\nFor a term below, please answer:<\/p>\n
“Liveness”<\/p>\n
a)\tThe author who wrote about the term. <\/p>\n
b)\tThe meaning of the term, as it pertains to the topic (sample nursing essay examples by the best nursing assignment writing service)s covered in this course. (You should plan on writing at least a few sentences to adequately explain the definition of the term.) <\/p>\n
c)\tA television example that exemplifies the term. (You only need to write about one example: a television show OR episode, OR character, OR plotline from a TV show, OR a block of shows, OR an entire network. You may give more than one example if you wish but only one is required. Please note that you must write about a television example, not a film example see below for a reminder about what counts as television.) <\/p>\n
d)\tHow the television example relates to, and illustrates, the term. (You should plan on writing 1 to 2 paragraphs6 to 12 sentences at leastto explain how your example relates to the term.) <\/p>\n
Points will also be deducted for improper formatting proper formatting = listing out the different parts of each answer as a., b., c., d. <\/p>\n
TWO NOTES :<\/p>\n
1. What counts as television <\/p>\n
\tFilms or movies are approx. two hours in duration (unless they are shorts or documentaries) and they are made for THEATRICAL RELEASE not home or private consumption. When you go to the movies, you buy a ticket and go sit in a cinema with other people. I recognize that this distinction may fade over time (for example, some films are released on video-on-demand or on Netflix at the same time that they are released in movie theaters). But even in simultaneous release cases, the media text called a movie or film was MADE for theatrical release. <\/p>\n
\tTelevision is made for private and\/or home consumption. Television series or shows are narrative serial productions consisting of multiple episodes, typically either 1 hour or 30 minutes in duration. <\/p>\n
\tNetflix, Hulu, or Amazon original series count as TV.<\/p>\n
\tTV movies count as TV. If you’re not sure if a two-hour movie was made for TV or for theatrical release, check the title on IMDB.<\/p>\n
\tAnimated TV serials count as TV. This includes Japanese anime series.<\/p>\n
\tOriginal online series or web series accessible on YouTube or other online platforms count as TV. <\/p>\n
\tWebisodes (paratextual content made in conjunction with a TV series or original online series) also count as TV.<\/p>\n
\tShort commercials (ads that air on broadcast or cable television, as well as ads on YouTube and Hulu and Amazon) count as TV.<\/p>\n
\tMusic videos (including Vevo videos on YouTube and elsewhere) count as TV. <\/p>\n
I recognize that in the near future, every single type of audiovisual content may be available for private and\/or domestic consumption at the same time as it gets released to theaters, so that even if the two-hour format persists (and even if cinemas endure), every text may be primarily produced for home release rather than for theatrical release. But for now, the media industries still make a distinction between film and television, and I maintain that distinction as well. You will get ZERO (0) POINTS for using film examples in a course about television and social media. <\/p>\n
\n2. A hint: Write about the BIG PICTURE.<\/p>\n
When you write parts b) and d) in the ID Questions, and when you compose your essay, be sure to write about the BIG PICTURE: what the term means, on a society-wide or industry-wide or culture-wide scale. For example: Does the concept\/term mark a major SHIFT, from one thing to another If so, make sure to talk about that shift what changed in society or the industry or the culture. Some terms aren’t about big shifts, they’re about a certain society-wide anxiety or fear, or a specific movement, or an important trend, or a cultural trend\/tendency, or how different concepts are linked, or a key industry framework. The key to success on the exams in this class is to summarize, clearly and explicitly, what you have learned from the lectures and readings about how these terms and concepts are significant in culture and society. <\/p>\n
\nLive television is still alive: on television as an
\nunfulfilled promise
\nJerome Bourdon TEL A VIV UNIVERSITY
\nTo begin with, let us pose the thesis that this article will uphold
\nthroughout: television remains deeply influenced by the possibility of live
\nbroadcasting, this despite the fact that, from a historical point of view, the
\ngolden age of live broadcasting (the 1950s in the USA and Western
\nEurope) has long been over. If we can talk of a ‘language’ of television, or,
\nmore modestly, of a semantic specificity of the medium, it lies in this
\npossibility, not always accomplished, but at least virtually present in many
\nprogrammes or sequences of television. This claim is both semiotic and
\nsociological: we will try to understand why a technical possibility,
\ntranslated into specific codes, remains a fundamental part of viewers’
\nexpectations.
\nIn television theories, the current academic trend is to reduce the
\nimportance of live broadcasting (Corner, 1997), arguing that the evolution
\ntowards ‘narrowcasting’ and ‘fragmented broadcasting’ calls for the end of
\nglobal analyses of television. I propose, however, that it is still relevant to
\ntalk about ‘television’ as a unified medium. Granted, most of the examples
\nof programmes in the following article are taken from general audience and
\nnational channels in various national contexts, be they public or private.
\nHowever, despite the already dated prophecies on the advent of ‘narrowcasting’
\nor ‘fragmented television’, let us note that general audience
\nchannels still draw most of the audiences worldwide. I will, in addition,
\nmake the claim that much of what happens on cable and satellite channels
\nis still related to ‘liveness’, as many themed channels emphasize their
\nability to broadcast live alongside general audience channels which
\ncontinue doing so.
\nMedia, Culture & Society 2000 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks
\nand New Delhi), Vol. 22: 531-556
\n[0163-4437(200009)22:5;531-556;014709]
\nfrom the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved. Downloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012
\n532 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nLet us remind the reader of how the word ‘live’ (or its translations:
\nFrench ‘direct’, Italian ‘diretta’, German ‘direkt’) has been used, and is still
\nbeing used (or alluded to) in programme titles. This is a very widespread
\nfeature of television, both old and modern, which can be confirmed by
\ndifferent national histories (e.g. Baget Herms, 1993; Bourdon, 1990;
\nBriggs, 1979; Grasso, 1992). In the USA, from Saturday Night Live to
\nPrimetime Live, the word ‘live’ has never disappeared from the names of
\ntalk or variety shows. In France, En direct de (live from) was the name for
\na series of programmes in the 1950s – ‘from’ actually referred to a variety
\nof hard-to-reach or strange locations (from an aircraft carrier, from a sinkhole,
\netc.). Here, television wanted to exhibit its technical capacities. In the
\n1980s, on the second French channel, star-host and anchorwoman Christine
\nOckrent fronted a show simply called Direct. In Israel, where the talk show
\nis a major primetime genre, the word ‘live’ proliferates. For three years, the
\nsecond (and leading) channel has been broadcasting, three times a week, a
\nprogramme called Live with Dan Shilon Interviewing. Finally, much of
\nwhat has been called in the 1980s ‘reality programming’ in the United
\nStates, ‘televisione verita’ in Italy, and ‘reality-shows’ in France actually
\nconsists of live programming: most shows conforming to this so-called
\n‘new’ genre use the live spectacle of ordinary viewers telling us about their
\npains and problems, with the help of the ever-present host (Eurodience,
\n1990).
