TV and American Culture Syllabus

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Spring 2012

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TV and American Culture
Program for Writing and Rhetoric, University of Colorado at Boulder WRTG 3020-067, TR 9:30-10:45, ECCR 108 WRTG 3020-072, TR 11:00-12:15, ECCR 118 WRTG 3020-084, TR 2:00-3:15, CHEM 133
INSTRUCTOR: Dalyn Luedtke PHONE: 303.492.5286 COURSE WEBSITE: http://rhetoricoftv.com/ EMAIL: [email protected] OFFICE HOURS: Tuesdays 3:30-5:00pm, Wednesdays 12:30-2:30pm (and by appointment) If my scheduled office hours do not work with your schedule, I’m happy to set up an alternative time to meet with you to discuss coursework. I am also available via email and chat, which are definitely the most effective and efficient way to contact me during business hours. Please be aware that I only answer email Monday through Friday between 8:00am and 6:00pm. If you email me between these hours, I will get back to you quickly; otherwise, you can expect to hear from me early on the following business day.

OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Throughout the past decade the quality of television programming has significantly increased. Shows such as The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, The Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Mad Men, and others have continued to push the boundaries of storytelling, character development, and production value to new limits—limits that are often said to be literary as opposed to televisual. In fact, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, Salon, Dr. David Lavery, and a number of other critics, both popular and academic, have all recently declared what would have been blasphemous a decade ago: that TV is now better than film. Additionally, The New York Times, TV Guide, and author Steven Johnson claim that television can actually make us smarter. Certainly the sophisticated content and complex narratives represented in the programs listed above demand more of viewers than other entertainment media in the present or past. And though cultural critics and parents alike bemoan the influence of reality television, even these shows are not so easy to write off as escapist junk. Competitionbased reality shows invite viewers to play along, prompting them to create and asses strategies, which requires the ability to read people’s behaviors, words, and emotions. Even reality shows that follow the lives of celebrities more famous for their illicit behavior than talent invoke criticality in audiences who deconstruct such shows in order to determine how this “reality” is being manipulated by producers and to what extent. Of course, the nature of the medium itself has also changed drastically during this same period of time. Watching TV no longer means sitting down in your living room during primetime to watch that night’s lineup; instead, we can watch just about any show—from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to The Walking Dead—at just about any time and place. Indeed, for a large number of people, the verb “watching” is no longer representative of the ways in which they experience TV. For instance, many people who watch Survivor now also follow Jeff Probst’s live tweets during the broadcast, analyze the castaways strategies on message boards and blogs, play fantasy Survivor with co-workers, study maps and satellite images for clues on where the next season will be, and, of course, produce audition videos in the attempt to join the next cast of Survivor. The convergence of television with new media technologies has made it easier for viewers to produce their own texts that talk to and back to their favorite (and, sometimes, not so favorite) shows.

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Because of these drastic changes to the television landscape, the medium demands more critical attention than we have previously given it. As a class, we will use a variety of approaches to assess the material, rhetorical, and cultural impact of television; specifically, we will study the development of TV as a medium that has been popularly characterized as “the vast wasteland” to one that is a powerful vehicle for audience engagement, social commentary, and community building. We will also consider the following questions: How do viewers of the 21st century tune in and why? How do we define the contemporary viewing experience? How has television adapted to the new media environment? How has the TV industry changed over the last few decades? What does the future of TV look like? In order to effectively study the cultural impact of contemporary television, students will be required to keep a regular blog, respond to classmates’ blog posts, create multimedia texts that engage with various issues in TV, write a critical analysis of a television show or genre, and choose one network to research in order to create a pitch for an original television program. COURSE GOALS: Throughout the semester, students should • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Negotiate multiple genres, both popular and academic, and their respective practices; Identify specific rhetorical situation and assess the available persuasive strategies; Assess and develop strategies for writing for real audiences, including the ability to adapt to feedback from those audiences; Apply their disciplinary expertise to issues in television, media, and culture; Hone their critical thinking and cultural analysis skills; Engage in thoughtful dialogue about popular culture; Use new media rhetorically to engage their audiences in a variety of ways; Develop comfort composing, reading, and collaborating in digital environments; Gain experience with video and audio composing and editing techniques; Recognize the benefits of process-driven composition; Learn to critique their own and others’ work; Understand composition as a social act and collaborative process; Develop an awareness of the rhetorical impact of the elements of composition such as word choice, sentence length, and organization; And further their understanding of conventions of standard linguistic usage and their application—including proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation—as they compose, revise, and edit their writing across a range of rhetorical tasks and genres.

