My question will be something like:
'To what extent are television drama's being made less intellectually stimulating in the modern society?' (better worded though)
An answer would consist of:
Drama's today consist of a variety of programmes, from the least intelluctually stimulating programme, such as Casualty to a higher-brow drama like house.
However, it is a popular opinion that dramas nowadays are more 'dumbed down', and it is a common sterotype to sit in front of the t.v and switch off to the world and all sense related. I will now take a closer look at how accurate a stereotype this really is. It is certainly true to say that there are many t.v dramas which require little or no thought process to view, such as casualty , the bill or many soap operas around such as hollyoaks. On the other hand, however it is equally true to state that there are many dramas on television which are very complex in their plot lines and general dialogue, such as 'House', 'Spooks' or 'The virgin queen'. This would seem to suggest that dramas today are becoming more and more intellecually stimulating and would suggest that my original question has been proven wrong.
However, when looking at a drama such as 'House', then one could argue that very few of its audience have the right extent of knowledge required to understand the in-depth medical examinations and problems that arise during the show. This may lead to suggest that in actual fact a seemingly high-brow program will require the same amount of concentration and knowledge as any other drama around, because one is simply watching the happenings on the television without implementing any thought-processing skills, due to the fact that it would be impossible to actually understand the complex medical issues without being a leading doctor! Contrary to this, dramas such as spooks require you attention throughout the whole of the episode, because of the intricate plot-lines, this leads on to suggest that there are definitly dramas around today which can be undoubtedly called 'intellectually stimulating'.
On the other hand, when observing dramas from the past, one would struggle to find one specifically intellectually stimulating. Dramas such as doctor who, despite being popular are not up on social or political events. For example, the woman in the series is simply the damsel in distress - not in keeping with the steadily rising view of equality for women and feminism. As doctor who has made a come back in the recent years, they have had to keep it on the social action pulse, by using the women in the series' as key roles, and making them just as important as everyone else, a change from the older series. Whilst looking at statistics from t.v shows in the 1980's, i can deduce the kinds of programmes favoured by the public, ergo, i can find out whether more intellectually stimulating programmes are being watched as time goes by. In 1981 the only dramas in the top 10 watched were 'Magnum P.I' and the 'Seven Dials of Mystery', both of which were not entirely intellectual. Over the years, to 1985, the most popular dramas to watch were soap-operas. These, despite being in line with social developments to make the plot lines appear more realistic, they did not require an extrodinary amount of brain power to follow, in fact they were designed for people to join in watching them half-way through, so they would have to be fairly easy to follow to gain extra audiences.
As time progressed to 1990, then despite soap operas being the most popular programmes watched, more intellectually stimulating programmes such as inspector morse start climbing up the top 10 most popular programmes watched. Again, in 1995, despite no-brainer programmes being extremely popular, the vast majority of britons enjoyed socially stimulating programmes, as shown by a panorama special on Princess Diana pulling more viewers then any other programme at the time.
Websites to back me up are:
Guardian paper
Wikipedia about gregory house
MSNBC
(in case you need to know half the words in the article)
Something
Something else
T.V is good!
Dumbing down?
TV dumbing down - is there anything good on TV?
Guy rips into spooks
Guy is nice about spooks
Eastenders
appreciated eastenders, yet it's all about working class
TV isn't dumbing down, it expects us to instead
magnum P.I and it's vietnamy goodness
私を助けなさい!
Key media theory: Dumbing down/ tabloidisation
I believe mine is inductive
Righty ho...
I'll look at:
- Spooks - Very high tech, socially up to date, have to be thinking to watch it (intellectually stimulating)
- Eastenders - Low brow, but very socially up to date, tackles modern issues.
- House - High tech, high brow, socially up to date, yet might not have to be so intellectual to watch, seems as a bit too medically, can go over your head.
And:
- Doctor Who - Not low brow, not high brow, socially out of date, didn't keep up with feminism.
- Eastenders - Low brow, but very socially up to date, tackles modern issues.
- Magnum P.I - Low brow, socially up to date.
As the Oxford dictionary states, Highbrow means...
According to the Oxford dictionary, Lowbrow is...
To start my research, i decided to use the internet. I went onto google and typed in 'Highbrow dramas' this didn't return any helpful results however, because it was too wide a topic. It was not to no avail, however, this search returned a valuable site discussing whether t.v is worth watching for firstly the social aspect and secondly the mind-numbing programming. It argues that even the low-brow dramas such as eastenders give something to talk about over the water-cooler. It also argues that television is not rotting for the brain, in fact some of the new programmes become more like shakesperian literature than unintellectually stimulating rubbish!
