November 30, 2006
Public Affairs Television In Canada
Notes and Comments on a random article read the other day while on lunch at work… Canadian Journal of Communications Volume 26 Number 3 2001
“Public Service Broadcasting as a Modern Project: A Case Study of Early
Public-Affairs Television in Canada” by David Hogarth (York University)
Hogarth discusses the policy makers and designers of Canadian public
television. The 1950s Canadian television audience was hoped to be
disciplined, attentive viewers who would use the television medium to
learn about and understand the Canada in which they live. This in sharp
contrast to the fantasy-living, casual American viewer who was in it for
the entertainment only, and also to the overly serious
information-broadcasting of the UK. The Canadian audience member would
need to give the television their undivided attention, yet to not make a
casual habit of their viewing.
The goal was to stop the family of the 50s from playing bridge, poker,
gossiping, and living the rest of their lives for the duration of the
show (interesting to me that the television is perceived as a
simultaneous atmospheric device that can be ignored as desired, but
would be turned on constantly). The policy makers seemed concerned with
the uncontrolled modes of reception and the desire for entertainment,
the two main barriers to information transmission – for this reason they
considered a ‘middle ground’ approach that would mix entertainment
and instruction in a new television genre.
The Magazine format, covering a diverse subject and field range from
rock and roll to instruction to health to fashion to current events,
made meaningful by a single host, was the format of choice. Under strict
regulation in terms of editing style (no jump cuts for fear of overly
confusing the viewer), sound and musical cues, the programs cultivated
the reporters as protagonists in a real life drama [links to the First
Iraq War and the reports from trapped reporters, now in the Second Iraq
War the reporters are participants, no longer permitted to report but
rather become news themselves as they are abducted and murdered].
In 1956 one critic said that the CBC was determined to cover absolutely
everything in every possible way, which left “established public
service hierarchies of knowledge and representation in question if not
in ruins.” The encouragement of affective involvement on the part of
the viewer, combined with commercial pressures, led to a style of
editorial programming that had more in common with the American
programming than originally hoped for. The best a producer could hope
for was low-key engagement, the fine line between audience stimulation
and techno-fatigue or even schizoid dissociation. This fine line I
particularly find interesting. The schizoid dissociation has indeed come
to pass – we can watch anything impassively and then we are spurred to
action, confusion, and mental illness in the everyday. The only peace we
can have is when we watch. It is like something from the darkest of
futures, a technophobic science fiction setup from the 1920s, or like an
upcoming episode of Dr. Who.
I would also like to see a comparison between the American public
television policy – how policy and profit worked together or conflicted
to create the systems we have seen today. I’m sure there is a strong
difference between the Canadian and American perspectives on Television
especially because the technological innovation did not come from our
country. We had, as usual, the luxury of reaction and not the triumph of
invention.
Also, Hogarth very briefly described women’s daily television –
something I found interesting was that public policy makers seemed to
encourage the notion of women structuring their days around the
information delivering television set, while they discouraged the
predictability of television programming for the presumably male masses.
And then, when television programming was actually created for women
featuring the usual hallmarks of female-attractive production values:
personal, emotive stories with an individual and intimate basis [see
womens’ surrealist films of the early 20th century in contrast to the
men’s variants of the same], the critics attacked it for its lack of
instructional and informative value. I would be interested to see the
contrast between male and female contemporary critics’ reception of
television shows made for men, women, and the masses.
June 4, 2006
Our Life Without It
It’s been a few days without television. Just happens that good weather has coincided with the season enders and dh’s desire to read more. He hasn’t started reading paper yet – he’s still stuck on the screen even if it is the newspapers online. We listen to music. A lot of music now – something that was missing from our life when the channels were flipping. Last night we nearly watched a movie, but I ran late and it was too close to bedtime to start anything. Instead more music and screen education, if you can call it that. We know full well the effect it has on dd4. She begged to watch today: even chose a most-likely video – little grey rabbit, since I’ve a soft spot for this and remember fondly reading and playing the stories in my own play rooms as a child. However tired I may have been I knew her post-tv tantrums would be even more exhausting than playing. So no, I said, no to tv. No to videos. No to dvds. Yes to playing. Yes I will play with you. Doctor? Alright…
Playtime – we play compassionate doctors adorned in sequin scarves and lamee robes, checking dolphin and puppy for illness, eyesight, dental health, and injury. The line up in the waiting room is long, a pink-hatted bunny complains that her friends kicked her in the stomach while the rottweiler pup nurses a hurt back. Makeup brushes and manicure equipment become needles and medical equipment, lent authenticity by the real tools: johnson’s waterproof self-adhesive tape from my climbing days and a basal digital thermometer. Also she has the idea of a pee jar and sends the animals to the bathroom to pee in a baby food jar. We take readings of the imaginary liquid with sparkling eyelash brushes, run them across a defunct Casio digital Business Organizer System and punch buttons to find out what’s wrong with Hattie.
We have had science time lately with the addition of a now-empty, tiny wasp nest stored in one of our now-ubiquitous baby food jars, a caught snail on a leaf, and two spiders who had the great misfortune to be found inside our house. It was tempting to have a spider deathmatch, but we opted for separate cells. Even caught a gnat and dropped it in a jar to see if the first spider would be able to catch it. It added a certain excitement to his captivity as he frantically spun a webwork inside the featureless baby jar, spiraling upwards in a futile attempt to catch a tiny bit of food. As it was, the gnat died of exhaustion and the spider slept, as usual, upside-down in his sticky home.
On the subject of the wasp nest – it contained larval globs of wet, cream-coloured pulsing stripes, The possibility of winged babies slipping out in the night was too frightening, and dd4 pronounced the solemn death sentence upon them. I shook Diatomaceous Earth into the nest. The larvae pulsed furiously as fine powder sliced into their bodies, now one sits outside the nest, unmoving. Soon I’ll be able to glue the nest into an unpowdered jar- dh wants to slice it in half to display the interior – I’m thinking silica powder to dry it out first. They are quite soft, these nests, and collapse easily. The wasp nest invites the feeling of a Victorian governess somehow, a natural history museum at home. There is something terrifically macabre about this. She would have let the spiders die too – after all, how can you teach respect for life the same day you kill the wasps? After all, she reasons, they have dead ants at school all the time. Today our 8-legged friends were both released onto the balcony with a great deal of hip-hip-hoorays and ‘they’re free, they’re free!’ screamed into the air. All this instead of tv – there’s an argument if ever I heard one.
Zakira's Roses 