Daytime Television Game Shows and the Celebration of Merchandise

Daytime Television Game Shows and the Celebration of Merchandise PDF Author: Morris B. Holbrook
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780879726218
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
Insights into the nature of the consumer society and its ethos of consumption can often emerge from interpreting even the most lowly specimens of popular culture. In this spirit, a neglected genre that promises to shed light on the culture of consumption appears in the form of the daytime television game shows whose hegemonic message seems to convey and to justify a widespread obeisance to the mandate of materialism. These game shows often present a text that demands a readerly, monosemic, dominant interpretation as an unabashed celebration of merchandise. In particular, a close analysis of the longest running game show - The Price Is Right - suggests that all facets of this program combine to reinforce its central meaning as a ritualistic validation of consumption-oriented greed. An alternative resistant reading is explored but rejected - in part because it rests on an assumption that violates the empirical data and in part because it provides a more convincing analysis of a program like Supermarket Sweep. In short, the present study concludes that TV game shows in general, and The Price Is Right in particular, reflect and reinforce the obsession that many modern consumers feel with merchandise valued almost for its own sake, beyond any need or even capacity to use it, as a kind of disembodied target of misdirected desire.

Daytime Television Game Shows and the Celebration of Merchandise

Daytime Television Game Shows and the Celebration of Merchandise PDF Author: Morris B. Holbrook
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780879726218
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
Insights into the nature of the consumer society and its ethos of consumption can often emerge from interpreting even the most lowly specimens of popular culture. In this spirit, a neglected genre that promises to shed light on the culture of consumption appears in the form of the daytime television game shows whose hegemonic message seems to convey and to justify a widespread obeisance to the mandate of materialism. These game shows often present a text that demands a readerly, monosemic, dominant interpretation as an unabashed celebration of merchandise. In particular, a close analysis of the longest running game show - The Price Is Right - suggests that all facets of this program combine to reinforce its central meaning as a ritualistic validation of consumption-oriented greed. An alternative resistant reading is explored but rejected - in part because it rests on an assumption that violates the empirical data and in part because it provides a more convincing analysis of a program like Supermarket Sweep. In short, the present study concludes that TV game shows in general, and The Price Is Right in particular, reflect and reinforce the obsession that many modern consumers feel with merchandise valued almost for its own sake, beyond any need or even capacity to use it, as a kind of disembodied target of misdirected desire.

Encyclopedia of Television

Encyclopedia of Television PDF Author: Horace Newcomb
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135194793
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 2732

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Book Description
The Encyclopedia of Television, second edtion is the first major reference work to provide description, history, analysis, and information on more than 1100 subjects related to television in its international context. For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Encyclo pedia of Television, 2nd edition website.

FCC Record

FCC Record PDF Author: United States. Federal Communications Commission
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Telecommunication
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Television

Television PDF Author: Jeremy G. Butler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135635412
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game PDF Author:
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 0791481522
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
From The $64,000 Question and Twenty-One to Jeopardy and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, quiz shows have permeated American culture ever since their beginnings in early radio. In Rules of the Game, Olaf Hoerschelmann critically examines the quiz show genre in American culture, drawing on a large body of radio and television programs and on archival materials relating to the broadcast industry, program sponsors, advertising agencies, and individual producers. Hoerschelmann relates quiz shows to the larger social and industrial structures from which they originate and examines the connection of quiz shows to the production of knowledge in American society. He also provides a rethinking of media genre theory, offering a detailed analysis of the text-audience relationships on quiz shows and their significance for the practice of broadcasting.

The Guide to United States Popular Culture

The Guide to United States Popular Culture PDF Author: Ray Broadus Browne
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780879728212
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1030

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Book Description
"To understand the history and spirit of America, one must know its wars, its laws, and its presidents. To really understand it, however, one must also know its cheeseburgers, its love songs, and its lawn ornaments. The long-awaited Guide to the United States Popular Culture provides a single-volume guide to the landscape of everyday life in the United States. Scholars, students, and researchers will find in it a valuable tool with which to fill in the gaps left by traditional history. All American readers will find in it, one entry at a time, the story of their lives."--Robert Thompson, President, Popular Culture Association. "At long last popular culture may indeed be given its due within the humanities with the publication of The Guide to United States Popular Culture. With its nearly 1600 entries, it promises to be the most comprehensive single-volume source of information about popular culture. The range of subjects and diversity of opinions represented will make this an almost indispensable resource for humanities and popular culture scholars and enthusiasts alike."--Timothy E. Scheurer, President, American Culture Association "The popular culture of the United States is as free-wheeling and complex as the society it animates. To understand it, one needs assistance. Now that explanatory road map is provided in this Guide which charts the movements and people involved and provides a light at the end of the rainbow of dreams and expectations."--Marshall W. Fishwick, Past President, Popular Culture Association Features of The Guide to United States Popular Culture: 1,010 pages 1,600 entries 500 contributors Alphabetic entries Entries range from general topics (golf, film) to specific individuals, items, and events Articles are supplemented by bibliographies and cross references Comprehensive index

