Book Review: Uprising: The Internet's Unintended Consequences

Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 2009

Th e concept of interactivity has been invoked as central to the contemporary digital media age. In conjunction with the increased importance of the 'diff used audience', one which is dispersed and fragmented, characterised by an 'always on' interaction with a proliferation of media forms, 1 this context has posed new challenges and questions for audience studies. Although the active audience paradigm, as well as academic work on fandom, had long since blurred the conceptual lines between production and consumption, the contemporary media context has prompted more explicit calls for a reassessment of the relations between viewer (or user) and text, as well as production and consumption, agency and authorship. As Henry Jenkins explains, now that consumers 'have become key participants in media culture; the debate now centres on 'the terms of their participation', not whether audiences are active or passive'. 2 Although largely associated with the move away from transmissional (one-way) models of communication, a great deal of ambiguity has surrounded the meanings of the term interactive-especially with regard to its relationship with text/audience negotiations from 'the past'. Yet in broad terms, the idea of an intervention in a text, as well as some form of reciprocal communication or feedback-'the ability for message receivers to respond to message senders'-has nevertheless emerged as a key point of discussion in debates about interactivity. 3 But there remains a question about the role of the historical here. In 1999, John Corner aptly observed how television studies had frequently worked with a 'frantically contemporary agenda'. 4 Although television historiography has since become a vital and visible part of television scholarship, the dialogue between television studies and television history remains limited. Helen Wheatley has recently referred to 'the short-sightedness of [television studies]. .. that oft en claims so much for the new without rigorous investigation of the apparently "old"'. 5 With respect to interactivity, and in tracing a trajectory from periodicals in the 1880s, confessional magazines in the 1920s, the rise of talkback radio, real life magazines in the 1980s, to the millennial event of Big Brother, Bridget Griff en-Foley has

New genres of programmes appeared on French televisionin the 2000s. They shaped people's relations to entertainment, and to a certain extent the nature of their interests. TVredefined itself under the influence of foreign channels. Until then, France had harshly defended its cultural autonomy; but American formats eventually made their way into the media to become mainstream. Why were these broadcasts so successful? Had viewers been looking forwardto enjoying them? This paper discusses whether reality television has reflectedan evolution of French ethics. A selection of three French broadcasts is scrutinized in this regard –a quiz show (The Weakest Link), a talk show (My Own Decision) and a reality show (Loft Story). These shows reveal aspects of the ways in which television acts upon mentalities. They also threaten, according to sociological studies of the media, the quality of cultural production –in science and in the arts, in philosophy or in law –as well as democracy and political life at large.

Media, Culture & Society, 2008

Contemporary Western culture remains awash with certain distinctions between media, distinctions that hierarchize media as they attribute to them certain essential traits. This article analyses some of these media hierarchies, focusing in particular on a range of discourses that distinguish the medium of television from media such as cinema and digital 'new media'. Discursive attempts to differentiate television from other media (and other media from television) depend upon constructions of medium specificity that position television as the medium that caters most to 'popular', rather than 'legitimate', taste (Bourdieu, 1984: 16). In such processes of distinction, television comes out on the less valued side of the oppositions between 'the male and the female, the serious and the frivolous, the responsible and the irresponsible, the useful and the futile, the realistic and the unrealistic' that dominant social powers employ to distinguish between their elevated position and that of the 'dominated factions' (Bourdieu, 1984: 93-4). Although Bourdieu's analysis of these processes of distinction did not consider television per se, many scholars (e.g. Brunsdon, 1997; Petro, 1986) have pointed out the medium's denigrated discursive positioning, seen most clearly in its ongoing association with the domestic sphere, and in the domestic's abiding association with the conventionally feminine, the pre-or postadult, and the underclass, all identities of economic, social and political subordination. The perpetuation of television's denigration can thus be seen as party to the perpetuation of a number of social inequalities. Throughout television history, however, the cultural denigration of television has occurred in the context of an ongoing tension between discourses of television's low cultural status and those asserting the medium's worth and significance. Take the US context since the mid-1990s as an example. Whether

2011

It is news journalism that is commonly considered the practice that reports on the political and invites us to act as citizens. However, there are other media genres, forms and content that may provoke the citizen in us. They not only provide talking points but also facilitate communicative spaces whereby active audiences transform into deliberating publics by bridging their knowledge, identities and experiences to society through everyday, informal political talk. The internet provides a public space whereby this everyday-life politicization can occur bottom-up. This article addresses this process of politicization in the context of political talk and discusses the boundaries between private and public by examining how it emerges in forums dedicated to British popular reality TV programmes. The article pays particular attention to the shift from non-political talk to the lifestyle-based political issues and the more conventional political topics that arise, and explores the triggers of such talk.

The Television Reader: Critical Perspectives in Canadian and US Television Studies, 2013

Journal of Australian Studies, 1998

Communication & Society, 2024

"What does the future hold for television?". That was the question we posed to Dominique Wolton. Born in 1947, he needs no introduction in the field of social sciences, especially beyond the Anglo-Saxon sphere. There are 35 works by the French sociologist spread across 26 countries and 23 languages. Outside the academy, his recognition is equally wide, belonging, for example, to the National Order of the Legion of Honour, the highest French distinction established by Napoleon and limited to only 75 living people. With a PhD in Sociology, he admits that his main objective is to study communication in an interdisciplinary fashion, focusing on the relationship between the individual, technique, culture and society. Among the many books published, the following stand out for discussion: Éloge du Grand Public. Une Théorie Critique de la Television (In Praise of the General Public: A Critical Theory of Television; Wolton, 1990); Penser la Communication (Thinking Communication; Wolton, 1997); Internet et Après? Une Théorie Critique des Nouveaux Médias (Internet and Then? A Critical Theory of New Media; Wolton, 1999); Sauver la Communication (Save the Communication; Wolton, 2005); Informer N’est pas Communiquer (Informing Is Not Communicating; Wolton, 2009); and Communiquer, C’Est Négocier (To Communicate Is to Negotiate; Wolton, 2022).

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

Media Culture Society 31; 681, 2009