Children could be getting the wrong messages from television programming designed with the best of intentions, according to research highlighted in On Wisconsin. An associate professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Marie-Louise Mares has been studying children’s comprehension of “prosocial” programming, shows that are intended to teach good behavior, morals, and ethics. She is especially interested in storylines intended to foster inclusiveness.

“Children’s interpretations of what a show is about are very different from what an adult thinks,” Mares tells the Wisconsin alumni association publication. In one episode of Clifford the Big Red Dog that Mares uses in her research, Clifford and other dogs meet a dog with three legs. The four-legged dogs initially react poorly, one of them even expressing fear of “catching” three legs. In the end, the dogs overcome their anxiety, and learn an important lesson about accepting peers with disabilities.

Young human viewers, however, do not. “Many of them interpreted the lesson of the episode along the lines of this child’s comment: ‘You should be careful . . . not to get sick, not to get germs,’ ” On Wisconsin reports. Since a lot of prosocial programming relies on showing bad behavior and then learning a lesson about it, Mares’ research has the potential to dramatically transform the plotlines of children’s programming. One solution she’s investigating is “scaffolding,” the practice of characters interrupting the storyline to lay out the plot’s intended message.

Source: On Wisconsin

Image by Aaron Escobar, licensed under Creative Commons.

A television commercial for an Israeli telecom company has inspired a rare form of criticism: a real-life re-enactment. In the original, a group of Israeli soldiers jump from their vehicle in a panic when a soccer ball soars over the concrete "separation wall" and lands on their hood. A soldier kicks the ball back over the wall and a pass game breaks out between the soldiers and the invisible Palestinians. Responding the levity of it all, Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, told Reuters: "The barrier separates families and prevents children from reaching schools and clinics. Yet the advertisement presents the barrier as though it were just a garden fence in Tel Aviv." 

A video response posted to YouTube is a chilling illustration of Tibi's critique. In it, a group of Palestinians kick a soccer ball over a portion of the West Bank barrier, and are answered with tear gas canisters fired from Israeli positions.

Here is the original commercial:

And here is the response:

Source: Haaretz 

Ian Albinson and Alex Ulloa collect intriguing title sequences from film and television at their blog, The Art of the Title Sequence, where you can watch the opening credits roll on Dexter, Soylent Green, Iron Man, or even the much-maligned super-bomb The Island of Dr. Moreau, which can count its beautiful title sequence as, perhaps, its only merit.

Ulloa tells Creative Review (May 2009): “We want to be to the history and future of the form of title sequencing what the opening sequence to Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mépris is to cinema: an exploration of what is universally felt, but with some fresh discourse.”

Sources: The Art of the Title Sequence, Creative Review 

The American educational system is experiencing a crisis in literacy. Too many students are falling behind in the critical reading skills that provide the fundamentals of a successful education. At the same time, teachers lament the excessive time students spend on digital media like video games and television.

Though teachers may be loath to admit it, digital media provide an opportunity to revive the American educational system, James Paul Gee and Michael Levine write for Democracy Journal. Educators should use students’ enthusiasm for video games, television, and mobile devices to teach the skills needed to succeed in the modern marketplace.

“The current approach to the literacy crisis is locked in a time warp,” according to Gee and Levine, “almost totally removed from the ubiquitous digital media consumption that currently drives children’s lives.”

The solution to America’s literacy crisis, and the increasingly problematic digital divide, lies beyond simple access to technology. Gee and Levine suggest in a creating a “digital teaching corps,” modeled on programs like Teach for America, which would send bright young teachers into low-performing schools to mentor children on technology and communication. The writers also propose the creation of digital community centers, staffed by the digital teaching corps, to increase access to the technology as well. On a federal level, the government should modernize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and take educational programs like Sesame Street and The Electric Company into the digital age.

Teachers need to move beyond the “book-centered” learning, which too often devolves into standardized test prep, and explore “experience-centered” learning that digital media provides. This way, schools can modernize their overhead projectors and filmstrips to give students the skills they need in an increasingly digitized world.

