This article breaks down five television shows that have New York City as their setting of their shows. The main argument Sadler and Haskins present is that these portraits of cityscapes put on by these shows generates a “postcard effect,” which gives the audience the understanding of a tourist view. In another sense this phenomenon helps create a split experience that takes the viewers to a location without physically being there. Friends, Sex and the City, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, and Felicity are the television stations that they dissect in this article.
Literature Review
The authors suggest that these shows use New York’s iconic features and locations as anchors, postcards, and marketing tools. Anchoring grabs the story of the city and clears up the significance of the message through an image witnessed by the audience. The unique architecture of New York City helps promote the anchor technique. The next aspect they mention are postcards. This creates a theoretical picture to help convince the viewers to stop by. The final section they propose is the process of marketing tools. The marketing tool they use is strategic place marketing. This process suggests that regions of New York City will be turned into profitable objects.
Methods
The authors measured their argument by comparing the way New York City was used in different films and how it was used in the five television shows. First the bring up the film Taxi Driver and mention how it portrays New York as a mysterious place that isn’t attached to the normal life. In this film the streets were greasy and somber, but those elements were viewed as the main images. The other film they compare is the movie Wall Street. In this movie it seems as if economics is the message being conveyed due to the fact that the World Trade Center is consistently in the backdrop.
Analysis and Findings
The analysis being made here is how they break down five elements to a made up city and how they are within these television shows. The elements are paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Seinfeld has districts due to the fact that they mainly use Manhattan as they shot behind the scene. Friends rely nodes and landmarks through the constant visual of Central Perk and the NYC skyline. Nodes are the biggest aspect in Felicity through the classrooms being used and the coffeehouse. Sex and the City focuses on landmarks and edges based on how the use numerous types of features throughout New York. The Sopranos use edges and nodes through the Satriale’s Pork Store, and the Bada Bing Strip Club.
Conclusion
This article emphasizes how five television stations can use New York City through five different elements. These symbols that are put together through these five shows creates a story about New York City and how these significant features can ultimately point out how the city might look like. These five elements help us to view New York in such a different perspective, but a way that is nowhere close to being true. These settings function as a mythical perspective
Epistemology And Research Tradition
The epistemology within this article is objectivism. This article relies heavily on symbolism and imagery associated with New York City. Someone could locate this by looking at how New York is portrayed. As for the research tradition I would say that semiotics is the one they went with. They used elements to break down how one television show can create an imagined community for New York City. You can determine this by looking for any aspects of symbolism. Media Use and Protest: The Role of Mainstream and Alternative Media Use in Predicting Traditional and Protest Participation.
Introduction
This article samples a Midwestern neighborhood to research the function mainstream and alternative media act in the participations of protest and traditional political. Media has a gigantic impact on whether people decide to get involved with either form of participation. It mainly depends on if they are aware of the certain process going on at the time. The aim of this article is to construct a more significant difference between the types of participation and recognize the types of media that is used by individuals.
Literature Review
This section of the article is broken down into four segments: Forms of Participation, Considering Media’s Role, The Special Case of Protest Coverage, and Hypothese. Forms of participation talks about traditional and protest oriented and how they can affect the audience’s interpretation of a situation. The task media plays is that it can persuade people to participate on how convenient it is made to them and how often they are reminded of the event. The process of protest coverage mentions situations that aren’t involved with politics or don’t cause a threat will not get any coverage. The final group is where the rationale is tested and supported.
Methods
Boyle and Schmeierbach expressed three different techniques for their measurement: Demographics and Ideology, Media Use, and Participation. The demographics and ideology was used to administer for possible confusion and analyze diverse aspects of traditional and protest participants. The use of media talks about how newspaper news, television news, Internet news, alternative media, and protest orientated print media are the five evaluations of information searching media. Participation is broken down through traditional and protest. Traditional is when someone takes part in a town hall or forum meeting. Protest participation is normally a rally or event that is trying to gather one’s attention and persuade the way in which they are thinking.
Analysis and Findings
They found out that there are clear discrepancies between traditional and alternative participators. These discrepancies signify that participation crowds depend on how much people take place in a given study. The evaluations were designed into four categories: heavy participators, protest only participators, non participators, and traditional only participators. Hypothesis were set up based up off of these types and were tested to locate the differences among those four categories.
Conclusion
This article was set up to determine the difference between traditional and protest participation. There are traditional only participators, heavy participators, and protest participators. When there is an evaluation between the two types of participation we are able to determine how they seem to be different. In conclusion this study signifies the definite approaches how people can impact on the systems of participation through the use of media.
Epistemology and Research Tradition
In this article I believe that the epistemology is interpretivism. I believe this because it talks about human involvement with participation studies through different types of media. This mentions how someone’s beliefs can affect the way a survey could go. You can determine this by examining the affect someone’s beliefs can have. As for the research tradition I believe that it is rhetoric. The way the media attempts to persuade the viewers involvement in one survey or study. There is also evidence setup through hypothesis and data collected based on those hypothesis. Someone could determine this by understanding how the author is presenting his argument.
Reference
- Boyle, M., & Schmeierbach (2009). Media use and protest: The role of mainstream and alternative media use in predicting traditional and protest participation. Communication Quarterly, 57, 1, 1-17.
- Sadler, W., & Haskins, E. (2005). Metonymy and the metropolis: Television show setting and the image of New York City. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 29, 3, 195-216.
