Television Criticism, Really?

When you think of television, you think of the great shows- or the not so great shows, the television actors who you seem to know like they were your friends or even the cartoon that makes you laugh even when you’re an adult. All of those things are true but why do we like what we watch or why is our favorite character this certain person? Who knows? It just is. Television criticism isn’t just about why or why not you like a program or an actor but is about more than that. Through this I want to be able to show what the goals of television criticism are, what my view of television is as an object of study, and finally to try to relate to everyone reading this and invite feedback to not only see what I may need to explain more but to also answer questions that may arise.

First off, what is the goal(s) of television criticism? Well, television criticism has many goals, some of which you may have thought of and others that I didn’t know until further readings. Two goals of television criticism brought up by O’Donnell (2007) are, one, of persuasion. Persuasion is, to me, an obvious goal because what we say is what we are trying to get our readers to follow along with and agree to and as O’Donnell points outs we may be advocating for a program or for a network, so persuasion is a huge goal of television criticism (7). And two, the goal is to get a deeper understanding of our culture (3). Television programs reflect a society’s values, norms, and practices (8) and if you understand that then you can criticize the television program for its good and bad reflections on our culture but only after you get a grasp on our culture and what makes it tick. Sillars and Gronbeck (2001) say that a goal of television criticism would also be the text and the break down between epistemological (how we view knowledge) and the critical/cultural view (15).

Why study television? We can learn a lot from a television show and what the deeper meaning of the show is trying to get to; don’t get me wrong, I love television and I love to just watch it and not try to find a deeper meaning from the show. However, television has changed and I think has changed for the better. Corner (1999) tells us how television has changed and that now television gives us meaning to cultural ideals that may not have been given in print media. Corner does say though that not all of us who watch the same program will get the same message and use that information to better ourselves, we may watch one program and learn new information but never use it and watch another program and go out and use all of the information learned (6). This interests me and I am interested in why. Are we that selective that we can tune out an entire hour long show on one important topic and tune in for 30 seconds to another show to catch up on what our favorite celeb is up to.

I want feed back from you, the reader. I want to know if what I say is what you think or am I totally off base. Also what you watch I want to know because if we watch the same things it will be interesting to see if we pick up on the same things or if we see the show from two totally different points of view. Like I said before, television is all about what you think the meaning is and by sharing that, we can learn from each other.


Works Cited
Corner, J. (1999). Critical Ideas in Television Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Donnell, V. (2007). Television Criticism. New York: Sage.
Sillars, M. O. and Gronbeck, B. E. (2001). Communication Criticism: Rhetoric, Social Codes, Cultural Studies. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

Some of my favorite scenes from FRIENDS