Image by  Michael Surran , licensed under  Creative Commons .

Sources: Democracy Journal (excerpt available online)

There’s an arms race taking place between advertisers and viewers, where people block out ads with TiVo or DVR, and companies slip more ads into peoples lives through evermore ingenious tactics. The battle could be self-defeating, because, according to a new study from the NYU Stern School of Business, viewers enjoy TV more when they watch ads.

The more time people spend in front of the TV, the less enjoyable it becomes, according to the study. Ads break up the routine, James Hibberd writes on his blog, and “the interruption helps re-freshen the novelty of the program.”

Most viewers adamantly disagree with the study’s findings, and the study’s authors admit, “Consumers prefer to watch television programs without commercials.” A commenter on Hibberd’s blog put it another way: “No offense but this article is complete crap journalism and comes off sounding like faux-industry sponsored ‘research’. It's like saying soldiers enjoy combat because it gets them out of the house.”

(Thanks, Mediabistro.)

Image by  Stephen Bowler , licensed under  Creative Commons .

Faced with tumbling ratings, MTV is overhauling its programming, dumping “the backbiting and bitchery of most nonfiction fare” in favor of reality shows profiling young people on the up-and-up, reports Variety.

Who inspired the network to abandon “bitchery”? None other than president-elect Barack Obama.  

“Our new shows will feature themes of affirmation and accomplishment,” Brian Graden, president of entertainment for MTV, told Variety. “Our shows are going to focus less on loud and silly hooks and more on young people proving themselves. These are themes that are consistent with the Obama generation.”

(Thanks, Politico.)

Researchers have found that sad people watch significantly more television than happy people, Matt Palmquist reports on the Miller McCune blog, though it’s unclear whether sadness causes more TV watching, or more TV watching leads to sadness. The study, based on the General Society Survey conducted from 1975 to 2006, concluded that “People most vulnerable to addiction tend to be socially or personally disadvantaged, with TV becoming an opiate.” Happy people, according to Palmquist, “were more socially and religiously active, voted frequently, and read more newspapers.”

After 9/11 we heard a lot about the death of irony, but after an initial period of mourning, humor prevailed and even thrived in the troubled early aughts.

But with the departure of the president who gave political satire its all-time easiest target, and the arrival of an unflappable and extremely popular president-elect, will practitioners of political satire run out of fodder?

Of course not. The Daily Show’s ascendancy coincided with Bush’s increasingly disastrous presidency, but Jon Stewart & Co. won’t suddenly be irrelevant just because Bush is. “Assuming the Daily Show can only be funny under someone like George W. Bush gives far too much credit to the outgoing President and is obscenely insulting to the writers of the Daily Show,” writes Matt Tobey on Comedy Central’s blog. “As if there wasn't plenty of failed Bush-based humor from shittier sources than the Daily Show.”

Meanwhile, the South Park boys pulled an all-nighter after the election to complete their extremely timely Wednesday broadcast, in which overzealous acolytes of Barack Obama see his victory as license to riot drunkenly in the streets, and Obama’s campaign team shows its true colors as an upscale band of jewel thieves a la Ocean’s Eleven.

These comedy institutions are bellwethers of the general categories into which Obama Humor will fall, at least for now: Poking fun at the extreme fervor of Obama’s supporters, and pointing up the absurd paranoia of Obama’s opposition (much like the New Yorker did all those months ago.)

The reliable Onion covers those satirical bases and more, with headlines like “International Con Man Barack Obama Leaves U.S. With $85 Million In Campaign Fundraising” and “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job”.

There’s also the hilarious animated video below, from Get Your War On creator David Rees, making the rounds. (Consider it a sequel to the New Yorker cover.)

And when Obama inevitably falls short of the astronomical expectations set for him, satirists will pounce. The Daily Show’s John Hodgman told Politico, “As much as the show is fake news, its soul is very sincere, borne of a desire that everyone shares, that we don’t want to be lied to. If there is a whiff of insincerity [Obama] will be taken to task.”