\nBeyond the historical fact that live broadcasting has declined between
\nthe 1950s and the 1960s (simply because game-shows, not to mention
\ndrama, moved from live broadcasting to film or tape), the use of live
\nbroadcasting as an explicit and important resource has not disappeared
\nfrom television. Television reminds us that it links us live to something, to
\na specific place (‘live from’), to a specific person (‘live with’). A fully
\nfledged history of live broadcasting would probably discover other interesting
\nexamples of the use of live broadcasting, beyond the permanence of
\nthe rhetoric of live broadcasting. A good example is Vianello’s (1986)
\nanalysis of live television in the context of the ‘power politics’ of the
\nnetworks in the American television system. However, my point here is
\nthat this history presents a fundamental, socio-semiotic unity.
\n‘Liveness’ in television theories
\nMany theories of television have – and continue to be – centred on
\n‘liveness’, first, as part of a professional ideology. In its early days, when
\nprofessionals started debating the specificity of television (notably in
\ncomparison with the cinema), they related it to three characteristics, namely
\nscreen size, domestic reception and, finally and most notably, ‘liveness’.
\nThis last characterization of television has evoked lyrical texts. Live
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\nBourdon, Live television 533
\nbroadcasting has been exalted as a way to conquer time and distance, to
\nhave vast groups of people commune in a new experience. Historical
\nresearch (see, for the United States, Vianello, 1986) reminds us of the place
\nof liveness in professional ideologies, most clearly among television
\nengineers and technicians but also among critics. At a talk presented by the
\nFrench director of programmes in 1955, television was presented, as was
\ntypical of the time, as ‘the possibility at last given to mankind to defeat,
\nthrough the image, the limitations of time and space’ (Bourdon, 1986: 49).
\nEven though ‘liveness’ was a professional theory, with a strong emphasis
\non ideological notions such as ‘authenticity’ and ‘truth’, it was adapted by
\nacademic theory in various countries. Books and treatises about the
\naesthetics of live television were written during the 1950s and the 1960s.
\nHowever, these theories seem to have become unfashionable. Most
\nrecently, a vigorous attack against theories of live broadcasting as central
\nto television has been launched by J.T. Caldwell (1995). Studying
\nAmerican television, he diagnoses a mutation which he calls ‘televisuality’:
\nunder the effects of competition, of the economic crisis which it has
\ncaused, mass television (the major networks) has started stressing its
\nstylistic performances, the quality of its authors and ‘signatures’ and its
\nability to process pictures through digital packaging. This televisual
\nregime, which he terms ‘exhibitionist’, also corresponds to a technical and
\nindustrial mutation. In this context, live television is seen as quite
\nsecondary, and the ideology is rather one of television as an opaque
\nmedium.
\nDespite the quality of his argument, Caldwell omits two major points.
\nFirst, stylistic exhibitionism has not erased genres which systematically use
\nlive broadcasting as a resource. These genres stress ‘liveness’ through a
\nquite traditional series of indices, such as the direct address to the viewer,
\nor editing as a sign of continuity of the action. These indices will be
\nreviewed in detail later in this article. Second, refined stylistic treatment is
\nless a major mutation of television than a strategy of American networks at
\na given point of their history and in given genres. World television, both
\nnational and local stations, still resorts massively to live broadcasting in
\ntraditional genres.
\nFurthermore, emphasizing the capacity to broadcast live can operate
\ntogether with stylistic refinement, as we have seen during the Barcelona
\nOlympics: the most refined digital effects are not incompatible with the fact
\nthat this image, however reprocessed and manipulated, is a ‘live’ image.
\nAnd this is reinforced by the capacity of the image, at any time, to stop
\nbeing processed (slow motion, divided screen) and to fill the whole screen.
\nI suggest that these manipulations show the intervention of the televisual
\nenunciator (that is, the channel and its various delegates, hosts and
\ncommentators) in the live event, rather than the disappearance of the live
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\n534 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nevent itself into the televisual representation. Furthermore, all this processing
\ndoes not affect (or very rarely does so), the acoustic data so
\nfundamental in television yet perennially forgotten by theorists and
\nprofessionals alike: the voice. Television is always an audiovision (Chion,
\n1994).
\nThe meanings of live broadcasting
\nBefore going further into the argument, let us define what we mean by live
\nbroadcasting. As we will see, we have moved from the original meaning to
\na varied set of situations, containing both social and technical features,
\nwhere the word ‘live’ is used. There is, however, a common core to the
\nvaried uses of the word ‘live’. In the first days of television, being live, that
\nis, the transmission of sounds and images of an event at the time when it is
\noccurring, was all that there was to television. Television has very quickly
\nmade of this technical feat an institutional performance: the live transmission
\nis performed by an institution (public or private) which is in charge of
\nthe apparatus of the transmission of events to viewers. At the same time,
\nlive broadcasting was a public phenomenon (other people are viewing this
\nlive event at the same time as I do). From this initial situation stems an
\ninteresting ambiguity: is television about live broadcasting or about shared
\nviewing It is difficult to dissociate both elements. Think of the opposition
\nbetween live and recorded, of the meaning of recorded (programme prerecorded
\nby television, or video-cassettes viewed at home). I have tested, at
\nleast in French and English, the possibility of uttering the following
\nsentence: ‘I don’t like video, I prefer live television’. Here the opposition is
\nbetween Hertzian mass diffusion by an institution (of live and recorded
\nprogrammes alike) and private consumption of cassettes.
\nOne should not forget that there are other meanings to ‘live’. I will
\nmention three. When, within a variety show, a singer sings without lipsynching,
\nthe host may stress the fact that this is ‘live music’ (again, the
\nopposition is with pre-recorded). One can also think of a live connection of
\ndifferent locations within a programme (usually a live programme). Finally,
\nwhen television newscasts have started using amateur videos for specific
\nunexpected events, this has made possible another promise of ‘liveness’:
\nthese images were shot live (that is to say, unprepared, which justifies their
\nnon-professionalism). There is a common kernel to all these uses: in all
\ncases, there is a connection of people to people (people watching together)
\nand\/or of people to a ‘natural’ (i.e. not pre-recorded in any of its
\ncomponents) event, through technology.
\nThese diversified meanings, which have been developing over time, have
\na consequence. Live television is not an absolute. It is, rather, a question of
\ndegree. There are moments of ‘maximum liveness’: we are watching at the
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\nBourdon, Live television 535
\nsame time as the event, at the same time as everyone else, and, what is
\nmore, with an event taking place in different locations connected by
\ntelevision, as is typically the case with major media events. Then, there is a
\nwhole series of configurations where the sensation that the programme is
\nlive might be as pronounced.
\nThe notion of belief is central here. Unlike the technician in the studio
\nwho perceives both the ongoing event and the representation on TV, most
\nviewers see only the representation and assume it to be a live event, that is,
\na two-dimensional audiovisual representation of something which is actually
\nhappening. Viewers reach this conclusion through a complicated
\ncognitive process. They get their clues (and their cues) not only from
\ntelevision itself (the lighting, the editing, the word ‘live’ chromakeyed on
\nscreen), but also from all the media paratext, to use the term coined by
\nGerard Genette (1997) to refer to all the texts which surround a given
\nliterary text, orienting and preparing the reading. We know that a
\nprogramme is live from television itself, from newspapers, the radio,
\nprogramme magazines. The spectator, then, ‘reads’ television in a context
\nmore or less favourable to the belief in liveness.