REQUIRED MATERIALS: In keeping with the spirit of marrying old media with new, we will be using both types of materials in this class. You can find the online readings under the resources tab on the course website and we will also be using the following: • • • • Mittell, Jason. Television and American Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. Hacker, Diana, et al. Writer’s Help. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Web. A pocket folder. You may also need to create an account with and use a variety of websites: Google, Wordpress, Scribd, Prezi, Twitter, Podomatic, Dropbox, Vimeo, and/or YouTube.

GRADING*: Your final grade is broken down into the following proportions: Research Paper Episode Commentary Critical Analysis The Pitch Project Blog Portfolio and Reflection 20% 15% 20% 20% 25% or or or or or 200 150 200 200 250 points points points points points

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Please note that the blog portfolio and the final group project are not due until the last week of class. These projects combined comprise 45% of your grade. I realize that this is potentially stressful for some of you, but I will be commenting on your blog throughout the course of the semester and I’m also happy to sit down with you and discuss your progress in the class at any time. *Rubrics are available at the end of each prompt on the course website. Late assignments will be docked 10% for every class period they are late unless you make arrangements with me ahead of time. If you know you will be unable to turn in your final draft on time because of unforeseen circumstances, please let me know at least 24 hours in advance. Extensions will not be given if requested within 24 hours of the due date. Please keep in mind that this class will move quickly—blogs pile up, commenting has to be done, new apps have to be learned, and you will often be working with others—so timeliness is critical. Any extensions you may get will inevitably cut into the time you have for the next project. Manage your time wisely. ATTENDANCE: This course will be taught as a workshop; your participation is essential to the success of the course. Therefore, you are expected to attend class regularly and to be on time. Each absence in excess of three will diminish your final grade by one grading increment. If you miss more than 6 classes, you will automatically fail the class. I do not differentiate between excused and unexcused absences. If you missed class for any reason*, it is an absence. So, DO NOT schedule doctors’ appointments, appointments with other faculty members, or job interviews during class time. I suggest you save your absences for any emergencies—a death in the family, illness, and so forth—that may arise during the course of the session. Although this class meets very early, I expect you to be on time. Excessive tardiness is disruptive to the class and will not be tolerated. In the event that you do miss part or all of class, you are responsible for getting any missed material. I suggest you exchange contact information with a classmate. Campus policy regarding religious observances requires that faculty make every effort to reasonably and fairly deal with all students who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, assignments, or required attendance. In this class, please consult the class schedule and let me know one week ahead of time if you will be missing class for religious reasons. You are still responsible for any work missed. WORKSHOPPING: Writing classes are, by necessity, small. As a result, everyone needs to participate for the class to be successful. Writing is also inherently collaborative and we will work in groups as much as possible at every step of the writing process. Perhaps the most important group work we do, however, is workshopping—an integral part of any writing class. The goal of workshopping each assignment is to make revision easier. You will get feedback from me and from several of your colleagues for each of the major assignments. Each workshop is composed of two parts. The first phase of the workshopping process will take place in Googledocs, where each group member will annotate and comment upon each draft. Next we will meet in my office at the appointed time to discuss the drafts in person. The first phase should prepare you to talk about the draft; therefore all drafts are due before our scheduled review dates. If you do not post your draft in Googledocs by the designated time, your draft will not be workshopped. Each major assignment will be formally workshopped once, and I will be checking Googledocs to make sure you have annotated and commented (guidelines for workshops

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are posted on the website). Please take the workshop seriously by engaging with the drafts, asking content-related questions, providing constructive feedback and concrete suggestions for improvement, and presenting your responses in a respectful manner. If you miss a workshop completely, your own assignment will be deducted 10%.

OVERVIEW OF MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS
In this class, you will be asked to switch between very different genres of composition and do so in a way that is explicitly rhetorical. You must turn in all the major assignments (those listed above) in order to pass the class. Please keep all the work related to the major assignments, such as drafts or any pre-composing activities, as I may ask you to turn them in with your final draft. Because the research paper and critical analysis are traditional academic papers, you will submit both on paper, formatted according to MLA guidelines. All other assignments must be posted to Dropbox or the class blog, in the appropriate category and with tags, by the designated time. Computer problems, Internet disruption, and other tech problems are not legitimate reasons for failing to post your assignments on time. Please plan ahead. I will not accept any papers or homework assignments via email, so do not ask. RESEARCH PAPER: In order to understand the current state of the television industry, we will first explore the business of television, focusing on the past three decades or so. Each of you will pick one aspect of the industry to research—such as time-shifting, importation and exportation of formats, the role of advertising, censorship, the challenges of new media, piracy, the digitization of cable, and so forth—and write an 8-10 page critical inquiry that details the history and complexities of your issue. The goal of this paper is to give you some background the industry and its business practices; I do not want you to take a stand on your issue. Therefore, you should consider what industrial, social, and political dynamics drive your issue, how the industry has historically justified their position, the individual, local, national, and international impact of your issue, and how the future might unfold. Because I’m interested in reality TV, for instance, I might choose to research the rise of the genre. For an 8-10 page paper, such a project would likely begin in the late 90s when production costs skyrocketed and the industry was faced with a number of strikes. These factors prompted networks to look for ways to cut above-board costs like talent. Clearly, the lack of a script and the use of non-actors in reality TV addressed those needs and the resulting boom changed the face of television. I would also explore the promises of democracy attached to the genre and how they have played out (or failed to) over the past decade and what the future looks like for the genre, which doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Relatively speaking, this is a short paper, so be careful about how much history you choose to include. It is more important to show that you understand the nuances of the issue and its effects rather than every single possible historical connection. Because these issues are controversial, I expect you to do your best to present multiple perspectives fairly and with respect. This is an academic research paper, which means it should be formatted according to MLA guidelines. You must have at least 10 scholarly sources, which should be deployed in a rhetorically effective way. EPISODE COMMENTARY: Following your research paper, in groups of 2-3 people, you will produce a video that analyzes a single episode of a television program—similar to the commentary you’ve seen included on TV shows and DVDs. You will combine scenes from the