By the time Tina Fey emerged onto the cultural landscape in 2000 as an anchor on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment, the Second City alum was already the show’s head writer, quietly shepherding the comedy institution into its late-'90s renaissance and noticeably improving its ratio of funny-to-bad sketches.

Her star continued to rise with the razor-sharp satirical sitcom 30 Rock, which premiered in 2006 and solidified her status as the embodiment of geek chic in an entertainment climate where brainy, funny women are tragically undervalued. Fey has carved out a career in which she accomplishes the seemingly impossible feat of injecting savvy cultural and political commentary into mass entertainment, with her cerebral, rapid-fire monologues on “Update” and then with the surprisingly subversive 30 Rock.

But no one could have predicted Fey’s next act until August 29 of this year, when John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate. The world pounced on the striking similarity between Fey and the VP candidate, and Fey didn’t disappoint. She has returned to Saturday Night Live to lampoon the candidate’s disastrous interviews with Katie Couric and her debate against Joe Biden, and delivered a speech with Hillary Clinton as played by longtime collaborator Amy Poehler. For her part, Palin has joked about honing her own Tina Fey impression, telling reporters she dressed as Fey for Halloween. (When? Last year?)

This week, Fey signed a multimillion-dollar book deal for a collection of humorous essays in the vein of Woody Allen and Nora Ephron. She appears undaunted by relative missteps like the box-office flop Baby Mama or her shilling for American Express, and now wields enormous cultural influence—as writer, performer, and human barometer of that uniquely American nexus of politics and entertainment.

Fey doesn’t necessarily relish her newfound cultural clout, however. As successful as her Sarah Palin gig has been, Fey hopes it doesn’t last long: “I want to be done playing this lady November 5,” she said backstage at this year’s Emmys. “So if anyone could help me be done playing this lady November 5, that would be good for me.”

We’ll do our best, Tina.

Image by David Shankbone, licensed by Creative Commons.

Hosted by Sarah Haskins with sardonic, faux-naïve enthusiasm, “Target: Women” is the standout segment of Current TV’s online news show infoMania.

In each episode, Haskins sets her sights on an especially ridiculous media trend targeting the young female demographic, satirizing the insipid pop-culture trends that nevertheless remain infuriatingly popular, such as reality shows about weddings (“They put the ‘we’ in ‘wedding’ and the ‘end’ in ‘feminism’”), birth control ads (“It’s Yaz, the pill that stops all those symptoms, so you can do the women things you love, like run, wear big earrings, hug friends, and have a cool, non-specific media job”), and chick flicks (“She’s in for a surprise, when: unlikely suitor / high-concept hijinks / unnecessary obstacle / true love / happy ending!”).

Haskins got an easy target when Sarah Palin became John McCain’s VP pick. In her Palin segment, Haskins slyly celebrates that mythical demographic of Hillary supporters who the McCain campaign cynically believes will vote for Palin simply because she’s a woman. Haskins calls them P.A.N.T.H.E.R.s—joining other jungle-cat demographics like PUMAs and Cougars—whose acronym stands for “Proud American Needing Token Hillary Estrogen Replacement.”

Like the Daily Show or the Onion, “Target: Women” is smart satire disguised as hilarious pop-culture commentary. I hope that Sarah Haskins keeps it up for as long as the media cynically exploits her demographic—which is to say, forever.

(Thanks, Laura.)

Over at Feministe, a post on pro-feminist TV shows for kids kicked up a lively discussion, with commenters writing in to suggest everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Cosby Show. A lot of sci-fi shows seem to pop up (I was pleased to see a few Battlestar Galactica mentions, since it’s a smart show with a host of strong female characters), as do a number of British programs, like The Sarah Jane Adventures and The Worst Witch.

Check out the extensive list the folks at Feministe came up with. Can you think of any other kid-friendly shows that espouse pro-feminist values? Chat in the Utne salons.

Image by Tc7, licensed under Creative Commons.