\nThe lies and truths of live broadcasting
\nThe belief in liveness, then, varies according to the text, to the characteristics
\nof the viewer (education, generation, social milieu), to the situation of
\nthe viewer (attention brought to ‘liveness’ or not) and, last but not least, to
\nthe moment when one is viewing. Belief, as always, calls for a sequential
\nanalysis. For example: a family watches a famous singer in a variety show.
\nThe show has been pre-recorded by the channel. The singer himself has
\nrecorded the performance before the show, in the same studio, and was not
\npresent in the rest of the show. The director, however, was skilful enough
\nto give, through editing, the feeling that the singer was actually present (we
\nare not aware that the ‘live audience’ has applauded the diffusion of a
\nrecorded tape on a screen, not the actual singer). Last but not least, the
\nsinger, at the time of recording his performance, was not singing, but lipsynching
\nto a pre-recorded playback. In this pseudo-live programme, three
\nlayers of recording were added: the voice in studio, the performance of the
\nsinger, and the show itself.
\nThe viewers, ignorant of television production processes, might fail to
\nnote most of these refinements. In our viewing family, the grandfather
\nmight think that he was viewing, all along and in all of its components, a
\nlive programme. Conversely, the younger brother, who has just completed
\na training in video production, might be able to unveil the different levels
\nof recording (or only part of them) to the rest of the family, which we can
\nimagine surprised, or indignant, at this lack of honesty. Even worse, the
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\n536 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nsame little brother might have played a trick on the family and broadcast
\nfrom his room a cassette of a show he had recorded a month before, when
\nthe family was away on a vacation. In that latter case, there is no ‘liveness’
\nwhatsoever, not technical, not institutional and not public, only a series of
\nlies, or organized deceptions.
\nThe viewing family members’ beliefs also change according to time.
\nLike all beliefs, viewers’ beliefs in the ‘liveness’ of the transmission need
\nto be analysed sequentially. Such analyses have been done for fiction,
\nespecially for film. When viewing a fiction film, one experiences the
\n‘momentary suspension of disbelief’. We believe – albeit not as a belief in
\nthe real world – in the story we see unfolding in front of us. The same goes
\nfor live broadcasting: the finest theorist, especially if he is a fan of the
\nsinger (who was lip-synching to a playback in a recorded show), will prefer
\nto become engrossed in the belief that the singer is actually singing now, in
\nfront of him, looking him in the eyes. The time of disbelief and of analysis
\nwill come, but later.
\nLive broadcasting has other cognitive implications, not because it is live,
\nbut because it is non-fictional. It is true that ‘live fiction’ has been a genre
\nof Western television (precisely the genre of what was thought of as the
\ngolden age of live television), but it has disappeared from the screen, when
\nthe means of recording fiction have been available. Economic factors might
\nhave contributed here. Alongside the economic perspective, it seems that
\nfrom a phenomenological point of view the ‘added value’ of liveness has
\nnot been as important to viewers as it was to critics and professionals. On
\ntelevision, liveness gave a coefficient of reality to what was happening that
\nwas of no value for fiction.
\nAs in documentaries (even to a greater degree), in order to enjoy live
\nbroadcasting, the viewers have to believe that the participants (the persons
\non screen) are not acting. On the contrary, they are fulfilling an expectation
\nof authenticity. They are on a football field, as genuine football players.
\nThey are not actors. They might lie or simulate (like we tend to think many
\npoliticians do), but this is basically exceptional. And even politicians
\nremain lying politicians and not actors playing the part of politicians. The
\nactual participant might lie in what he is saying, not about what he is.
\nOtherwise, this would mean that the institution is lying (has allowed an
\nactor to pose as a politician). When the participants are television people,
\nlying becomes much more difficult, if possible at all, as participants and
\ninstitution identify with one another. The newscaster is an actual journalist
\ngenuinely telling us what has actually happened (or trying to do so). Of
\ncourse, it is possible to play with these conventions, but only for a limited
\nperiod of time, as Orson Welles taught us with radio. This is done on April
\nFool’s Day, when many newscasts choose to broadcast an absurd, invented
\npiece of news. Some special broadcasts have also used the pseudo-news
\nitem – but the spoof is usually unveiled and explained after a few minutes
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\nBourdon, Live television 537
\nor after a few hours (depending on its actual consequences). Every reader
\ncan probably think of an appropriate example according to national
\ncontexts. On French television, on 22 February 1984, star anchor Christine
\nOckrent told us of a spectacular special set of governmental decisions,
\nincluding wage cuts and a dramatic increase of taxes. Our hearts started
\nracing, but suddenly, a digital effect chased her away, and she was replaced
\nby a more famous (and more reliable) star, Yves Montand, who reassured
\nus that this was a spoof, a ‘teaser’ used to introduce us to a special
\nmagazine on the economic crisis. Two lies have been unveiled: it was false
\nnews, and it has been recorded.
\nOne might say that there is a contract between the persons on screen and
\nthe viewers at home. The term contract has enjoyed an increasing fashion
\nafter Philippe Lejeune (1989) introduced it into literary theory. It is true
\nthat there is a contract (often even in the legal sense) between television as
\ninstitution and the persons on screen. But promises are made by the
\ntelevision institution to its viewers. This goes way beyond the question of
\nlive broadcasting, as a model of analysing the relation between television
\nand viewers. Undoubtedly, that the programme actually is and will be a
\nlive programme, can be analysed as a promise. Again, think of the plain
\nwords of the host at the beginning of the programme: not a contract, but a
\nseries of promises: to meet the viewers, next week, at the same time, in the
\nsame studio: ‘this is what this new show will be about . . . we will meet
\nagain, next week … I will host these live debates for you’. Contract and
\npromise are interrelated, of course. The institution actually needs the
\npersons on screen to respect their contract to be themselves in order to
\nmake sure its own commitment to viewers is fulfilled.
\nWithin this configuration, live television, to a certain extent, likes
\nunexpected events to occur, as this is the best way to demonstrate that it
\nfulfils its commitments. The unexpected event demonstrates that not
\neverything has been planned, that television, even though it might influence
\nthe event by its presence (and might even organize it), is not the sole writer
\nof the screenplay. Accidents and scandals, always a delight for the media,
\nare even better when we see them happening live. If the accident or
\nscandal is big enough, it triggers the viewers into calling their friends and
\ntelling them: ‘switch on this channel, something is happening’.
\nThis also explains why, when national histories of live broadcasting are
\nwritten, they often include a chronicle of famous accidents, scandals,
\ninsults, fights, which are rebroadcast in specials, thus gaining a special
\nstatus in viewers’ memory. These accidents guarantee that television is
\nstill, at least at times, as live as it can get. For television triumphs in a
\nsocial world which is shaken, but never overly so. A few demonstrations, a
\nrevolt, are good for television, not a revolution – that is only tolerable in
\nthe neighbouring country.
