SMC318H  EARLY TELEVISION   Second Assignment: Analysis

This assignment is more formal than the first assignment. Choose an episode of any show we have watched in class or any other US television program from 1948 to 1958. You may NOT use the same show you used for the first assignment, nor may you use a different episode of the same program. In other words, if you wrote on I Love Lucy last time, you cannot write on a different episode of ILL this time. Choose a theme. You might consider values, goals, gender roles, children, race, sexuality, fears, needs, the role of government, religion, tradition, technology, class or work. There are many other ideas you could use. Now find one scholarly source that discusses your theme in American society at the time. This source should not refer to your television program. If your theme is the depiction of education in your chosen episode, the scholarly source could be an article about educational reform in 1950s America. Now draw a thesis out of the evidence from the episode which supports, challenges or changes the conclusions of your scholarly source.

You may use one of the shows we have seen in class or any other show from the time period. Some possibilities are: Amos and Andy, Father Knows Best, George Burns and Gracie Allen, The Honeymooners, Ozzie and Harriet, I Love Lucy, Dragnet (only from the 1950s), Roy Rogers, Captain Video, Howdy Dowdy, Talk of the Town, etc. Many of these shows are available on YouTube or at archive.org

The paper should be double-spaced, 3-4 pages in length. Put your single-item bibliography at the end of your text, on the same page, if it will fit. You need not cite or list the TV program; just identify it in your opening paragraph. Give your paper an interesting title (“SMC318 Assignment 2” is not interesting). You will start with a one-paragraph introduction that includes your thesis.

You will be marked on two criteria: the strength of your thesis and your ability to draw effectively on your scholarly source. This assignment is worth 30%.

Marking Guide

50%: there is a clear thesis in the first paragraph, showing the relationship between  material in the source and the chosen TV episode.

25%:  the source is scholarly and unrelated to the television program itself.

25%:  expression is accurate and succinct.

Lectures readings:

WEEK TWO:      Thursday, January 12, 2017

LECTURE:           History of Television Development

READING:          Television Studies, Ch. 1: “Programs”(Cambridge and Malden, M.A.:  Polity Press, 2012), pp. 26-56.

WEEK FOUR:     Thursday, January 26, 2017                           First Assignment DUE

LECTURE:           Post-War America: The Problem with Winning

READING:          Studies in Entertainment:  Critical Approaches to Mass Culture (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1986), pp.  80-94.

WEEK SIX:       Thursday, February 9, 2017

LECTURE:        The New Middle Class and the Triumph of Consumerism

READING:        The Television Reader:  Critical Perspectives in Canadian and US Television Studies, Introduction to Part III:  “Television Genre and Textual Analysis” (Don Mills, ON:  Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 100-109.