Does TV Bring You Pictures of the World Outside or Does it Create a Hyperreality in Your Head

Mass Comm Assignments
FOR THIS WEEK'S BLOGGING EFFORT:
For the weblog entry due for this week, look up the Nielsen ratings on one of your favorite prime time network television shows. If you don’t like any network shows chose something that one of your friends watches. How many television households watched that program in the recent week and how’s it compare to other shows in its timeslot. How does your show do when it comes to ratings versus share? What do you think would happen to the ratings if you move the show to a different time night and time period? What kind of competition would it face? How do you think the ratings would change and why?

Links you can use to find out prime time ratings:

• Zap2It- Offers you a selection of weekly network and cable choices. You can even get the ratings for syndicated programming like Jeopardy and Wheel of Forutne or for sports programs.
• TV Insider
• Neilsen Media Research (THIS IS THE OFFICIAL SITE OF NEILSEN, but the company only posts the top 10 network shows).
• USA Today

Global Village or the Illusion of a Global Village?
For your weblog entry/essay due April 10, consider what we have discussed when it comes to mass communication and media effects theories. Revisit what Hanson wrote about television serving as a window on the world when he referenced Joshua Meyrowitz’s book, No Sense of Place.

Does television expose use to a diversity of people from all sorts of places with different lifestyles from your own? Or has TV replaced reality with “simulacra” as Baudrillard wrote? Revisit Chapter 9 from Hanson, particularly the section on “Bringing the World into our Homes,” then watch a complete evening of prime time television from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Note any situations you are exposed to that you would not have normally experienced without television. Write a 500-700 essay/blog entry summarizing your findings and frame what you experienced under Meyrowitz or in context of Baudrillard—and even all the way back to Lippman.

Again, here's what is requred of this assignment:

• 500-700 Word Essay
• Summarize a night of watching a night of prime time television (8-11 p.m.)
• Note situations you are exposed to that you would not normally experience.
• Frame your essay of where you situate your opinion between Meyrowitz and Baudrillard (read Baudrillard’s obituary from the L.A. Times—note the connection with the Matrix films) and connect to other theories we’ve discussed or take it back to Lippman.