir pranešimus apie smurtą). Vertinant smurto aktus taip pat buvo pasitelkti du nepriklausomi žurnalistų etikos inspektoriaus tarnybos ekspertų grupės nariai. Gauti rezultatai parodė, kad vidutinis smurto rodymo dažnis LRT, LNK ir TV3 programose yra 10,8 smurto akto per valandą (TV3 – 16,3 smurto akto, LNK – 10 smurto aktų, LRT – 6 smurto aktai). Įvairiose televizijos laidose vyrauja fizinis smurtas, tiek fizinio, tiek psichinio smurto rodymas dažniausiai yra savitikslis, beveik 46 proc. visų smurto atvejų nebuvo rodoma jokių pastebimų smurto padarinių aukai, beveik 49 proc. – nebuvo pateikiama aiškaus smurto arba smurtautojo vertinimo. Taip pat nustatyta, kad daugiausia fizinio ir psichinio smurto aktų rodoma animacinių filmų metu