Module Identifier ED30520  
Module Title LEARNING FROM TELEVISION  
Academic Year 2000/2001  
Co-ordinator Dr Daniel Chandler  
Semester Semester 2  
Pre-Requisite ED10510  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   10 Hours 10 x 2 hours  
Assessment Course work   Assignments totalling 5, 000 words( or reasonable equivalent)   100%  
Further details http://www.aber.ac.uk/education/Undgrad/ED30520/ed30520.html  

General description
This module explores what children and adults learn from the everyday use of television. In the course of a year in the U.K. the average time which children aged 4-15 spend watching TV amounts to more than that which they spend in school. It is hardly surprising that television has been described as 'the alternative curriculum'. Amongst adults, annual surveys repeatedly indicate that the 'source of information' about the world which is reported as that which is used most heavily (and also trusted the most) is the television. So what do we learn from TV?
We explore various aspects of the psychology and sociology of TV viewing. One of our topical concerns is with the issue of television and violence. To what extent can we blame TV for the violent behaviour of some young viewers? Another focus is on gender, covering the on-screen portrayal of gender stereotypes, how we make sense of these, and also gendered differences in the use of television in the home. We study what viewers gain from watching soap operas.

We also consider how we come to make sense of production and editing conventions. When one of my own children was two-years-old she saw on TV a shot of a man looking off-screen followed immediately by the kind of cut we wouldn't normally notice, and a shot of a river. Unprompted, she exclaimed (as if this were a sudden revelation): 'Man's looking at river!' Pre-school children make such sophisticated discoveries about the 'language' of TV all the time, without ever being taught to do so. As adults, we tend to be largely unconscious of what we know about TV conventions such as the use of 'cuts', and we will try to make some of this knowledge more explicit. In doing so we will become more aware of our role as active interpreters of TV rather than merely as passive victims of it.

There will be a particular focus on the process and diversity of viewers' interpretations of television programmes.

Aims of the module

Learning outcomes
Students successfully completing this module should show a critical awareness of:

Syllabus
The lectures are based on the following:

The tutorials / seminars provide students with opportunities to investigate and discuss themes from the lectures.

Reading Lists
Books
** Recommended Text
Gunter, Barrie & Jill L. McAleer. (1997) Children and Television. London: Routledge
** Essential Reading
Livingstone, Sonia. (1998) Making Sense of Television. London: Routledge
Bates, Tony. (1984) Broadcasting in Education. London: Constable
Condry, John. (1989) The Psychology of Television. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
McQuail, Denis. (1987) Mass Communication Theory. London: Sage
Morley, David. (1992) Television, Audiences & Cultural Studies. London: Routledge
Seiter, Ellen et al. (Eds.). (1989) Remote Control. London: Routledge
Moores, Shaun. (1993) Interpreting Audiences: The Ethnography of Media Consumption. London: Sage
Hodge, Robert & David Tripp. (1986) Children and Television. Cambridge: Polity Press
Evra, Judith van. (1990) Television and Child Development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Fiske, John & John Hartley. (1978) Reading Television. London: Methuen