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\n538 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nFurthermore, it is impossible for live cameras to be simply there, facing
\na non-interpretable event. Paradoxically, a ‘completely live’ image cannot
\nexist alongside live broadcasting, for there is no institution to interpret such
\nan event. As has been noted, live broadcasting always presupposes a
\nminimum amount of screen writing to retain the viewer’s interest. If not,
\ntelevision is not live, but simply absurd, as happened to French television
\nduring the Romanian revolution in 1989, when comments such as the
\nfollowing could be heard: ‘I have to interrupt you now. We are now
\nreceiving pictures that are being shot live. They are shot at this very
\nminute. These are raw pictures, just as we are receiving them’ (on screen,
\nthe viewer could actually see dark streets with people running) (Jost and
\nLeblanc, 1994: 29). When the event-beyond-comment occurs, television
\ncaricatures itself, like the famous Italian animator who, when suddenly
\nconfronted with any unexpected problem or incident, uttered the ritual
\nphrase: ‘That is the beauty of live television’ (Grasso, 1992: 198).
\nFour types of television: fully live, continuity, edited, fiction
\nAt this point, let us propose a division of television texts not so much into
\ngenres, in the traditional sense, as in terms of types, where live television is
\nmore or less achieved. Two qualifications: these types do not necessarily
\ncorrespond to complete programmes; they might concern sequences within
\nprogrammes. And again: live really is not only about the technical
\nperformance, but also about the spectatorial belief – these, as we have seen,
\ndo not completely overlap.
\nThis distinction, incidentally, is present in the technical vocabulary of
\nmany television stations. French television once classified its programmes
\nas ‘vrai direct’ (truly live), versus ‘direct differe’ (recorded-live television),
\nor ‘faux direct’ (falsely live). At the level of spectatorial beliefs, we will
\noppose ‘fully live’, where the spectator has the full sense of experiencing a
\nlife event, and ‘continuity television’, where the spectator only partly has
\nthis feeling. Oilr third type is ‘edited television’. All television is edited
\n(directors of live programmes actually talk of ‘live editing’ – ‘montage en
\ndirect’). However, in this article, I will use the expression only for
\nprogrammes that are edited after shooting (in the editing room) and are not
\nfictional, which have been shot ‘in real life’. Our fourth type is fiction,
\nplayed by actors, and edited – as far from live broadcasting as one can
\nthink, since it presupposes a high degree of previous elaboration. Some
\nfictional genres actually retain proximity with liveness, but more on that
\nlater. Of course, live television is also elaborated, and we are aware of that.
\nBut that elaboration is supposed to serve an ongoing event, to give us a
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\nBourdon, Live television 539
\nchance to see not so much the work of television as such but the workings
\nof the world (albeit the television studio) in its most interesting aspects.
\nFully live versus continuity
\nFully live television is best exemplified by major media events when
\ntelevision cannot possibly not be live: these major media events have been
\ntheorized by Dayan and Katz (1992) who have described them as
\n‘windows’ or ‘holes’ in the usual routine programming. At these moments,
\ntelevision seems to be completely at the service of the event, even if it
\nmight have contributed to its organization. In such cases, the paratext
\n(Genette, 1997) also works at full capacity. It is not only from the screen
\nwhere the Pope is walking (Poland, 1979), where Sadat arrives in
\nJerusalem (Israel, 1977) that you can be sure the event is a live event. It is
\nalso because, weeks before, you have been told the event is about to occur.
\nThe world around you can be visibly affected by the passion surrounding
\nthe event. The city is deserted, everybody is watching, you have been told
\nby the radio not to drive around the airport or the stadium where the event
\nis taking place.
\nIn our daily life as viewers, we experience less the regime of ‘fully live’
\nthan that of ‘continuity’. We are in a televised world where a lot looks (and
\nsounds) live but is not necessarily so. We infer liveness from the text and
\nalso from assumptions about specific genres (news is more likely to be live
\nthan variety shows, major weekly prime-time variety shows are more likely
\nto be live than daily daytime game shows). Of course, the word ‘live’
\nmight be chromakeyed on the screen (as during the news, in many cases, or
\nin the titles of programmes). However, some programmes are live without
\nclaiming their liveness in such a way. Moreover, if television claims to be
\nlive, it never claims not to be live (or on very specific occasions, as will be
\nanalysed later). Thus, a rich, ambiguous land is created for the viewers’
\ninferential work.
\nSuppose,. however, the viewer has just subscribed to cable and turns on
\ntheir set to discover a new channel. Is it live The answer might come from
\ntextual indices: a host looks at us straight in the eyes, in the flat lighting of
\nthe video, and starts stammering, then apologizes. We tend to think,
\nroutinely, that we are seeing a live programme. Our knowledge of
\nprogramming might also help. If you turn on your television at 8 pm in
\nFrance, at 9 pm in Spain, this is the hour of the newscast. If you turn on
\nyour set at 10 pm in the same countries (too late for the main news, too
\nearly for the late night news), you are left with two alternatives: a
\nnewsflash, which indicates a major event has occurred, or a documentary or
\na report on the news, which uses live television as archive footage. If this
\nlatter inference is the right one, then the familiar face of the host will soon
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\n540 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nbe replaced by another familiar face, or covered by a voice-over, which
\nwill tell you how to interpret these images.
\nSequence-guarantors of live continuity: the direct address (the
\nlook to the camera)
\nUsing the example of news, I have been driven to treat ‘live broadcasting’
\nand the ‘look to the camera’ of the newscaster as nearly equivalent. Before
\nreferring to programmes as whole, we should try to consider the basic
\nsegments, or sequences of television, inasmuch as they help us to identify
\none of our four types: liveness, continuity, editing, fiction. Let us talk,
\nfollowing many authors, of the ‘direct address’, to define the sequence
\nwhere a person looks straight at the camera (as if at the viewers) and
\naddresses the viewers, using the appropriate deixis. The most evident part
\nof this deixis is of course the personal pronouns ‘I’ (the host) and ‘you’
\n(the viewers at home). One should add that the word ‘live’ might be used
\nhere (‘we are coming to you live’), and interpreted as a specifically
\ntelevisual deictic: it refers not only to the moment when the speaker is
\ntalking (even if the sequence was recorded), but to that moment inasmuch
\nas it is the same moment for the speaker and for the addressees (the
\nviewers at home). ‘I am talking to you live’ is the televisual version of ‘I
\nam talking to you now’.
\nEven though Umberto Eco has written that it is one of the characteristics
\nof the ‘neo-television’ of the 1980s, which he claims stresses contact with
\nthe viewers (Eco, 1990), the ‘direct address’ has been important from the
\nfirst days of television. We should carefully distinguish two phenomena:
\nthe systematic exploitation of television stardom (which characterized
\ncompetitive commercial television systems), and the presence of a group of
\nfamiliar mediators, of television figures, which is a common feature of
\ntelevision. From the early experiences of live television, programmers have
\n‘naturally’ resorted to television mediators, who looked and talked at the
\ncamera.
\nWhere do we find the ‘direct address’, the look to the camera of the ‘I
\nand you together’ In a very systematic manner, in the opening and closing
\nsequences of continuity television programmes, when the host greets us,
\nenumerates the list of his guests, and gives us an appointment for next
\nweek (or for many weeks to come). There are variations according to
\ngenres, but the basic pattern is present in newscasts (be it reduced to a
\nsimple ‘good day’ and ‘good bye’), in talk shows, in game shows, in
\nvariety shows, or in political debates.
\nThe look to the camera is present in another type of sequence, one which
\nI call ‘addressed actuality’. The mediator still addresses us, but tells a story
\nin the third person, of what has happened. He uses deictics like ‘yesterday’
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\nBourdon, Live television 541
\nand ‘today’, but the viewers are no longer referred to in the discourse.