International development experts are taking their advice to the small screen. Developments magazine reports on Shamba Shape-Up!, a new home-makeover show in Kenya that combines entertainment and education to explore the sorts of problems faced by poor farming families. Mediae, the independent production company behind the show, plans to film six episodes starting this month. The show's pilot addressed a typical concern—water—by installing rainwater collection tanks on a farm located 3 kilometers from the nearest source.

Mediae’s message-driven drama Makatano Junction has enjoyed popularity since 2005, attracting five million viewers in its third season by addressing pertinent issues such as child sexual abuse and violence against women. Shape-Up! creators expect similar success.

—Lisa Gulya

The film documentary Czech Dream, recently reviewed in Utne Reader, chronicled an audacious prank in which a fake superstore was created, working a bunch of shopaholic Czechs into an opening-day frenzy. Now a different bunch of Czech tricksters, the art collective Ztohoven, has seized the limelight by hacking into a public TV weather broadcast and inserting a mushroom cloud into a panoramic shot of the Krkonose mountains. Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times places both hoaxes into a long tradition of Czech “tomfoolery.”

—Keith Goetzman

The writers’ strike may be keeping those new episodes of 30 Rock off our screens, but it does have an upside: Television writers have been making pilgrimages to the mecca of unemployed writers everywhere. No, not the public library—the blogosphere. One of the best-known writers’ strike blogs is United Hollywood, which reports on strike news. But if that gets a bit boring, take a look at Why We Write, a collaborative blog with short essays by television and film writers. Jane Espenson, a writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a co-executive producer for Battlestar Galactica, recently wrote on the site that she perfects characters voices’ by lying in a quiet room and hearing them speak in her head. Mark Gaberman, a writer for Jeopardy!, has chimed in on the joys of filling in clues and making Alex Trebek rap Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice.”

If you haven’t heard enough, turn to The Idea of the Writer, a series of video and mp3 lectures by one of the greatest writers in TV, David Milch, creator of Deadwood. Milch, speaking with an enthusiasm that verges on the unhinged, discusses subjects like how the writer rebels against the established order and Kurt Vonnegut’s extensive cannabis use (and that’s only in the first five minutes!). It may not be television, but Milch has the sort of captivating, insightful energy that will make you forget you’re not watching 30 Rock.

—Brendan Mackie

Image by Kris Krüg , licensed under Creative Commons.

As the smartest show ever to pop up on the fleeting ether of our televisions, The Wire has generated a lot of equally smart commentary. The series’ gritty, ultra-realistic, and blindingly multifaceted take on life in Baltimore almost demands that television writers bang out heaps of articles about it (especially as the fifth, final season begins to unfold).

Some of the best chatter about the show I’ve found comes from the group blog Heaven and Here. In entry after entry, the writers digest The Wire’s meaning and intent from so many different angles that the site acts as an indispensable guidebook to the tangled streets of the show. It’s fitting that this ponderous hub of thoughtful posts is the best way to understand a work as vast and sprawling as The Wire: How else to grasp the minutiae of five seasons’ worth of dense dialogue, interlocking story lines, and Greek tragedy than with a barrage of interlocking blog posts, each taking a different look at the same show?

But hold back on reading too much until you’ve watched the whole body of David Simon’s opus—you don’t want to spoil any endings.

—Brendan Mackie

The world can be a lonely place—especially when you’re a TV geek. But late at night, when you’re thinking fondly of the ‘70s TV series Kung Fu, with questions like “Is Caine, the kung fu master, destined to wander this earth alone, seeking justice all by himself?” swirling through the empty caverns of your soul, listen closely. You might hear TV buff Thom Holbrook’s voice whisper in response, “Worry not. Caine teams up with Kenny Rogers to kick racist butt in the 1991 made-for-TV movie The Gambler Returns.” This surprising connection and many, many others are documented with loving care on Holbrook’s staggeringly thorough list of television spinoffs and crossovers, which proves once and for all that everything is connected—on TV, at least.     

—Morgan Winters