Who is more real than whom: Television

Author: Zhang Jianzhen Wu Haiqing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: The author utilizes existing media theories and their reflections on the current state of television media and television cultural phenomena, combined with typical television programs to elaborate on the narrative. It explains how television, now a mainstream media, exerts a powerful and irresistible influence on people's daily lives. The book will discuss the relationship between television discourse, reality, and the subject, analyzing the real images and human images constructed by television discourse, and exploring the issues of publicity and subjectivity in the space of television discourse. Part of the book can be considered the general introduction, exploring the relationship between television and reality, as well as the fate of the core achievement of modernity—the subject—in the age of images. The second part examines the significant changes in Chinese television discourse since the 1990s. Starting from the third part, it analyzes some of the main program formats in the current television program system. In the fourth part, it analyzes the characteristics of this program format, its background, and its relationship with social reality. The fifth part analyzes the Spring Festival Gala, an important symbolic text. The sixth part studies the dramas that vividly reflect the values of contemporary urban cultural consumerism. The seventh part analyzes the sitcoms that embody the everydayness, non-depth, and fragmentation of television culture.