Critical Analysis #1

Choose a narrative television program--a drama--and apply the analytical concepts presented in the textbook to it. Use the analysis of Designing Women (chapter 13) as your guide.

Due in class, Thursday, October 5th. This exercise must be word-processed, 5-10 pages. Any use of outside sources--including Television: Critical Methods and Applications and Web resources-- must be properly cited (see below). A bibliography and the credits for the program analyzed must be provided. This analysis is worth 25% of your semester grade.

You must bring to class a videocassette of a scene from the program you have selected. We will discuss these scenes in class.

Your credits must include: producer, production company, director, writer, principal cast (actors' and characters' names).

Your paper should address the following issues.

  1. Analysis of polysemy
    This is the core portion, the most important part, of your paper. In this segment of your paper you should analyze the ideas that underpin the program you selected.
    1. What meanings, what discourses, are encoded on the text, presented for the viewer to decode? You might want to start your analysis by outlining the issues involved (as on p. 328), but you must then discuss those issues in detail.
    2. How does the text deal with TV's polysemy? What range of meanings is highlighted? Are some meanings emphasized over others? Are some presented positively and others negatively? How? In other words, what attitude or perspective toward those meanings does the show take?
      To effectively analyze a text's polysemy you must breakdown its visual/sound style and overall textual structure. This is where you explain how a program takes a perspective toward a certain meaning or issue.
  2. Analysis of Program Flow
    1. What recurring dilemma underpins the narrative of every episode? That is, what general dilemma is repeated every week? What is the program's continuing narrative problematic?
    2. Using one or two episodes to illustrate your argument, explain how a specific enigma is played out in one narrative on a particular week/day. How does this one individual episode illustrate the general dilemma of the program? (It would probably be useful for you to list all of the scenes and commercials in this episode as you prepare your analysis, but you do not need to include this list in your paper.)
  3. Analysis of Visual/Sound Style
    1. Begin by choosing a single scene from one episode of your program. List all of the shots for that scene. Draw a bird's-eye-view diagram of the positions of the actors, furniture and camera--as on p. 160 (but without the frames of individual faces). (Your videocassette should be cued up to this scene.)
    2. How does the mise-en-scene of this scene contribute to this episode's narrative? In other words, how do the elements of mise-en-scene communicate aspects of the story to the viewer?
    3. Which mode of production was used? Was it filmed or videotaped? What advantages/disadvantages does this mode offer the program? How does it affect what the program can and cannot do?
    4. How does the organization of space through editing support the narrative? Use the questions on p. 170 to guide your answer.
    5. Does the manipulation of music, dialogue, sound perspective, or sync help to construct the story in this episode?

Sample citation style (in a "works cited" list):

For a book:

Butler, Jeremy G. Television: It's My Job. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1994.

For an article in a journal:

Butler, Jeremy G. "The Hegemony of Pluralistic Hierarchies in Leave It to Beaver: An Althusserian Prolegomenon." Journal of Really, Really Important Ideas, 17.4 (Spring 1994): 47-77.

For a Webpage:

Butler, Jeremy G. "Deconstructing The Andy Griffith Show: Trouble in Mayberry." ScreenSite. July 28, 1995. University of Alabama. November 3, 2000. <http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite/andy.htm>.

This citation includes (in the following order): Webpage author, Webpage title, title of the whole Website, date Webpage was created (if available), "owner" of the whole Website, date you read the Webpage, Webpage address (its URL).


Last Revised: November 2, 2000 9:27
Comments: JButler@ua.edu