\nThere is still some sense of live television, but less than in the direct
\naddress. In another case, the mediator looks at us, but eliminates references
\nto the deixis of the present. He tells us a story of the past. This sequence I
\ncall the ‘addressed history’. The story might be told in the present tense,
\nbut the tense is used always with the value of a preterite: it describes the
\nsuccession of events in the past, without any relation to the time when the
\nstory is told. Such was the regime of shows where a narrator (usually a
\nfamous mediator) would tell stories of the past (James Mason in English,
\nAlain Decaux in French). This type of show seems no longer to be popular
\non television. Was it a live programme Again, at the textual level, there
\nare some indications to the contrary. Verbally, we are detached from the
\ntime of the actual telling of the story. Visually, there might be some
\ncarefully edited sequences to illustrate the narrator’s story. At the level of
\nproduction, in the case of the French programme, we know that it was
\ninitially broadcast live, then later moved to tape.
\nContinuity television: the part of the voice
\nAs we can see, our television types are not necessarily related to entire
\nshows. In effect, the types of television are realized more or less in specific
\nsequences of unequal duration. We want to try to break the flow of
\ntelevision into constitutive sequences (bearing in mind we cannot completely
\nescape the notion of flow, to which we will return later). Of course,
\nthese sequences are related to one another by specific traits, which we
\nmight call ‘suprasequential’ (to paraphrase the ‘suprasegmental’ used in
\nlinguistics). As the reader might have noticed, we consider the voice and
\nits relation to images as a key criterion for classifying basic sequences of
\ntelevision. The voice, and sound in general, are continuously neglected in
\nmany analyses of television and film, with notable exceptions (Scannell,
\n1991; Chion, 1994). Chion, one of the most interesting analysts of sound in
\nfilm, goes as far as to claim that television is nothing but ‘illustrated radio’.
\nThis is extreme. I will follow him when he affirms that television, although
\na visual medium, is a ‘vococentric’ medium, a medium where the voice
\norients the viewers decisively in certain directions of interpretation. The
\nvoice governs television. But then, there are different kinds of voice.
\nAgain, we have to distinguish between technology and belief. We
\nanalyse television from an ideal viewer’s point of view. Let us consider
\nthree situations. First, the viewer perceives the voice as ‘voice-over’. It has
\nbeen added to the film at the time of editing. The voiee is slow, which
\noften creates the effect of a text being read. In that case, I will speak, after
\nMichel Chion (1994), of ‘acousmatic voice’. The acousmatic voice, which
\nhas no physical identity, can be opposed to the voices which belong to the
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\n542 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nfilms, which are all visualized, or, at least, visualizable. They do not
\ngenerate the effect of a text read, of a prepared story, but of more
\nspontaneous (or less formal) interventions. As opposed to the acousmatic
\nvoice, visual and visualizable voices belong together. One can always
\nswitch from a visualizable voice to a visualized voice, and conversely (a
\njournalist commenting on his film is now on camera and addresses us). But
\nthe acousmatic voice has to remain off screen, at least for the duration of
\nthe documentary concerned.
\nI have tried to avoid using technical terms (like voice-over, voice-off
\ncamera), because my point of view is not technical. Let us come back to
\nthe example of synchronized play-back. When the singer was singing his
\nsong ‘live’, for most viewers it was a visual voice. Some knew it was
\nsound over simulated synchronization (we might call it ‘pseudo-visualized
\nvoice’). Another case: in a documentary, relevant sounds are added to
\npictures of a crowd. Again, we can speak of ‘pseudo-visualized sounds’: in
\nmost cases, the viewers will actually perceive such sounds as recorded at
\nthe time the film was shot, as belonging to the pro-filmic, to the ‘worldbeing-televised’.
\nWhile, in the case of acousmatic sounds, the sound’s
\n. source belongs to the television institution, operating ‘from above’ on the
\nworld-being-televised.
\nLet us return to continuity television. As far as sound is concerned,
\ncontinuity television precludes acousmatism: all sounds are either visualized
\nor visualizable. In the studios of game shows, variety shows and .talk
\nshows, this is obviously the case of the voices of guests and mediators –
\njournalists and hosts – belonging to the institution. However, some people
\nmight be very far from the set, while their voices will still be visualizable.
\nIn some shows, people are requested to phone from home. Their voices are
\nvisualizable (even though sometimes the screen, as a technological synecdoche
\nfor the individual speaking, presents a close-up of the phone),
\neven though we might never see them. We know who they are, they have a
\nsocial identity. They are people interacting in front of us, in the worldbeing-televised.
\nA more subtle case is the one of sound-only news reports.
\nThe newscaster tells us we are about to hear a report by a certain
\ncorrespondent; then we hear the correspondent’s voice, usually with a
\nphotograph of her\/his face, over the background of a map of the country
\nwhere the events reported are taking place, and from where the correspondent
\nis calling (or has called). Sometimes the voice is recorded, sometimes
\nit is live (and the word ‘live’ might be chromakeyed). If it is recorded, the
\nnewscaster is actually listening ‘with us’ to a tape, not to a human being.
\nMy contention here is that, phenomenologically, the whole apparatus of
\ntelevision is working to create the illusion of a voice that is both visualized
\nand live.
\nThe case of music is partly similar. Music is an interesting case. Music,
\nas Nattiez (1975) has written, has something fictional to it. Temporally
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\nBourdon, Live television 543
\noriented, charged with emotion, it is accepted (even as acousmatic music)
\nby viewers of fiction. In continuity television, there is very little music. The
\nbulk is visualized music in variety shows, or in some talk shows. There is
\nvery little music which is not visualized, and only visualizable. A good
\nexample is provided by the game show ‘Countdown’ (originally a French
\nformat called ‘Des Chiffres et des Lettres’). When the candidates are
\nsearching for the solution of the problem, there is a light, musak-type
\nbackground music. This is visualized music in the sense that it is played in
\nthe studio, live to the candidates and to us together. It is unobstrusive, for
\nthe same reason that there is very little non-visualized music in continuity
\ntelevision. Music would take on a life of its own, be perceived as
\nacousmatic, and definitely ruin the impression\/illusion of liveness.
\nContinuity programmes cannot easily be divided into sequences on the
\nbasis of the work done by the apparatus of television, precisely because it
\naims at transparency. Editing, in particular, is supposed to be fluid, and
\nswitches between cameras should not create the impression of abrupt,
\nunexplained switches between places and periods, as in a documentary or a
\nfiction film. The voice, again, and, more precisely, the verbal, is the main
\ncriterion to analyse the flow of continuity television. Continuity television
\nshould be analysed with tools derived from conversational analysis, as
\ninitiated by Sacks et al. (1974). Television talk has its own rules of turntaking.
\nThe analysis should start with a major distinction, between routing
\nturns (questions, requests, Assessments) and routed turns. The first belong,
\nmost of the time, to mediators: they have the privilege of routing and of
\naddressing the viewers. Routed turns belong to guests, who are requested to
\nrespond to routing in an appropriate manner. A mediator talking can move
\nfrom different types of turns, starting with a direct address to a viewer, and
\nmoving to a series of routing turns.
