The Face of Television

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9769288
AutoresPaul Frosh (0000-0002-4813-074X, Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen625
Número1
Páginas87-102
Fecha de publicación2009-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-7162 • E-ISSN: 1552-3349
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0002716209338571
OpenAlexW2157259971
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas17

This article proposes some physiognomic speculations regarding three visual characteristics of television in its pre-digital-broadcasting form: (1) the importance of the head shot as a staple technique for representing the human figure and, hence, the primacy of the human face as a televisual image; (2) the mirrorlike reflective surface of the cathode-ray tube television screen, which makes the viewer’s reflected image appear to emanate from the depths of the television set; and (3) the box-like design of television sets that turns them into miniature containers of the pictures they show. It argues that these three characteristics amounted to an integrated communicative structure that made television a key mechanism for the social construction of humanity in the second half of the twentieth century, a mechanism whose future is uncertain in the age of new digital platforms

Broadcasting (networking · Computer security · Face (sociological concept · Humanity · Key (lock · Political science · Set (abstract data type · Shot (pellet · Social science · Sociology · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Visual Culture and Art Theory