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 kathleen fitzpatrick | course sakai site
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TV on the Internet

Submitted by ghostwriter on 25 October 2006 - 11:37am. | |

So, in section four of Hamlet on the Holodeck, Murray says:

“Meanwhile, the Internet is beginning to function as an alternate broadcasting system… as television channels and the World Wide Web come closer together, the telephone, computer, and cable industries are racing to deliver the new digital content to the end user faster and in greater quantities”(253).

I think that we’re definitely seeing the ways in which the Internet is influencing TV. I find that nearly all of my TV watching is on my computer and is facilitated by the internet, even when I’m at home for holidays and have more access to actual TV. While most TV on the internet is provided by users (such as the person who puts the latest episodes of America’s Next Top Model on YouTube. Thank you, whoever you are…), the TV broadcasting companies are getting in on the TV on the internet train too. Aside from iTunes, which has deals with several networks to sell episodes in the iTunes Music Store, some networks have their shows available for free on their websites. Two examples would be abc.com and the-n.com. ABC uses the tagline “Watch tonight on TV, watch tomorrow online”. The-N has a section of their website called “The Click” where viewers can watch full episodes of shows, as well as previews for upcoming shows, and “webisodes”(which are kind of like the gutter space between episodes). Although there are still commercials, there are far less than on real TV and they tend to be only at the beginning of the episode. It will be interesting to see if more companies follow suit, and what effect the corporate presence (and copyright laws) will have on the more user dominated forms.

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myspace

Submitted by racinian on 25 October 2006 - 1:10pm.

I think it's interesting that television shows and movies are jumping on the myspace train

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TV on the Computer

Submitted by BuildingsAndFood on 25 October 2006 - 1:35pm.

Jazz, I think you make good points; however, I think that TV and the internet are not really as integrated as they could be. Or as much as Murray thinks they could be. In that same chapter you reference, she's discussing some pretty viewer-interactive programming in which people can choose what characters of a story they want to follow, among other things. Some of what she details in that section seems pretty far-fetched, but I think the key is the difference in the way that we perceive the television versus the personal computer.

Murray's utopian descriptions of a full-fledged multimediatric creative orgy rely on equal perceptions of television and the computer. We must see the two as interchangeable so that the same stories can exist in both spaces and be enhanced by the new computer space. At one point she even compares this to black and white tv versus color tv (egregiously ignoring the fact that she's now involving an entirely different medium - unless she wants to make our televisions more interactive). But the television is a more communal medium than the computer in our contemporary times (and KFitz can probably correct me on this, but...). I do most of my current TV watching with other people, either in my common room or in a lounge. People go to bars to watch sports games, and families gather around the sets at home for their favorite television programs. The personal computer, however, is just that - personal. I can watch any television program on it, but I usually do that watching alone. Any interaction that I might have online with a TV program is generally done in my empty room. When we've gathered around a computer, like that time when we watched American Idol in your room, we've simply been treating it as a television. Murray misses this critical distinction. I'm not saying that we can't treat the computer differently, but it's developed as an intensely personal medium, which I think has put it somewhat in opposition to television. Perhaps some of the same accusations were levelled at TV when it first arrived, but as Murray notes, cultural perceptions change. So maybe this one will also. But her hyperserials will have to wait until it does.

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