\nThe voice in fully live or continuity television is visualizable, even if we
\ndo not see the speaker for a long period of time. The best example is the
\nvoice of the sports commentator, in the sequence we will call ‘involved
\ncommentary’. This sequence has specific phonetic features, besides its
\nspecific vocabulary. On radio, even in a language you do not know, you
\nmight identify the commentary of live sports, by its rhythm and prosody. If
\nyou know the language, the use of tenses, the variety of the deixis
\n(personal pronouns, adverbs of time and place) are striking. Of course, the
\nvoice of a live commentary can be recorded and broadcast later with the
\npictures to create the illusion of live television. This is especially the case
\nfor sports events which take place with a time lag. In France, some events
\nof the Atlanta Olympics were broadcast in such a way, even though
\nviewers were told before the broadcast that the events were not actually
\nlive. Less honestly, the French first channel TFl broadcast a football match
\na few hours after the event, with the live commentary recorded, trying to
\nbeat the channel which had exclusive live broadcasting rights by acting as
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\nif nothing had happened. Another kind of involved commentary, less
\npassionate than sports, can be heard during any sort of live event, from a
\nmajor media event to more ritual live events, like the annual Bastille Day
\nparade in France.
\nBe it for media events or for sports events, viewers can hear a voice
\nwithout actually seeing the face of the speaker for long stretches of time.
\nWhy then claim that such a voice is visualizable The commentator has a
\nname, which is given in the credits, he has a face in many other programmes,
\nespecially in sports magazines, or in the coverage of television by the press.
\nMost viewers know this face and can actually visualize a familiar personality
\nwhen they hear the commentary. During the match or the event itself, it is not
\nunusual to see, during the intermission, commentators with their headphones
\non their heads. This is not only a question of identifying the mediators. For
\nthe institution, the sequence where we see the commentators of the event is
\na way of guaranteeing the spectator that the commentators are actually
\ncommentating on the event, that they are part of the event, and not, like us,
\nin front of their screen. No matter what the quality of the commentary, the
\ncommentator has to be a live witness. When, as for the Barcelona
\nOlympics, it was reported that some journalists had been commenting from
\ntheir hotel rooms, this was perceived as a professional failure and a breach
\nof confidence.
\nEdited (and non-fictional) television: documentaries and news
\nreports
\nIn this article I have opposed continuity television to edited television: that
\nis, to the programmes in which the after-the-event editing (not live editing)
\ncan be perceived and is perceived by all viewers. The editing is perceived
\nat several levels. Visually, the shots connect unrelated times. Acousmatic
\nmusic is also typical of edited television (fiction and non-fiction alike).
\nAcousmatic voice, however, is a very specific case: it is the privilege of
\nedited, non-fictional television. Edited non-fictional television is only
\nrepresented by a small number of genres: documentaries, news reports,
\ncredits, advertising, music videos, propaganda (especially, in democracies,
\nelection programmes). Let us start with documentaries and news reports.
\nThey share many features, except for their relations with news and their
\nlength (the news report is brief, and has become shorter since its birth,
\nwhile the documentary can be long). Furthermore, the documentary offers a
\ngood example of the evolution towards what is sometimes called ‘thematic
\ntelevision’, i.e. genres as channels.
\nNews reports, but also documentaries (despite their ancestry in the
\ncinema newsreels and cinema documentaries) are affected by their being
\ntelevision genres. A news report is, as Vianello (1986) has observed,
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\nsomething of a paradox: it is central to a genre which puts high value on
\nbeing broadcast live, the news. Yet, most news reports are made of edited
\nvisual material – they are, at least visually, not live. The case of the voice
\nin news reports is complex. The reporter’s commentary is mostly live, but
\nsometimes recorded. Sometimes, a short report is delivered live by the
\nanchor (this practice has become extremely frequent in the short news
\nflashes of non-stop news channels). Within the news report, American
\ntelevision was the first to introduce ‘the stake out’: the reporter addresses
\nhis commentary to the camera, from the place of the ‘action’, opposite the
\nPresidential Palace or the Court where the trial is taking place (Hartley,
\n1982). The voice is visualized. The ‘stake out’, following the professional
\nterm, actually is the sequence I have already called addressed actuality.
\nThere is a question of who the reporter is talking to: the gaze is somewhat
\nambiguous, while the verbal indications (especially the use of the name of
\nthe anchor to signal the end of the ‘stake out’) seems to indicate he is
\ntalking to the anchor. Finally, we have the case, which we have already
\ndiscussed, where news reports are often reduced to a voice added to the
\nphotograph of the correspondent.
\nWith news programmes in general, especially before American professional
\npractices started being imported, the ‘voice-on news’ has long
\nbeen dominant. Let us refer to ‘voice-on news’ as the story delivered by a
\nreporter off camera. The voice is visualizable: the name of the reporter is
\ngiven in the credits, and many viewers have actually seen him on the
\nscreen. The story is edited, therefore the images are not live, but the voice
\ncan be live (it always was in the early days of the newscast). In short, a
\nreport within the news borrows some of the conventions of liveness, even
\nthough most of the time at least part of it is not live.
\nMore surprisingly, the documentary, a genre born as an elaborated
\ndiscourse on the world, not linked to news (Jacobs, 1971), has been
\nsubmitted to the pressure of liveness when becoming a television genre, as
\nhas already been noted. Corner (1996: 2) writes that the documentary,
\nhaving started as a ‘cinematic essay’, now mostly has the form of an
\n‘expanded reportage’. The most obvious sign of this is the frequent
\noccurrence of direct address. Many television documentaries, especially
\ndocumentary series, include a mediator who addresses the viewers at
\nregular intervals. Of course, these ‘direct addresses’ are usually not
\nrecordeq in the studio. They might be shot ‘on location’ in places
\nconnected to the theme of the documentary. The viewer probably never
\nassumes them to be live. And yet, the ‘here and now’ of the mediator’s
\nliving gaze is here, an indelible indicator of ‘presentness’.
\nThe direct address is also quite frequently used before the documentary.
\nA personality, usually a celebrity of some kind, is there to ‘launch’ it (as if
\nit did not have enough energy of its own). In 1998, the long and very
\nsuccessful (and controversial) documentary series Tkouma, produced by
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\nIsraeli television on the occasion of the country’s 50th anniversary, was
\nlaunched in such a way by famous public personalities. Again, the
\ndocumentary might be about the past, but the ‘launching sequences’ show
\nus a mediator using the present tense for proposing that we see something,
\ntonight (to sit with him in the studio, maybe, and to watch together –
\ntherefore perhaps transforming all living rooms into one huge communal
\ntelevision studio).
\nDocumentary, like news reports, can be easily divided into specific
\nsequences. In documentaries, apart from the ‘direct address’, we find basically
\nthree different types of sequences: ‘scenes’, ‘interview excerpts’ and ‘acousmatic
\ncommentaries’ (or documentary voice-overs). Formally speaking, a
\nscene is identical to a sequence from a fiction film: the characters ‘play their
\nown role’, do not seem to pay attention to the camera (or, more exactly,
\nstudiedly do not pay attention to it). In television documentaries, scenes are
\nrare, most likely because of their fundamental ambiguity. If we tum on our
\ntelevision set and discover a scene, it might take a little time for us to decide if
\nwe are dealing with fiction or with non-fiction. This ambiguity usually is
\nquickly resolved. First, the style of shooting suggests either a documentary or
\na certain type of fiction that borrows from the conventions of documentary
\nand news reports. Second, we quickly realize we have no major character, no
\nplot, but only bits of ‘real life’. Here is a major difference from the documentary
\ntradition of the cinema: scenes are central, and were from the very
\nstart (what is Nanook of the North [Robert Flaherty, 1922) but a succession of
\nscenes). Major documentary directors (Frederick Wiseman, Raymond
\nDepardon) are famous precisely for using mostly or only ‘scenes’ of real life.
