Juan Monroy

Courses in Film, Television, and Media Studies at New York University

The Evolution of TV Programming

This course surveys US television programming from the advent of network broadcasting in the early 1950s to contemporary formats and genres at the turn of the new millennium. The course will focus specifically on how television programming is a social force responding to its contemporaneous poltical, industrial, and cultural moment.

This is a history/criticism course. Unlike most courses in the department of Undergraduate Film and Television, this class will not directly hone your craft, although it should be relevant to your growth as an artist. Instead, its goal is to develop a set of critical thinking skills to understand the historical cirumstances that have shaped television programming. Moreover, as the semester unfolds, you'll notice how most programs will be significantly different from each other. My intent in showing a variety of programs is to challenge your current understanding producing of television programming and to hopefully inspire you to push existing boundaries.

Spring 2006

Instructor

Juan Monroy

Mailbox
721 Broadway, 11th Floor
Mailbox 145
Internet
juanomatic@nyu.edu
http://www.nyu.edu/courses/monroy/

Texts

Michelle Hilmes. Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United States. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth-Thomson, 2002. ISBN 0534551351

Only Connect is available at the NYU Main Bookstore, 18 Washington Place, for $77.50. A copy is also on reserve at Bobst Library. It may be possible to find used copies.

Additional readings are available as PDF documents on Blackboard (see Course Website and Blackboard below).

Course Website and Blackboard

This course will make heavy use of Blackboard. Please be sure to check it regularly for course announcements, assignment guidelines, required and optional readings, supplemental screenings, presentations from lectures, and your own personal grading and attendance records. You may also use Blackboard to submit assignments electronically (see "Submitting Assignments Electronically" below).

To access Blackboard, point your browser to http://classes.nyu.edu, and log in using your NYU Net ID and password. You will find our course under "Courses You Are Taking."

Office Hours

Please feel free to stop by my weekly office hours. If this time does not work for you, please speak with or email me to make an appointment.

Field Trip

In the third week of class, we will be taking a trip to the Museum of Television and Radio to view some significant television programs of the "high network era." The trip will also orient you with the holdings of the museum and how to access their collection. For your research paper, you will most likely need to view some programs not available commercially on VHS or DVD. Visiting the museum will allow you to access these programs and take advantage of this excellent resource in New York City.

Holidays

As with any course meeting on Mondays in the spring semester, our course will encounter a number of holidays. In observance of Martin Luther King's Birthday on January 16, our class will not meet before the seventh day of the semester. In addition, we will not have class on February 20 to observe President's Day.

As with all other spring classes, we will be taking our spring break and not holding class on March 13.

Requirements

Weekly attendance

Attendance at all class session is of vast importance. Our sessions involve intensive group discussion of film and television clips, which can only occur in class. If you cannot attend a particular week's session, please notify me before class. Unexcused absences will count against your final grade.

If you experience a medical, family, or financial catastrophe during the semester, immediately contact your academic advisor, Alyce Hurwitz at UGFTV, and me so we can all work together in helping you complete your work through an exceptionally difficult time. Note: coursework for other classes, including film shoots or other crew production work, does not qualify as "exceptionally difficult" circumstances.

Reading

Complete each week's readings before our class session. The lectures will cover material that assumes you have completed that week's assigned readings. I invite you to re-read certain chapters or articles after the class to reinforce the lecture and screenings from our sessions.

Writing

All written work must be submitted on-time. Late work will be subject to a lateness penalty of one-half grade per weekday. You must also complete every assignment in order to receive a grade for this class.

In addition, all written work must be formatted according to Guidelines for Written Work. In general, your writing must be clear, professional in tone, elaborate any point you make, prove all original assertions, and cite your source for any information that is not "common knowledge." Please print your paper and proofread it for grammar and typographic errors before submitting it. Excessive errors will result in a lower grade. Also, please do not submit assignments via email attachments (see Submitting Files Electronically below).

I police plagiarism vigilantly. Any student who hands in work not their own will receive a failing grade for the course.

Midterm Exam

In the eighth week, you will take an in-class midterm exam. It will consist of three parts. The first part will ask you to identify terms and describe their greater relationship to television. The second part is a series of short essay questions, asking you to discuss a number of issues in television programming, the broadcast industries, and/or American cultural history. The third part is a long essay, where you will compose well-argued essay on a matrix of factors affecting television programming. In the weeks prior to the exam, I will distribute some possibilities for the long essay.