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program along with voiceover narration to produce a 10-12 minute video. While the emphasis will be on analysis, you can also bring in some limited background information on the show, including the key contributors, awards the show may have received, productionrelated notes, or any other relevant information. Your commentary should provide the viewer with new insight into your chosen program, showing them aspects of the show that aren’t immediately obvious through casual viewing. You will also need access to sound/video editing and recording software. If you don’t have experience with iMovie or other similar software, you will learn. As part of this assignment, we will review copyright law and fair use policy. You will need to sign-up for a Dropbox account in order to share the video with me. You will also post your bibliography as a blog post, under the category “Episode Bib,” with all of your group member’s names. The sources should be formatted according to MLA guidelines and include any sources you used to gather information about your show. Though you will be turning the projects in to me, we will watch them as a class. ANALYSIS PAPER: In the episode analysis you focused on connecting your analysis with visual evidence from your show. Now you will do so again, though more in-depth and for an academic audience. For the analysis paper, you will write a 6-8 page analysis of a television program of your choosing. As with any critical analysis, you will analyze the details of the text and attempt to draw conclusions based upon your analysis of those details. A thorough analysis will consider the context of the show (time period, network, lead-in, and so forth), the audience, and the purpose. Remember that analysis is subjective, which means that your reader may not agree with your conclusions, so it your job to provide ample evidence to support your conclusions and anticipate any objections your reader may have. In order to prepare for the paper, we will read Section 2 of the textbook, which has a number of examples that should help you with your own writing. Again, the goal is to analyze your chosen show in a way that tells us something new about it—something we might not have thought of on our own. For example, a feminist lens isn’t likely to tell us anything new about Keeping Up with the Kardashians. However, a critical cultural analysis of the show might detail the ways in which this show and others like it expose the mechanizations of celebrity. Through a comparison of, say, Kim and her stepfather, Bruce Jenner, such an analysis might also detail how the very notion of celebrity has changed over the last few decades and what role digital media has played in that evolution. This is an academic paper, meaning that you will need to use at least six scholarly sources and adhere to current MLA guidelines. Carefully consider which program you want to analyze; ideally, it should be one that you are familiar with and that is complex enough to approach in a number of critical ways. FINAL PROJECT: For the final project, you will work in small groups of four people. Together you will study and analyze a channel or network to determine their business strategies, programming techniques, target demographic, and how they engage audiences in an online environment. This information will be compiled into a prospectus, which is made up of four parts: background and industrial context, a brief analysis of one show and how it fits into the industrial context, an audience and online analysis, and an original TV pitch. While a prospectus is typically used to map out a research plan for longer projects, you will be using it to provide background information and framing for a television pitch and, in essence, as a rhetorical justification for your “pitch” of an original television show. The project will then be presented to the rest of the class.

