Author: Adler, Richard

Publication Year: 1975

Media Type: Book

Summary:

Abstract:

For nearly twenty five years television has been a powerful influence on our culture. Still it fails to receive the serious criticism which exists for literature, film and the performing arts. This volume is the second collection of essays stimulated by the Aspen Program's Workshop on Television. The first, Television as a social force provided a fresh assessment of television's role in American society - both its impact and its potential as a mass medium. Now Television as a Cultural Force focuses on criticism of individual programs, primarily from prime-time commercial television. Running through the essays is the theme that television is not merely a medium but a mediator - between fact and fantasy; between the desire to escape and the need to deal with real problems' between old and new values and between our individual lives and the life of the nation and the world.

Essays include: Television as Dream, by Peter wood, an analysis of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and M A S H as cultural history by Paula Fass; a critique of All in the Family, by Kenneth Pierce; Television Melodrama by David Thorburn, two essays on television drama's treatment of moral issues by Kevin Ryan and Robert Alley; TV News as Narrative by Sharon Sperry; and a historical review of television criticism by David Littlejohn. Edited, with an introduction by Richard Adler. (Back cover)

CONTENTS
Introduction: a context for criticism by Richard Adler.
Television as dream by Peter H. Wood.
Television as cultural document: Promises and problems by Paula S. Fass.
The Bunkers, the critics and the news by Kenneth M. Pierce.
Television Melodrama by David Thorburn.
Media Medicine and Morality by Robert S. Alley.
Television as a moral educator by Kevin Ryan.
Television news as narrative by Sharon Lynn Sperry.
Thoughts on Television criticism by David Littlejohn.
Television as a cultural force: A selected reading list by Christopher H. Sterling.
Appendix.
Index.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Community Development