Ontario College of Art & Design

Course Calendar

COURSE DESCRIPTION

VISC 3B18
Television Criticism (NOT OFFERED IN 2010-2011)
0.50 Credit(s)
Academic Course
Prerequisite: 7.5 credits, including 1.0 credit of second-year liberal studies (including 0.5 VISC credit).
(NOT OFFERED IN 2010-2011)
This class is designed to familiarize students with different approaches to television criticism, and to introduce students to practices of formulating and writing television criticism. The focus is on a critical tradition to understanding meaning making in television, and as such the class provides multiple perspectives, including textual approaches (such as semiotics), producer-oriented approaches (such as auteur analysis), audience research (such as audience-oriented research and critical audience research), and finally ideological analysis (such as feminist and critical cultural studies). Readings include both theoretical and materialized pieces of critical television criticism scholarship. Students will gain knowledge of important television research methods and their usefulness. In addition, students will, through the readings, learn about the economy/business and politics of television production, the aesthetics or codes of various TV genre, will address identity and TV representation in terms of gender, ethnic, sexual and other characteristics, and will learn about the processes by which audiences negotiate television. Upon concluding the class, students should be able to articulate the tenets of multiple television genres, determine the type of television criticism most appropriate to a particular type of question regarding television, articulate the steps of four different types of television criticism, and conduct an actual (undergraduate level) television research project.
Course was last updated June 11, 2010 - 3:13 PM