Seeing Things by John Ellis

Seeing Things by John Ellis

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Summary

Television, according to the author, makes us witnesses of often traumatic events and tries - and fails - to provide us with narratives that make sense of the world. This work explores its processes and its relationships with the cultures that provide it with raw material.

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Seeing Things by John Ellis

Television, the author argues, responds to two powerful desires of our age: it makes us witnesses of often traumatic events and it tries - and fails - to provide us with narratives that make sense of the world. The author makes sense of modern television, both by exploring its processes and in terms of its dynamic relationships with the cultures that provide it with raw material. Television, he proposes, offers us multiple ways of understanding the world, yet does not arbitrate between them. He explores this process as one of "working through", whereby television news takes in the chaos and conflict of the world and subsequent programmes of all kinds offer diverse ways of unravelling its confusions, from the psychobabble of talk shows to the open narratives of soaps, documentaries and dramas. By means of this working through, problems are exhausted rather than resolved. The author demonstrates how television's function in its new era is no longer that of building consensus; rather it uses all the means at its disposal, including sophisticated computer graphics, to mediate between conflicting approaches to our age of uncertainty.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781860644894
ISBN 10 1860644899
Title Seeing Things
Author John Ellis
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published 1999-10-31
Number of pages 196
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.