A Summary of "'Me' TV"
"'Me' TV", written by Gary Hoppenstand, is an explanation of the replacement of reality TV today by classic television on DVD. Published in the Journal of Popular Culture, the article depicts Hoppenstand's disgust for television today. He presents the idea of television being based solely on reality, with participant embarrassment and humiliation serving as "sadistic vehicles".
Second, he believes that producers today have settled for airing programs that cost very little, disregarding such things as character and story line. According to Hoppenstand, media has been in the power of users since as early as the nineteenth century. Authors in the past realized that placing pictures on the front of published documents developed more demand, especially when the picture was printed in color. This all changed when technology increased, and consumers preferred to hear and watch these stories, instead of reading them themselves. "The invention of sound and color in the motion picture industry literally destroyed, in a heartbeat, silent and black-and-white filmmaking," says Hoppenstand. Since the technological advancement, sounds systems and the quality of clarity have improved drastically and continue to today.
With the invention and wide spread popularity of television, radio readings and talk shows made a drastic decline, so much that radio programs, such as, "Gunsmoke" were made into popular television series.
Hoppenstand concludes the amount of control consumers have today, whether it be over their home theatre sets or personal programming, technology has made great strides. Instead of being forced to view reality TV, we now have the option of watching endless reruns of "Laverne & Shirley", "Full House", or what have you. Hoppenstand leaves us with the following statement, "With 'Me' TV, I get to make the programming decisions about what I want to watch and when I want to watch it. Control is a wonderful thing."
WORKS CITED
Hoppenstand, Gray. "'Me' TV." Journal of Popular Culture 39 (2006): 707-8.
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1 comment:
I completely agree that TV shows today (exluding a few) are not what they used to be. I LOVE Grey's Anatomy and The Office and October Road but there is a lot of trash on TV.
I love shows like 'Home Improvement', 'Boy Meets World', and many others.
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