The Face of Television

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9769288
AutoresPaul Frosh (0000-0002-4813-074X, Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, autor correspondente)
Ano2009
Volume625
Fascículo1
Páginas87-102
Data de publicação2009-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-7162 • E-ISSN: 1552-3349
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0002716209338571
OpenAlexW2157259971
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências 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