Department of Film & Media UC Berkeley

This course provides students with an introduction to the field of television studies complete with: a factual foundation in television history across its broadcast, cable, and convergence phases; a conceptual apparatus through which to investigate how televisual form (narrative and aesthetics) dramatizes and problematizes social issues and cultural values; and an analytic procedure or critical operation (close reading of a television text) through which students may compose complex original arguments. This course inherits a concern with television history previously taught in special topics courses but expands the historical, regional/national, or generic boundaries of those courses to provide a sweeping view of the history of television as a dynamic set of technologies, industrial practices, and cultural forms. Students are expected to acquire new informational content about the major phases of television history with emphasis on how changes in industrial practice influence form and style; to acquire conceptual vocabulary necessary for examining the mutual influence of media practices and cultural values; and to develop the analytic skills necessary to produce historically grounded readings of televisual texts that demonstrate critical insights into the relationship between cultural context, narrative, and aesthetics.