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You must pitch a show that you believe would be appropriate and successful for the network you have chosen. The pitch should involve a clear, concise rationale for the show (based on your research) and a detailed description: title, plot line, scheduling, trajectory, and other relevant details. You need to be as specific as possible and really tailor your idea to the channel/ network you are pitching to. Consider whether they have migrated toward reality programming, a specific demographic, or medical dramas. What have they had success with? What audience might they be courting (given recent shows that have retired, been cancelled, or been huge successes—either on your channel or off)? You will turn in the prospectus and program proposal to me, which will be graded on the strength of the writing, attention to detail, and rhetorical sophistication. For the presentation, you will have 30 minutes to present your pitch, which should acknowledge and integrate the information from your prospectus. You must think through all the details of the program and be prepared to answer any questions the network executives (the rest of the class) might ask. As part of the presentation, you will also unveil a trailer for your television program. While I don’t expect you to shoot original footage (though you certainly can), I do want you to use clips, videos, pictures, audio, and/or music to put together a trailer that gives us an idea what the show will be about, who the characters are, and the overall “feel” of the program. The goal of the trailer is to give us a better sense of tone—something that is difficult to get across in the pitch. Overall, you should use any media that you deem appropriate and you must present this in a professional manner. While it is clear that you will need to think about your pitch rhetorically, you will also need to approach your presentation from a rhetorical perspective. Think about ways to keep your audience engaged by asking them questions, avoiding long monologues, and using different types of media. BLOG PORTFOLIO: Although this class is about TV, it is still a writing class, which means I expect you to write regularly. There are TV blogs aplenty on the Internet and we are about to enter the fray. Our class blog can be found at http://tvwritings12.wordpress.com/. You will be expected to write one blog per week (300 words or more) that engages with some aspect of the television industry. It can be a weekly program review, thoughts on the upcoming spring lineup or reviews of the (mid-season) premieres, or thoughts on recent industry happenings. However, I do expect your blog to be critical, thoughtful, and reflect you as a writer. You will write a total of twelve blogs; each blog will be due Tuesday by midnight to accommodate the always stellar Sunday night programming. In addition, I expect you to respond to your classmates’ blogs. You must leave at least two comments per week, which will be due each Thursday by midnight. I will be checking them off each week. Your comments should be substantive and engaging; try to establish a dialogue. I strongly suggest you begin reading other TV blogs to get a sense of how others approach both blogging and commenting. The more you can become part of the TV/entertainment blogging culture, the easier this part of the class will be. At the end of the semester, you will turn in a digital blog portfolio, which will be a reflection on the writing we have been doing and links to your five strongest revised blogs. The blog portfolio grade will be based on a combination of participation (blog comments and posts=5%), evidence of rhetorical awareness, voice, presentation (five revised blogs=15%), and thoughtfulness and attention to detail (reflection=5%). As you will see, this is not academic writing. You should work on cultivating a voice and engaging your audience in discussion. Feel free to use humor, sarcasm, links, videos, and pictures. In fact, one of the things I will be looking for in the blog portfolio is variety. Because blogs are relatively informal, you should feel free to experiment with different forms, styles, and technologies. If something doesn’t work as well as you’d like, you’ll still

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get credit for it; you just won’t include it in your portfolio. For more ideas for blogs posts, please see the blog portfolio prompt under the scenes tab on the website.

Overview of University Policies
For more up-to-date and comprehensive information on each of these policies, please follow the links which will take you to the official pages on the university website. • If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities. Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Those who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student's legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. The University of Colorado at Boulder policies on Discrimination and Harassment, the University of Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and the University of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships apply to all students, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member who believes s/he has been the subject of discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at 303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council ([email protected]; 303-735-5911). Students who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion).







PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism is the act of passing off another’s work as your own. Stealing, buying, or otherwise using someone else’s work, in whole or in part, constitutes plagiarism and is against university policy. Such behavior is taken seriously by the Honors Council, to which many such incidents are referred. Plagiarism does not always take such blatant forms, however. Of equal concern, especially in a course like this one where you will be encouraged to draw on others’ ideas in your own writing, are the more subtle forms of plagiarism. For example, you probably know that all words taken directly from a source need to be quoted and cited, and that there are specific conventions for doing this properly. However, you may not know that merely changing a few words in a passage—say, by using the thesaurus function on your word-processing program—does not protect you from the charge of plagiarism. Passages that are similar to their sources in syntax, organization, or wording but are not cited are considered to be

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plagiarized. In fact, even if you cite the source but do not make it clear to your readers that the phrasing of a passage is not your own, the source is still considered to be plagiarized. Any time you use another’s work—ideas, theories, statistics, graphs, photos, or facts that are not common knowledge—you must acknowledge the author. Depending on the severity of the offense and on the instructor’s particular policy, the consequences for plagiarism vary, from having to rewrite a section of a paper to receiving a failing grade. Therefore, in addition to making sure you understand what constitutes an offense, it is important that you become familiar with your instructor’s policy. In the PWR, we see plagiarism as more than merely a matter of policy or legality. It is also an issue of respect and regard for other readers and writers. Some students are reluctant to cite their sources because they mistakenly believe that in college all their ideas must be original. But the university is a community of thinkers; as such, the writing we produce may be thought of as a conversation with other thinkers. As in any conversation, your “listeners” expect you to build on what has already been said. We all build on each other’s ideas, making our own small contribution to the discussion. At the same time, we all like to see our ideas acknowledged. Acknowledging other people’s work can only enhance your reputation as a credible, thoughtful, honest writer. Although the ideas in your paper may come from others, the way you put them together and make sense of them will be uniquely your own.

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