David Thorburn
Biographic Data
| ID | 215257 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Thorburn |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Thorburn |
| SIGNATURE | THORBURN D |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 5 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Unstable platforms: TV in the digital age
This essay compares our current experience of technological and cultural disruption with 'the network era' (1946-2000), American TV's first great age. I argue that the relative stability of the medium over this half-century enabled an evolution that helps to explain its cultural centrality as well as its narrative art. The essay suggests that the ongoing instability of post-network television - its welter of platforms, devices and viewing choices…
James W. Carey: In Memoriam
James W. Carey, who died on May 23, 2006, was an important cultural historian and theorist of communications and probably the most influential teacher of American journalists during the last decade
Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition
The essays in Rethinking Media Change center on a variety of media forms at moments of disruption and cultural transformation. The editors' introduction sketches an aesthetics of media transition—patterns of development and social dispersion that operate across eras, media forms, and cultures. The book includes case studies of such earlier media as the book, the phonograph, early cinema, and television. It also examines contemporary digital forms…
Democracy and New Media
Interpretation and judgment: A reading of Lonesome Dove
Defending the importance for media study of a descriptive and evaluative scholarship grounded in old‐humanist perspectives, this essay argues for distinguishing between “cultural” and “aesthetic” interpretation. In the latter, the text is valued not as a mere carrier of cultural meanings but intrinsically, as an intellectually coherent exploration of its subject matter. The current widespread suspicion of evaluation as a form of ideological mysti…
Television as an aesthetic medium
Aesthetic or literary approaches to television, this essay argues, provide an essential corrective to recent emphases on the ideological dimensions of modern media. Calling for an aesthetic anthropology that understands television shows both as manufactured artifacts and as fictional texts, the essay defines television as a contemporary American instance of consensus narrative, a cultural formation or institution in which society's central belief…
In Response to "Cinema Journal's" New Policy of Publishing Articles on Television, "David Thorburn" Has Submitted the Following Comments
Unstable platforms: TV in the digital age
This essay compares our current experience of technological and cultural disruption with 'the network era' (1946-2000), American TV's first great age. I argue that the relative stability of the medium over this half-century enabled an evolution that helps to explain its cultural centrality as well as its narrative art. The essay suggests that the ongoing instability of post-network television - its welter of platforms, devices and viewing choices…
In Response to "Cinema Journal's" New Policy of Publishing Articles on Television, "David Thorburn" Has Submitted the Following Comments
Television as an aesthetic medium
Aesthetic or literary approaches to television, this essay argues, provide an essential corrective to recent emphases on the ideological dimensions of modern media. Calling for an aesthetic anthropology that understands television shows both as manufactured artifacts and as fictional texts, the essay defines television as a contemporary American instance of consensus narrative, a cultural formation or institution in which society's central belief…
Interpretation and judgment: A reading of Lonesome Dove
Defending the importance for media study of a descriptive and evaluative scholarship grounded in old‐humanist perspectives, this essay argues for distinguishing between “cultural” and “aesthetic” interpretation. In the latter, the text is valued not as a mere carrier of cultural meanings but intrinsically, as an intellectually coherent exploration of its subject matter. The current widespread suspicion of evaluation as a form of ideological mysti…
Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition
The essays in Rethinking Media Change center on a variety of media forms at moments of disruption and cultural transformation. The editors' introduction sketches an aesthetics of media transition—patterns of development and social dispersion that operate across eras, media forms, and cultures. The book includes case studies of such earlier media as the book, the phonograph, early cinema, and television. It also examines contemporary digital forms…
Democracy and New Media
James W. Carey: In Memoriam
James W. Carey, who died on May 23, 2006, was an important cultural historian and theorist of communications and probably the most influential teacher of American journalists during the last decade
Unstable platforms: TV in the digital age
This essay compares our current experience of technological and cultural disruption with 'the network era' (1946-2000), American TV's first great age. I argue that the relative stability of the medium over this half-century enabled an evolution that helps to explain its cultural centrality as well as its narrative art. The essay suggests that the ongoing instability of post-network television - its welter of platforms, devices and viewing choices…
Sociology (7 works) · Media studies (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Literature (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Cinema and Media Studies (3 works) · History (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Art history (2 works)