The aim of the exam is to judge your mastery on the programs, industry, and cultural events of the period between the FCC "Freeze" and the dawn of multichannel universe in the late 1970s.

I will post study questions each week on Blackboard to help you prepare.

Assignments

Timeline of Historical Events

» Due: February 6, 2006, 12:00 PM

On Blackboard, you will find fifty important events in US and World history that have impacted US television programming, the broadcast industries, and American culture. You will arrange those events on a timeline and submit that timeline.

Ungraded Historical Narrative

» Due: February 20, 2006, 12:00 PM

Select one of the fifty events listed on the Timeline Assignment page. Write a four-hundred word summary of that event and its relevance for US television history.

You must consult at least six independent sources. Three must be primary sources and three must be secondary sources. None of these can be standalone Internet sources.

You must cite any sources according to the specifications of the Modern Language Association, the Chicago Manual of Style, or the American Psychological Association.

This assignment will not receive a grade. Instead, I will offer comments on your writing and research. However, you must complete this assignment in order to receive a grade for this class.

Research Outline and Bibliography

» Due: April 3, 2006, 12:00 PM

Your final paper will examine be a historical case study in television programming within a cultural or industrial framework. You should avoid topics occuring after 2000.

You will do a substantial amount of outside historical research to complete this paper. You should select your final paper topic and discuss it with me as soon as possible but no later than early March.

As you work on your final paper, you will prepare a two-page outline of your research paper. This outline should be "barebones." It should not consist of complete paragraphs but merely topic sentences. Also, include a bibliography with a minimum of twelve independent primary and secondary sources, none of which can be standalone Internet sources. I will return it within a week to provide comments and suggestions.

Final Paper

» Due: May 8, 2006, 4:00 PM

At the end of the semester, you will submit a 2500-word report of the research you completed on your historical case study. Your analysis must examine your case study within a cultural or industrial framework. (Remember, you case study must have occurred before 2000.)

Some possible topics for your case study include:

Sending Electronic Files

Unless I have given you specific permission, please send no email attachments. Receiving email attachments can threaten the storage capacity of my email account.

To submit your assignments, please use the Complete Assignment feature in Blackboard. If you wish to send other files, please use the Drop Box feature in Blackboard.

In addition, never send files in proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. Instead, please use an open format such as Portable Document Format (PDF). For more information see, We Can Put an End to Word Attachments.

Evaluation

Assignment Weight Due Date
Regular Attendance 15%
Historical Timeline 15% February 6
Historical Narrative 0% February 20
Midterm 30% March 27
Research Outline 10% April 3
Final Paper 30% May 8

You must submit every assignment in order to receive a grade for this course. If you do not, you risk receiving a failing grade.

All assignments must be turned in on-time. I will reduce the grade each assignment receives by one-third of a grade per university business day that it is late. After ten business days, I will no longer accept your assignment, and you run the risk of receiving a failing grade.

Regular attendance means simply that. You must regularly attend this class. Normally, that means you cannot miss more than three classes for any reason. In addition, you should not miss more than two consecutive classes for any reason.

If you experience a medical, family, or financial catastrophe during the semester, immediately contact your academic advisor, Alyce Hurwitz at UGFTV, and me so we can all work together in helping you complete your work through an exceptionally difficult time. Note: coursework for other classes, including film shoots or other crew production work, does not qualify as "exceptionally difficult" circumstances.

Course Schedule

Week 1 » January 23 » A Writer's Medium: The Golden Age

Readings
Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect, Chapter 7: "At Last Television: 1945–1955," 150–182.
William Boddy, "Live Television: Program Formats and Critical Hierarchies," Fifties Television: The Industry and its Critics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 80–92.
In-Class Screenings
Goodyear Playhouse, "Marty" (1953)

Week 2 » January 30 » TV Goes Home

Readings
Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect, Chapter 8: "The Domesticated Medium: 1955–1965," 183–217.
Lynn Spigel, "The Suburban Home Companion: Television and the Neighborhood Ideal in Postwar America," Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs (Durham: Duke University Press), 31–59.
In-Class Screenings
Burns and Allen,"Beverly Hills Society" (1951)
The Honeymooners, "TV or Not TV" (1955)
Leave it to Beaver, "New Neighbors" (1957)