\nThe same documentary directors exclude what is the staple of television
\ndocumentaries: the interview excerpts and the acousmatic commentaries. The
\ninterview excerpts (with or without the interviewer’s questions) are somewhat
\nsimilar to the ‘interventions’ of continuity television. However, they belong to
\na different temporality. The editing suggests someone engaged in recollecting
\na variety of encounters and presenting them to us. The interviewer might very
\nwell be, when there is just one, the documentary ‘anchor’, the one in charge of
\nthe direct address (even though he does not always do all the interviews).
\nInterview excerpts (from documentaries but also from news reports) can be
\ndivided according to the category of interviewee, elite and vox pop following
\na division I have suggested (1982) independently from, but similarly to
\nHartley (1982). Elite interviews are named and might have a chance to have
\ntheir voices turned into a voice-over, illustrated by some images (especially in
\ndocumentary and current affairs programmes, where there is more time for the
\nediting than in news reports). Vox pops, anonymous interviewees, are not
\nnamed, are sometimes presented as groups (a series of brief interviews with
\nsimilar questions; or group interviewing) and have much less chance to enjoy
\nthe political privilege of having their voices turned into voice-overs.
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\nThe most typical sequence of some documentaries, absent from news
\nreports, is the acousmatic commentary. It is specific because the voice is avisual.
\nThe voice is less involved in talking to us than in ‘speaking a text’,
\nwith a grammar which is not that of spoken, improvised language. The credits
\nmight actually state: commentary read or given by, in cases where a famous
\nactor has hired out his voice. That slow and static voice has some pretelevisual
\nancestors, between teaching and preaching. We could compare it to
\nthe voice of an invisible priest at the back of a temple. It is a voice of
\nauthority, which dominates the picture, in the name of a carefully prepared
\nand recorded text. The question of the authority of the voice is central to
\ntelevision: be it in involved commentary, or in voice-over news, the absence
\nof the speaker goes along with a sense that the voice knows, that it is there to
\nexplain, continually, the event or the story to us. The acousmatic voice still is,
\nin all cases I have been able to observe, a male voice, sometimes called the
\n‘voice of God’, as Comer (1996: 29) has reminded us. Even more than for the
\ndirect address, the politics of the voice on television is heavily gendered.
\nEdited television: advertising, music videos, credits, propaganda
\nThese four sequences seem to have little in common. We might well start with
\nthe credits, which have a lot to teach us about edited television in general. At
\nthe start, as in film, credits were musical sequences. As television became
\nricher, and more competitive, credits have changed, using more images and
\nincreasingly complex editing. Credits have many functions, far beyond the
\nnaming of those who are given credit. They signal a recurrence: the same
\nfamiliar programme is coming back to us. They vary according to genres, and
\nalso to location. Opening credits which try to draw us into the programme, use
\nthe whole gamut of visual and sound resources. Conversely, for many
\ncontinuity and live programmes, the closing credits are often rolled over the
\nsilent set, where the viewer can see the host and guests, the newscaster and the
\ninterviewee, still talking. Just like advertising, credit sequences are a major
\nplace for trying out and experimenting with new techniques, such as digital
\neffects and computer graphics.
\nAdvertising and music videos are more complicated than credits. The
\nregime of belief they establish stands somewhere between fiction and nonfiction.
\nThey are often built as little fictions, with a story sometimes related to
\nthe song for music videos. At the same time; the viewer is reminded that it is
\nonly a song: images of a story are interspersed with that of the band playing,
\nor of the singer singing. In advertising, we are reminded that this is only an
\nadvertisement: the product is there, after all, to contradict the idea of an
\nautonomous story. Not all advertisements are built as fictions. Many resort to
\na celebrity addressing the audience to promote the product.
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\nMusic videos might be interpreted as a complex generic configuration.
\nBefore they emerged, there had been filmed singers in variety shows or in
\nmusicals, always addressing the audience while singing. They established the
\npower of the song as a popular, semi-fictional genre. The singer both tells a
\nstory and represents, through gestures and attitudes, the story for us. What is
\nnew about the music video is the way the story is represented. Beyond a basic
\ncontinuity (of the music, and, to a lesser extent, of the singer’s face), there is
\nan extreme discontinuity of the editing (with, however, an often cyclic use of
\nthe same series of shots in different locations). This discontinuity seems to
\nembody the power of the singer to become someone else through the music,
\nand to create one or several new worlds through his songs. We could define
\nthe music video as a rhetorical game between sound continuity and visual
\ndisruption, which has created its own conventions: the viewer expects the
\ndisruptions in editing, according to certain rules, but first and foremost we
\nhave the presence of the singer. This modern form is easily combined with the
\narchaism of continuity television. The same disjoined singer is also interviewed
\nin a studio, or on MTV, within the traditional conventions of continuity
\nshooting (save for the odd camera angles, which have also created their
\nown conventions).
\nThe voice, the verbal
\nWhether acousmatic or visualized, almost all television voices have
\nsomething in common: they are at the service of verbal language that is
\nclearly understandable, whether in sports commentaries, in variety shows
\nor in news. Even more than in the movies, there is not only ‘vococentrism’
\nbut ‘verbocentrism’ (Chion, 1994). The technology of the microphone and
\nthe work of television mediators (hosts and journalists) are to a large extent
\nused mostly to convert voices into clear language. The ‘in-between’
\nsituation, so frequent in real life, where voices are clearly saying something,
\nbut something we do not completely understand, is banished from
\ntelevision, and largely from films, with, again, some major exceptions
\n(Jean-Luc Godard being one).
\nIn continuity television, a certain dose of confusion can be tolerated, but
\nwithin certain (evolving) conventions. First of all, the moments of
\nconfusion are limited. After a row, the host has to show he is in control
\nagain. Second, the confusion belongs to a certain sub-genre, the talk-shows
\nof tabloid television. In the 1980s, the American Geraldo, the French Droit
\nde Reponse (Right to Reply), the Israeli Popolitika (Here is Politics), were
\ndebates where noisy rows were part of the expectations of viewers, but
\nwithin certain limits. Each has one or more famous episodes where it went
\nbeyond its own limits, and had to fall back within the borders of the
\n‘acceptable scandal’ that is part of their substantial definition as a genre.