I also interviewed people from around the world what their views were on the current - and past - british shows. Amongst these views are such that there is an element of both sides in the arguement, some programmes have become more intellectually stimulating, such as spooks or house, whereas some programmes have stayed at the bottom, such as eastenders. These views helped me form a balanced arguement, not biased due to only gathering data from England.
To gain a wide perspective on the issue i am looking at, i decided to create a questionnaire which i could then give out to a fair selection of people. The results of this questionnaire were shocking. Many more people agreed/strongly agreed that programmes are becoming less and less intellectually stimulating then disagreed. The real surprise came later, when i compared the amount of highbrow programmes people said were around today and the ones they said were around in the 1980's. The results were astounding, there were 15 more votes for highbrow programmes around recently than from 20 years ago, where the same amount of votes were that there were no highbrow programmes, as there were saying that doctor who was highbrow. These results were less focused then i would have ideally liked, because a large proportion of the people asked were not of the age to have watched the programmes from the 80's. This was not much of a problem, however, because the age we live in allows us to get these kind of programmes on dvd box set.
Additionally, i looked into newspaper archives to try and
"mass culture follows a steady declining path toward lowest common denominator standards." In fact, he argues, the exact opposite is true: "The culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less." San Francisco Newspaper! BOOYAH!!!
Media Magazine:
December 2006
51-54
Sara Mills argues that T.V is dumbing us down. She entwines it with the hypodermic syringe theory, that people don't want to watch trash TV because they worry how it will affect its audience. She says that the middle-classes can watch shakespeare and not want to murder someone, yet a working-class person who watches jeremy kyle is thought to turn into the unintellectual people on the show. The powerless aren't trusted.
'The dumbing down debate'
"Dumbing down is the idea that todays society is becoming less intellectual and that everything - newspapers, television education, exams and so on - is becoming more easy and simple year by year. The comparison is usually with some vague notion of the good old days when society, and its education system, its media and people in general, were somehow more intellectual, more serious and everything was more in-depth. think of a grumpy middle-aged person saying 'things aren't what they used to be... you didn'y get rubbish like this on the telly in my day... exams weren 't so easy when i was a lad..."
"dumbing down seems to me a way for certain people to dismiss elements of today's culture that are new and different, and that they often just don't like and don't understand."
My practice exam did kinda suck. The main problems were that i didn't go into enough detail on all the questions, i did it properly on one of them, but the rest i messed up! I will also not mention the fact that i only gave questionnaires to 12 people.
Sopranos, good show, intellectual, backed up by Stephen Johnsons 'Everything bad is good for you' :
Prior to multiple threading, television episodes contained one or two main characters and one storyline. With the additional “collection of distinct strands” to the episodes, the public became willing “to tolerate more complicated narratives” (67, 72). This allowed the audiences to comprehend more storylines and characters as well as linking different episodes, improving their cognitive skills. In television shows like The Sopranos multiple threading is a common tactic used to provide information to the audience in an interesting way. Johnson explains, “The narrative weaves together a collection of distinct strands-sometimes as many as ten, though at least half of the threads involve only a few quick scenes scattered through the episode" (67). He believes that due to the rising technology in pop culture the audience is conditioned to comprehend the increasingly difficult plots developed with multiple threading.
Also backed up by times online:
Out of the box
— The more I think about the ending of The Sopranos the more I like it, mainly because, like many others, I am still thinking about it. Reader Myrna Shaw, for example, berates me for last week suggesting the family could have survived their “last supper”. “They each take a wafer of bread with a red centre, which none of them puts into their mouths, but all three stick their tongues out to receive it. Remind you of anything? Yes, the screen goes blank. Signifying bloody ETERNITY and not a cop out.” Actually it’s onion rings, but her point stands. The best case for the massacre theory, however, is made on a YouTube video “ The SopranosFinale Explained”. Check it out.
I think i will Andrew, i think i will
1 comment:
Adam
To avoid confusion, I would specify whether you are going to look at medical dramas, poloce dramas or whatever. The best way to compare the content is to focus on two older and two modern shows as focus texts rather than make eclectic comments about a wide range. Try researching old TV listings to see if the poularity and frequency of the shows had an effect, as well as the time of day shown (age-related?) You may get viewing figures from the BARB website.
Jan Brown
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