Games in the Global Village

Games in the Global Village PDF Author: Anne Cooper-Chen
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780879725990
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Q. What is the most-watched TV format in history, seen by about 100 million people weekly around the world? A. Wheel of Fortune, a game show. Without putdowns or pandering, the author looks at 260 such shows, concluding that culture has triumphed over technology. For despite our capacity to transmit the same content world-wide, McLuhan's global village has not come to pass. Technology has, however, encouraged already-existing "cultural continents" to coalesce. About one-third of the world's game shows have been licensed or adapted from another country, especially from the United States. Conversely, a single program can cross borders unchanged, such as Sabado Gigante, which appeals to Spanish speakers in 18 countries. The first truly global study of TV entertainment, this book includes interviews with producers, contestants, and licensers. With its tables, illustrations and appendices, the text provides details on content and audiences, as well as explanatory overviews.

Quiz Show

Quiz Show PDF Author: Su Holmes
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748631577
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Despite its enduring popularity with both broadcasters and audiences, the quiz show has found itself marginalised in studies of popular television. This book offers a unique introduction to the study of the quiz show, while also revisiting, updating and expanding on existing quiz show scholarship. Ranging across programmes such as Double Your Money, The $64,000 Dollar Question, Twenty-One, The Price is Right, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link to the controversial 'Quiz TV Call' phenomenon, the book explores programmes with a focus on question and answer. Topics covered include the relationship between quiz shows and television genre; the early broadcast history of the quiz show; questions of institutional regulation; quiz show aesthetics; the social significance of 'games'; 'ordinary' people as television performers, and questions of quiz show reception (from interactivity to on-line fandom). Key Features*Represents one of few book-length studies of the quiz show*Offers an accessible introduction to the genre for undergraduate students*Draws upon new archival research in order to contribute to knowledge about the early history of the quiz show*Demonstrates why the quiz show matters to Television Studies*Brings together key approaches in the field with new interventions and areas of study (such as the quiz show in the multi-platform age, and the study of 'ordinary' people as performers).

Truth and Consequences

Truth and Consequences PDF Author: Mike Miley
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 149682542X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Although nearly every other television form or genre has undergone a massive critical and popular reassessment or resurgence in the past twenty years, the game show’s reputation has remained both remarkably stagnant and remarkably low. Scholarship on game shows concerns itself primarily with the history and aesthetics of the form, and few works assess the influence the format has had on American society or how the aesthetics and rhythms of contemporary life model themselves on the aesthetics and rhythms of game shows. In Truth and Consequences: Game Shows in Fiction and Film, author Mike Miley seeks to broaden the conversation about game shows by studying how they are represented in fiction and film. Writers and filmmakers find the game show to be the ideal metaphor for life in a media-saturated era, from selfhood to love to family to state power. The book is divided into “rounds,” each chapter looking at different themes that books and movies explore via the game show. By studying over two dozen works of fiction and film—bestsellers, blockbusters, disasters, modern legends, forgotten gems, award winners, self-published curios, and everything in between—Truth and Consequences argues that game shows offer a deeper understanding of modern-day America, a land of high-stakes spectacle where a game-show host can become president of the United States.

What Women Watched

What Women Watched PDF Author: Marsha F. Cassidy
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292782721
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
In this pathfinding book, based on original archival research, Marsha F. Cassidy offers the first thorough analysis of daytime television's earliest and most significant women's genres, appraising from a feminist perspective what women watched before soap opera rose to prominence. After providing a comprehensive history of the early days of women's programming across the nation, Cassidy offers a critical discussion of the formats, programs, and celebrities that launched daytime TV in America—Kate Smith's variety show and the famed singer's unsuccessful transition from patriotic radio star to 1950s TV idol; the "charm boys" Garry Moore, Arthur Godfrey, and Art Linkletter, whose programs honored women's participation but in the process established the dominance of male hosts on TV; and the "misery shows" Strike It Rich and Glamour Girl and the controversy, both critical and legal, they stirred up. Cassidy then turns to NBC's Home show, starring the urbane Arlene Francis, who infused the homemaking format with Manhattan sophistication, and the ambitious daily anthology drama Matinee Theater, which strove to differentiate itself from soap opera and become a national theater of the air. She concludes with an analysis of four popular audience participation shows of the era—the runaway hit Queen for a Day; Ralph Edwards's daytime show of surprises, It Could Be You; Who Do You Trust?, starring a youthful Johnny Carson; and The Big Payoff, featuring Bess Myerson, the country's first Jewish Miss America. Cassidy's close feminist reading of these shows clearly demonstrates how daytime TV mirrored the cultural pressures, inconsistencies, and ambiguities of the postwar era.