25 Best TV Bloggers

I thought this list might prove useful!! Or help lead you to other helpful sources.

Black Spray Paint

Assignment for Tuesday!!! EVERYONE READ THIS.

Okay, all, here is your assignment for Tuesday/tomorrow (November 12): Answer (in this thread) this question:

what is the single most significant effect television has had on your life? If you don't watch much TV now think back to days when you did. Or consider the ways TV affects you indirectly.

Ideas for Final Project (Hopeton Harrell)

Hopeton Harrell.

Black Reality TV. Good or Bad, Real or Fake, Positive or Degrading?

Whether on the football field, basketball court, boxing ring, on stage or the movie screen, the world has always enjoyed watching African Americans Do Their Thing. Today there are several new so-called Reality TV series that portray African Americans Doing Their Thing, which has some critics applauding the success and the exposure that black personalities are receiving on television and it has some critics describing it as baboonery, classifying them as modern day black minstrel shows. Ratings for such shows are soaring and new shows ideas are pitched daily, which supports the fact that whether or not the images or messages that are portrayed on these series are positive or degrading they have captured American television Audiences.

I will attempt to examine the content of Black Reality TV shows such as College Hill, Harlem Heights, Real House Wives of Atlanta, Black Ink, Love and Hip Hop, Run’s House, The Family Hustle, and several others.  The shows with the highest ratings and widest fan base will be explored because they are perceived to have the greatest impact on viewers. Reality TV shows attempt to portray how things work, who people are, what people do, and essentially how people live. Because so much of these show’s content is about African American women my essay will focus heavily on but not limited to Black women.  My goal is to give both sides of the debate using academic sources, journalistic reviews, and audience reactions as my evidences.

Potential Sources

http://newsone.com/1373345/black-reality-tv-basketball-wives/

http://www.reelurbannews.com/?p=1042

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1996/3/96.03.05.x.html

http://library.uoregon.edu/sites/default/files/data/guides/english/howard_journal_communications.pdf

http://newsone.com/2131606/black-people-african-americans-reality-tv/

http://www.darronsmith.com/2012/06/entertaining-while-black-the-depiction-of-black-males-in-popular-media-existing-while-black-in-america-series/

http://www.darronsmith.com/2013/03/racial-thugging-in-massachusetts-and-mississippi-kinder-gentler-still-deadly-forms-of-race-based-domination/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN9wwlT4Gvo

Requests. 

I'm having a time trying to find current data from academic sources. Much of what I find is from early or mid 2000s. If anyone can point me in the right direction please help!

Idea for Final Essay Abstract topic

I basically typed up all of this in MS Word so I'm copying and pasting from there.
You don't have to go through all the sources and stuff, but I was wondering if this was a good idea for a topic. If there is any way that I can narrow it down let me know. I was thinking maybe I could include less examples? Thanks for taking a look!
Also I don't have a title yet.

Thesis: Television’s influence on American society is a double-edged sword, in that it can be used to push issues beyond the boundaries of taboo and help audiences accept them as a cultural norm. At the same time, audiences become desensitized toward these less ethical subjects, mainly the sexualization of adult and youth situations.

Objective: I would like to explore how this sexualization has developed over time from the 1950s until the 21^st century by citing popular examples of scripted and reality cable television shows. May or may not include:

·         Mary Kay and Johnny (first sitcom married couple to be shown sleeping in the same bed and first on-screen pregnancy)

·         I Love Lucy (married interracial couple in sleeping in separate beds)

·         Star Trek (first scripted interracial kiss on TV)

·         All in the Family and/or Maude (sitcom format that focuses on controversial issues of the 60s-70s such as abortion, the Vietnam War, women’s rights, etc.)

·         Jersey Shore (glorifying people getting drunk/fighting and making fools of themselves)

·         Teen Mom (glorifying teen pregnancy)

I’d like to offer the reader a comparison of what was acceptable during the earlier stages of television sitcom and drama verses what is acceptable now and how that progression proves that American society has become much more tolerant of vulgar and explicit sexual/otherwise controversial content on television.

Potential Sources:

·         http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/marykay.asp

·         http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue259/tv_firsts.html

·         http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9068/index1.html

·         http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/cover-story-brave-nude-world-pay-tv-pushing-boundaries-1200703785/

·         http://www.neatorama.com/2013/04/10/TVs-First-Interracial-Kiss/

·         http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/01/27/why-jersey-shore-popular-2/

·         http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-11-13/features/9204130017_1_mothers-as-donna-reed-messy-family-life-maude-findlay

·         http://suite101.com/a/the-desensitization-of-young-america-a337329