Summary of television and news media article - Essay Example

Television & New Media The article “Dialogic Absurdity TV News Parody as a Critique of Genre” (Druick 294) details the current tendency of news programs to diverge from simply reporting current events and embrace sensationalism to appeal to the genre preferences of the public. The author contends that today’s news programs are parodies of what real news programs once were and references the comedic sketches of shows like Saturday Night Live to illustrate the severity of the current news forecast design (Druick 294).

The article continues to describe how comedian Chris Farley’s satire demonstrates the Mikhail Bakhtin’s characterization of the decline of news programs and their cultural relevance (Druick 294). This paper will summarize the article in its entirety, highlighting the relevancies and succinctly summarizing the content. The summary will conclude by illustrating how news broadcasts do follow the Bakhtinian description through the use of word inflections (Druick 294). The article describes the context of genre in television as a basis for the classification of types of shows and indicates how these categories are used by producers and audiences (Druick 295).

News caricatures have become a typical television form disallowing the democratic reflection of current standards, which was the original intention of this forum and self-reflexive comedy has replaced the meaningfulness of the original broadcasting process (Druick 295). The classification of television shows into genre schemes allows the broadcasting networks to offer advertisers specific market audiences and Bakhtin’s concept of genre emphasizes the physical manifestation of societal styles of communication that intercede between the humanity and the social world, which enables individual expression while simultaneously restricting it (Druick 295).

This has a distinct effect on the creation of dialogue and the relation of every word spoken to the works that precede them (Druick 296). The Bakhtinian assessment offers a connection between art and life, literature, and politics (Druick 297). This aspect of dialogue in relation to language and speech associates’ expression in what Bakhtin referred to as the center of monologist propensities designed to create social homogeneity (Druick 297). When Bakhtin’s literary analyses are applied to multimedia settings, it expresses how film mocks and undermines the textual intent to convey truth (Druick 299).

The author also indicates how other analysts, like Stamm and Fiske, have applied the Bakhtin’s theories to multimedia and indicated how the proposed theories apply to this area of communication as well as how they reflect on society (Druick 299). The author also details relevancies regarding Sobchack’s analysis of film noirs and the distinct effect these movies have had on the American culture (Druick 300). The article then transitions into a deeper analysis on television, dialogue, and news parodies, detailing their effect on society and human thought and impression (Druick 300).

The author indicates how news can be categorized as genre in the Bakhtinian sense and describes how the audience is called upon to reflect on the construction of television news and to question its authority as “official television discourse” (Druick 301). The ability of the anchor to convey reasonable dialogue is the defining aspect of the believability of the news broadcast and whether the audience will subscribe to messages within (Druick 301). This manifestation can inspire a critical re-examination or corroboration in the audience of some alternate vision of reality (Druick 301).

Works CitedDruick, Zoë. “Dialogic Absurdity: TV News Parody as a Critique of Genre.” Television New Media 10.3 (2009): 294-308. 25 Jul. 2011 .