Tag Archives: Television

Television’s Not Dead (sorry, my New England is showing)

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We’ve spoken a lot this semester about the idea of television, both as a medium and as a device used to access media, but the real question is, what is the future of television? In a society where we can access TV shows, films, and news on the internet on multiple devices, what place does a television have in our lives? While there is more than one answer to this question, the biggest one should be obvious: sports.

I don’t know how sports-crazy other countries are, but it sometimes seems the United States revolves around sporting events. When there isn’t the final for whichever sport is finishing a season—the NHL’s Stanley Cup, the NFL’s Super Bowl, the MLB’s World Series, and the NBA championship are the four big ones—there’s spring training! And when the professional teams aren’t playing, there’s college, basketball’s March Madness Championship and football’s Rose Ball being two prominent college sports championships. One thing new media has been unable to do is create a reliable platform for watching live sports. In this, a television and cable box still reign supreme. It’s a lucky thing for the cable companies.

Another spot television can reign supreme is with news programs for older generations. While many of the younger generations use social media and search news websites to keep up to date on current events, some of those who are used to it prefer to turn on the five o’clock news and get their hours’ worth of what went on in the world today. It’s much easier than combing through headlines on online news sites, especially because some older people still have trouble navigating the internet. As technology moves forward, these older generations sometimes get left behind unable to adapt quick enough to be fluent in mew media.

While sports and news are a couple of huge aspects that still bring in dollars for the cable company, there is still the third aspect, which is popular in its own right: popular television shows. While Netflix can boast receiving whole seasons of shows on its website at once, these episodes aren’t available on Netflix for months after they premier on TV. So while they come out weekly on their respective channels, people watch them. Shows like The Walking Dead compete with football games on Sunday. These weekly TV shows also add an interactive aspect to their premieres. Live Tweet is huge and getting bigger as more and more people tune in to watch a new episode and keep an eye on others reactions as each big event plays out on screen. TV shows add to the phenomena by showing interactive banners on the screen with hashtags you’re advised to tweet and votes you can weigh in on through Twitter.

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Sports, news stations, and the evolving atmosphere surrounding weekly TV shows are making it clear that they’re not out of the running yet. While many television shows and films are now available on multiple online platforms, the TV is still the prime screen on which to watch sports and participate in the interactive live tweeting of the next episode of your favorite show.

Live Tweet Life

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I didn’t get a chance to input during the class when we were surveyed on our television watching habits but I’m more than glad to utilize this blog platform to share my tendencies because I believe it represents an interesting cross-section of old media and new media.

I’m avid about setting aside time out of my week to watch a television program when it comes on live; what we would call a traditional approach.  Barring any pressing outside circumstances, I will without fail be in front of my television every Sunday night from 9 to 11 p.m. for this season’s episode of Game of Thrones, followed by Mad Men.  And it’s the same deal with every other season.  This is such a part of my routine that I shudder to think about what would happen if it was taken away from me, so I scour for new shows to fall in love with every time there’s a turnover of programming.

Undeniably, I’m drawn to the allure of the “premiere showing” aspect at work here.  However, that’s not all there is.  Whenever I watch a television program live, be it a sporting event or a television show, I usually do it in tandem with being on Twitter.  It’s difficult to do so for something like Game of Thrones, which has no breaks, but GoT is more of an exception when compared to the rest of the landscape.  When the commercials hit, I either go to the bathroom or I check Twitter, no inbetween.  I may post one or two tweets for a show and a few more for sports events.  But moreover, I’ll search for tweets to see what others have to say.  There are two Twitter comic personalities that I follow, @desusnice and @THEKIDMERO, that are guaranteed to chip in their two cents every time something happens in a New York area (I’m from New Jersey) sports game or a major nationally televised one and I peruse my timeline with glee for what they have to say when I’m also watching the same match as them.

Prior to my starting college and Twitter’s ascendance to ubiquity, I was far less interested in watching regularly scheduled television programming; I consumed visual media in typical millennial fashion: online streaming.  I was, however, still a major sports fan and often when I was not sitting down with friends or family to watch a game, I frequented an internet discussion board where live-watch threads occurred.  It was here that I experienced firsthand the joy of having a virtual crowd that reacts in unison with me.

I don’t think of myself as hyper-social.  It isn’t so much that I want to be heard and be part of a herd; I’m much more interested in hearing the breadth of what there is to be said.  And even if it’s banal, even it’s nonsensical, following along with someone’s thoughts as they engage with media is a wonderful learning experience.  The only thing that concerns me about virtual conversations is that I spend too much examining them, but that can be fixed with self-control via maturation.

Hypersexualization

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Hypersexualization:

Games present an alternate reality in which its participants can challenge gender norms while allowing users greater control and freedom. Female avatars in modern games have more recently become solely employed to fulfill male ‘fantasies’;  however by sexualizing female avatars, some women were motivated to create a strong and sexy character. For instance, in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (especially the original games), Lara is deeply hypersexualized due to the focus on her prominent breasts – which has now become almost her claim to fame. Hypersexualization simultaneously sexualizes a character, while also brings down it’s humanist character by also being something to merely stare at.