Teaching Practice Methods Using Interactive Television: A Partial Replication Study

ABSTRACT

This study compares 52 on-campus and 26 distance education (DE) MSW students enrolled in two practice methods courses. This is a partial replication study, describing the results of the evaluation of the second cohort of a large DE program. The results from the first cohort are reported elsewhere (Kleinpeter & Potts, 2000). The DE students were located at four universities linked through interactive television (ITV). The comparison group was located at an urban university, taught in traditional classrooms. Comparisons were made on student grades, faculty evaluations, and field instructors' evaluations. Results indicate that no significant differences were found between on-campus and DE students which supports the findings of the first cohort, despite a reduction in faculty visits to off-campus locations, a greater use of ITV instruction, and an increased reliance on the use of local site coordinators as assistant instructors in the classroom.     

To ITV or Not to ITV: A Comparison of Hybrid and Web-enhanced Approaches to Teaching a Macro-course in Human Behavior in the Social Environment

Hybrid education includes an online component and interaction between students and teacher by televised sound and image. This approach contrasts dramatically with traditional face-to-face teaching and classroom teaching modalities enhanced by Web-based tools. Should educators in “human behavior and the social environment” (HBSE) use hybrid technologies? This study explores the differences and similarities in student satisfaction and learning outcomes between a hybrid and a face-to-face Web-enhanced macro-course in HBSE. Results suggest that hybrid and Web-enhanced course delivery methods do not differently impact student learning. Students did report greater satisfaction with some but not all aspects of the hybrid sections.     

“L” is for Looking Again

This paper focuses on an important aspect of the Showtime television series The L Word: its exploration of the representation of gender and sexuality in contemporary visual art. The program presents a sophisticated feminist perspective on the histories of female and lesbian representation, and it uses the work of particular contemporary artists, who are known for their engagement with questions of female, lesbian, and/or queer representation, to advance its critique of a long history of erasure, misrepresentation, and objectification. Simultaneously, while foregrounding its awareness of the contradictions of trying to create new forms of representation in a thoroughly commercial and commodified context, the program uses works of art to present the possibility of inventing alternative images or of redefining existing ones. The show's consistent attention to innovative art constitutes a formal device that offers a counter-discourse to those conventions of representation required by the show's need to appeal to a broad audience. In this way, The L Word offers attentive viewers new ways to look at and think about apparently familiar images and narratives.     

“A Cruel Medium for a Woman”

The developing Melbourne television service featured a number of female personalities who successfully transcended the circumscribed boundaries of their on-camera roles to become household names. Personalities like Corinne Kerby, Panda Lisner, and Toni Lamond were pivotal to the affective connection that many viewers forged with live, locally produced shows. Yet, these women have all but disappeared from the official histories of Australian television, as well as from the shared recollections of the past that form the “public archive” of Australian television. This article not only seeks to recuperate these early performances, but to examine the public discourses that circulated around these personalities, their TV personas, and their private lives.     

“How Big is Big Enough?”

This article examines the representation of masculinity in Sex and the City through an analysis of the characters Big and Steve. Although the show is unique in that it presents female characters as the primary subjects of identification and presumes a female audience, it participates in the patriarchal project of measuring men, especially Big and Steve, against each other. At first, Big represents classic old-style phallic male character, the hero of both fairy tale and Hollywood romantic comedy. Steve, on the other hand, represents the new man, a flawed hero of modern relationship myths. However, throughout the course of the series, the illnesses of these two characters shift these representations. The series ultimately opens space for new representations of masculinity.     

Gamers,gender, and cruel optimism: the limits of social identity constructs in The Guild

Abstract

Video game culture has a long, ongoing history of problems with representation and inclusivity, as a wide variety of forces have constructed video games and gaming as masculine. Against this background, the popular gamer-oriented web series The Guild (2007–2013) appears to offer a unique counterperspective, presenting a gender-diverse cast and focusing primarily on female protagonist Cyd “Codex” Sherman. As such, the show could potentially diversify popular conceptions of gamers. Through a close reading of The Guild, however, we demonstrate that it fails to do so. More specifically, the show’s portrayal of gamer identity serves as a form of cruel optimism, presenting it as an ideal that promises game players a consistent subculture and a sense of belonging, but ultimately traps them in narrow roles and identity constructs. Furthermore, the show’s gamer ideal also reproduces particular forms of gendered inequalities that posit aggressive, competitive masculinity as superior to both more passive masculinities and all forms of femininity. Overall, this leads The Guild to reinforce gaming culture’s existing problems with sexism and regressive stereotypes. Because of this, the show presents a relation of cruel optimism, assuming the appearance of positive change while failing to deliver on it.     

Women and Death in Film,Television, and News: Dead But Not Gone

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between science and nation, class and gender in the televised Nobel Banquet, held after the Nobel Prize ceremony. The representation of the body of the Swedish Queen is used as a lens through which to view intersectional power dimensions. Drawing on cultural, media and gender studies, this article examines the mediated persona of the Queen in the televised Nobel Banquet via contextualized textual analysis. The article suggests that the purpose of the Nobel Foundation in inviting the royals is to enhance the social status of science. But it is the Queen who has received more TV time than anyone else—scientist or royalty—since her TV debut in 1976. How can the camera focus on her silent body be interpreted in relation to science? This article suggests that the meaning of the Queen’s body also implies certain understandings of central power dimensions. The body of the Queen signifies that gender, heterosexuality, class affiliation, nationality, and race are important and normative factors in scientific discourse. At the Nobel Banquet, the representation of her body identifies science as associated with the heterosexual, white elites, and reproduces a traditional, ideal femininity.     

方言电视社会化与公共化——泉州电视台闽南语频道未来生存和发展空间思考

泉州电视台闽南语频道的立台之本是对台宣传,它是政治宣传的产物.频道应该在保障政治信息传递的同时,塑造自身独立的媒体意识和发展战略.在自媒体高度发达的当下,传统媒体社会化成为一种趋势,参与和对话成为新的生命线.频道应该通过参与和对话来消解“文化统战”刘板印象;通过扩大参与,整合大闽南（闽、台、东南亚）地区的闽南文化资源;通过跨媒介整合,将自身推向社会化;并从社会化走向公共化,探索建立公共电视模式.     

电视声画艺术的中国文化借鉴研究

影视艺术的起源及其理论研究都肇始于西方,西方声画艺术理论也一直占据强势地位,但发掘中国文化中题画诗、画赞、连环画等传统艺术的现代价值,借鉴它们在解说、画面、叙事、造型等方面综合性的艺术融合与深化,对提升今天电视艺术声画关系的处理水平,构建中国特色的电视声画艺术有着非常重要的意义。     

论电视报道文化品格的强化

电视报道是一种文化现象、文化行为 ,理应具有文化内涵和文化品格。文化的张扬与重塑是电视报道的神圣职责。强化报道文化品格的途径是求真与思辩。