Week 3 » February 6 » Ceremony in the High Network Era

Field Trip to the Museum of Television and Radio
25 West 52nd Street
between 5th and 6th Avenues
http://www.mtr.org
Readings
Mary Ann Watson, "The Kennedy-Television Alliance," The Expanding Vista: American Television in the Kennedy Years (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) 3–18.
Screenings
Twenty-One
The $64,000 Question
Nixon-Kennedy Debate, 4 of 4 (October 21, 1960)
Bell Telephone Hour, Second Show of 1961 Season
NBC News, November 22, 1963, 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET

Week 4 » February 13 » Crisis on the Home Front: Documentary TV and Civil Rights

Readings
Michael Curtin, "Documentaries of the Home Front," Redeeming the Wasteland: Television Documentary and Cold War Politics (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 152–176.
Sasha Torres, "'In a Crisis We Must Have a Sense of Drama: Civil Rights and Televisual Information," Black, White, and in Color (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 13–35.
In-Class Screenings
NBC White Paper, "Sit-In" (1960)
ABC News Special, "Walk in My Shoes" (1961)

Week 5 » February 27 » New Times: Counter Culture and the New Family Sitcom

Readings
Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect, Chapter 9: "The Classic Network System: 1965–1975," 218–254.
Aniko Bodroghkozy, "Plastic Hippies: The Counterculture on TV," Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001) 61–97.
In-Class Screenings
The Monkees, "Monkee See, Monkee Die" (1966)
Dragnet, "The Big LSD" (1967)
Laugh In, aired February 2, 1970

Week 6 » March 6 » The Living Room War

Readings
Garth S. Jowett, "The Selling of the Pentagon," in Encyclopedia of Television, 2nd ed., ed. Horace Newcomb (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004).
In-Class Screenings
CBS Reports, "The Selling of the Pentagon" (1971)

Week 7 » March 20 » Quality, Relevance, and Zero Degree Style

Readings
Kirsten Lentz, "Quality versus Relevance: Feminism, Race, and the Politics of the Sign in 1970s Television," Camera Obscura 43 (2000): 44–93. Duke University Press
In-Class Screenings
All in the Family
Mary Tyler Moore Show

Week 8 » March 27 » Midterm Exam

Week 9 » April 3 » Multichannel Revolution/Continuities

Readings
Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect, Chapter 10: "Rising Discontent: 1975–1985," 255–289.
Megan Mullen, "A Scheduling and Programming Innovator, 1980–1995: Part II," The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States: Revolution or Evolution? (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003) 154–184.
In-Class Screenings
The Live Show (1982)

Week 10 » April 10 » Network Televisual Style

Readings
Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect, Chapter 11: "The Big Change: 1985–1995," 291–328.
John Caldwell, "Excessive Style," Televisuality: Style, Authority, and Crisis in American Television (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 3–31.
In-Class Screenings
Miami Vice, "Brother's Keeper" (1984)
Max Headroom (1986)
Moonlighting (1987)

Week 11 » April 17 » Television and Race in the 1990s

Readings
Sasha Torres, "King TV," Living Color: Race and Television in the United States, ed. Sasha Torres. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998) 140–160.
Herman Gray, "The Politics of Representation of Network Television," Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for 'Blackness'" (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004) 70–92.
In-Class Screenings
Frank's Place, "Frank Joins the Club" (1987)
LA Law, "L.A. Lawless" (1992)

Week 12 » April 24 » Quality, Branding, and Convergence

Readings
Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect, Chapter 12: "Digital Convergence," 329–367.
John Caldwell, "Convergence Television: Aggregating Form and Repurposing Content in the Culture of Conglomeration," Television after TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition, ed. Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004) 41–74.
In-Class Screenings
TBA

Week 13 » May 1 » Global Television

Readings
Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect, Chapter 13: "Going Global," 368–400.
Chris Barker, "Cultural Identities and Cultural Imperialism," Global Television: An Introduction (Oxford and Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1997) 182–206.
In-Class Screenings
Dead Like Me, "Dead Girl Walking" (2003)
Format programming