Television Culture

Television Culture
John Fiske
a. Summary
Fiske explains that the television broadcast programs replete with potential meanings which change this meaningfulness into a more singular preferred meaning. And he proposes to interrogate this notion start with a traditional semiotic account of how television makes, or attempt to make meanings that serve the dominant interest in society, and how it circulates these meanings amongst the wide variety of social groups that constitute it audiences.
Furthermore, he explains about the codes of television which are being the event of television if consist of tree elements. First is a reality, an event to be televised is already encoded by social codes such as those of: appearance, dress, make up, environment, behavior, speech, gesture, expression, sound, etc. Second is representation, the reality which is encoded into encoded electronically which must be appeared by technical codes such as: camera, lighting, editing, music, and sound. In written language there is a word, sentence, proposition, photo etc. those elements transmit into conventional representational codes which shape the representations of, for example narrative, conflict, character, dialogue, setting, casting etc. The last the codes of television is ideology. Those elements are organized into coherence and social acceptability by the ideological codes such as individualism, patriarchy, race, class, materialism, capitalism etc.
b. The Analysis of the Issues
I prefer this topic to be my analysis because the television is one of media that served much information which happened in the world. Television is a miracle box which is specially placed in the corner of our house hold room; it may be the product of technology advancement which has a predicates such as window of the world and miracle box . In other words, television is a technology which is transformed to be an agent or culture producer because everything in this miracle box has changed become something new as the effect of technology.
It means that when we are facing on the television, actually we are not only getting the information but in the same time we are facing on the product of culture. It means that all broadcaster programs in television must be created to be amazing thing which can make the spectators interested. In this analysis, I want to elaborate the phenomenon of television culture by John Fiske with my perspective.
Fiske explains about three steps of the codes of television. First is a reality, an event to be televised is already encoded by social codes such as those of: appearance, dress, make up, environment, behavior, speech, gesture, expression, sound, etc. In written language, the instruments of reality are document, transcript, interview, etc. Reality tells about the fact. It becomes the first element of codes television because when it doesn’t happen, it cannot be called an event because there will be not something to be announced. Reality is needed to be the background of knowledge because all the news begins from the phenomenon. Although it is just a gossip, but it begins from the real event that has happened. If the event of Bomb J.W Mariot hotel and Rithz Chalton hotel are reputed as reality, then it must be found the evidence such as the victims, eye witness, and the location of event (TKP).
Second is representation, the reality which is encoded into encoded electronically which must be appeared by technical codes such as: camera, lighting, editing, music, and sound. In written language there is a word, sentence, proposition, photo etc. those elements transmit into conventional representational codes which shape the representations, for example narrative, conflict, character, dialogue, setting, casting etc. In this second step, focused on the process on how the reality is formed by inserting the instruments of representation such as camera, lighting, editing, music, and sound become interesting broadcasting programs. Written language is also needed as explanation about the reality which happened. The sophisticated of television technology nowadays makes written language not only be uttered from utterances but also in the form of subtitling. For example, “The football competition between Manchester United and the Indonesia All Stars are canceled because happened terror bomb in Jakarta”. This sentence is needed on the television to make the society knows and understands what the television means. That is the additional information for the society that the competition is canceled.
The last is ideology. That element is organized into coherence and social acceptability by the ideological codes such as individualism, patriarchy, race, class, materialism, capitalism etc. According to Fiske, when we make representation about reality, the possibility of the reality is inserting an ideology in construction of reality cannot be avoided. I try to see the reality of bomb J. W Marriot as the example about the last step codes of television. With the reality which is announced on the television appear many perspectives from politicians, governments, and society. This step describes how the reality is modified and transformed to the symbolic reality. Ideology as the common production of meaning and idea, it commonly uses to describe the social production about the meaning . Sometimes, ideology as a commonly production meaning process apparently have the quality like mannered, but which repetition about the meaning, will be able to appear to be an agreement reached. For example, there is a perspective that the bomb happen because of the ideology of Islam radical. In the other hand, there is an assumption that bomb is the form of unsatisfied of President Election result.
From the explanation above, we know that the effect of the reality which has been created by the social code, performed in the television can be a culture phenomenon. It can be proved by appearing the ideology which always accompanies after showing the events. In the Fiske conception, television has a function as the bearers of the meaning and pleasure. Television as a culture is one of section that very important on the production process and the constant reproduced. The production television culture is a symbol. Television produces and broadcasts the reality to be a symbol. In the social context, the people live in the three areas. First, the material of the environment, is made in by people such as: house, bridge, School etc. Second, the social environment such as organization, lifestyle etc. the last is symbolic environment. Everything has relationship with meaning and communication such as word, language, art etc. television shows those entire people environment to be a symbolic.
Moreover, in my perspective the entertainment has been the main ideology for television industry. The fact, there is strong relationship between television and the beholder. Almost the broadcasting television programs are created as an entertainment program. The society when they are facing on the television has assessment based on the quantity of how entertainment program are created. It means that the assessment of quality broadcasting television program are accounted according to the quantity of entertainment are showed. Entertainments pass through the television to get on the high position in the society. According to the reality, television is more success to make the entertainment to be a culture than effort to make the reading and writing to be main culture in the society.
By explaining the reality of the television culture above, it is known that the economic factor is one of important thing in the television industry, every broadcasting television program based on the interaction among the television, society and advertisement. The market policy has made the television which has orientation to the consumer activity by entering broadcasting television program full of the personalizing of the company which advertises their product.
The development of technology and the television innovation industry can manage and change the social order of society that irrational to be rational, but then this effort is wasted away because of the phenomenon of television culture just based on economic factors as the main ideology which appears the fictive reality on the demand of company or someone who has capital to make their interest to be success.