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\nTelevision voices are always clear. But there is more: television is
\nalways talking. That is a convention which might be stronger than the
\nsocial and moral conventions of what can be said: something has to be
\nsaid. On television, almost everything can be said, as long as television
\nkeeps on talking clearly. News journalists are often said to be desperate
\nwhen they have no pictures to illustrate a major event. But the need for
\nwords is as pressing as the need for images. Silent images are rare. Silent
\nlooks are even less frequent. This is probably an interesting zone which is
\nrarely transgressed. What is a silent look, instantly directed at your own
\neyes It is heavily charged, either positively (seduction), but mostly
\nnegatively (aggression, madness), as Barthes (1980: 175) has noted. The
\ndoubt cannot be easily dissipated. We cannot interrogate the figure on the
\nscreen, and react as we would do in real life, simply turning away or
\nresponding aggressively: ‘why are you looking at me like that’ The silent
\nlook brings us back to the absence of the characters on the screen, and then
\nto the fact that there is no event, no fact, only a flow of pictures. Television
\nhas to use the voice to bring about a phenomenological presence as
\ncompletely as it can.
\nFiction, seriality, live television
\nFinally, although fiction (at least in today’s television) is no longer live,
\nand sometimes only shot live (some sitcoms), it is influenced by the
\ncontext of television. Let us start with famous television actors: beyond the
\nfictional story on the screen, viewers can often follow, through television
\nitself and other media, the real-life story off the screen. Behind the
\ncharacter, the actor is always there, much more than in the cinema. Some
\nactors find this worrying. Others use it. Peter Falk is Columbo. In France,
\nthe actor Roger Hanin is the policeman Navarro (the character he has
\nembodied for years in a famous crime series). The use of the name
\nsometimes oscillates between the real-life name and the character’s name.
\nIn comparison with the movies, the suspension of disbelief is not quite the
\nsame. We might watch a story, but we also watch Peter Falk playing
\nColumbo, knowing he will come back next week.
\nThis process of actors being actors more than characters culminates in
\nsitcoms. As much as it is a fiction story, we watch a theatrical representation
\nbeing broadcast, aware of the presence of the audience (live audience
\nor simulated audience through recorded laughter). The actors often play
\nwith a specific detachment, sometimes criticized as bad acting. In a famous
\nFrench sitcom, the bad acting has interestingly been analysed as offering a
\nchance for young viewers to identify more with the actor and less with the
\ncharacter. More precisely, it is as aspiring actors and stars that viewers can
\nthink of themselves as having more chance to participate, some day, in this
\nDownloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012
\n550 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nkind of fiction than in fully fledged fiction (Pasquier, 1999). This
\nhypothesis could be generalized in relation to many sitcoms and soap
\noperas. The stereotyped or simplified way of acting, the heavy coverage of
\nthe real-life character by the media between the episodes, and the very
\nduration of the series create a sense of real-life temporality, sometimes
\nlasting for years, very specific to television. In that sense, Jerry Seinfeld is
\ncloser to Dan Rather than to a movie star. Some viewers can actually view
\nthe whole flow of television as nothing but a life-long serial about the life
\nof television celebrities.
\nFinally, television fiction can be affected by the phenomenon of liveness
\nin another way. Watching television live is also watching non-recorded
\ntelevision. It is well known that viewers mostly record movies and series.
\nThe case of soap operas and sitcoms might be different: they might be
\nrecorded, but viewers who want to keep up with the series, especially if
\nthey share it with other viewers, might prefer to watch it live or with only a
\nsmall delay. Watching fiction live may help us to become part of a specific
\ninterpretive community, and, beyond, of a national audience.
\nLive television as IUXaWUDWLRQand fulfilment
\nThe overall picture of television is thus one where a technical possibility
\nalways somehow winks at us (it might be live), but the occasions where the
\npromise is actually fulfilled are rare. This is one of the reasons that leads
\nviewers to become suspicious, at times, of the fair-play of television. In
\n1988, the French anchor Anne Sinclair interviewed Mikhail Gorbachov in a
\nweekly magazine in which she usually interviewed celebrities in relation to
\nthe news – a programme known to be live. However, as she explained
\nbefore the programme, specific reasons had prompted her to record the
\ninterview in Moscow the day before. This did not prevent at least two
\nviewers from sending letters of protest to Le Monde (the major French
\ndaily newspaper) accusing her of lying when they ‘discovered’ that the
\nprogramme had been recorded: they had probably missed the opening
\napology. Chromakeying the statement: this programme looks live but has
\nactually been recorded, could not have solved the problem. Or it might
\nhave done, but this is just not done on television: it would be tantamount to
\nprinting over a copy of a famous picture: ‘this looks like an original, but it
\nis only a copy’. The work of live television in the age of recording has to
\ntry and keep its specific aura.
\nTelevision professionals are aware of the suspicion which weighs on
\nliveness. During the shooting of a continuity programme, if a guest wants
\nto take off his jacket, he will be advised not to do so. In the world of
\ncontinuity television, it is better if things change under the viewers’ eyes,
\nso that we might be sure the change is not the result of post-production
\nDownloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012
\nBourdon, Live television 551
\nediting. If some major change occurs, it is the job of the host to explain
\nwhy. Thus, for example, if during an advertising break some new guests
\njoin the host, they must be introduced alongside an explanation that they
\nhave joined during the break. The event is live in as much as it is innocent,
\nin that it does not seem to play tricks on the viewers.
\nThis contributes to the explanation of an aspect of television analysed by
\nBeverley Houston in a famous article, where she contrasts the completeness
\nof the cinematographic spectacle with the dissatisfaction of television
\nviewing. Cinema is based on the closure of a fictional story, allowing for a
\nmomentary but deeply satisfying identification with the story’s characters
\n(rather than with actors). According to Houston:
\nOf cinema, we say: I want the cinema experience again. At the ideological
\nlevel, the goal is to reinforce the unified subject as an intermediate step in
\nreproducing a certain social world. This is not the definitive work of television.
\nIts function is more directly linked to consumption, which it promotes by
\nshattering the imaginary possibility over and over, repeatedly reopening the gap
\nof desire. . .. Of television, we say: I always want it as I have never had it.
\n(Houston, 1984: 184)
\nIn the American context, Houston relates this permanent frustration to
\nthe part played by television in the service of consumption. However, the
\nexperience of television as frustration, as something we ‘never quite have’,
\ngoes beyond the specific context of commercial television. The seduction
\nof commercial television might be related to the seduction of liveness. If
\nwe never have television, is it not partly because we never or very rarely
\nexperience the fulfilled promise of live television Dayan and Katz (1992)
\nhave noted that major media events are sources of intense emotion and
\nsatisfaction to viewers. There are reasons related to the specific events they
\nstudied. Media events, however, are moments when television is, at last,
\nwithout the shadow of a doubt, fully live. Because of the importance of the
\nevent, the sense of risk is very high: something very specific, very unusual,
\ncompared to the daily flow of television. The sense of satisfaction is shared
\nby professionals and viewers, creating another unusual phenomenon of
\ncommunion between the institution and its ‘clients’ – no longer clients,
\nalmost participants.
\nLive television as historical fulfilment
\nWhy is it that the possibility of live broadcasting has remained so
\nimportant, whereas the percentage of fully live television is actually small
\non general audience television I do not believe in an essentialist view of
\ntechnologies, nor am I a technological determinist. Rather, I think that
\nliveness should be interpreted as a development within media history as a
\nwhole. Media technological history at least partly reflects an effort to
\nDownloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012
\n552 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nreduce the gap between events and media users. It is intimately linked to a
\nhistory of communication as speed, where we experience the rhythm of
\nprinting presses, the use of the telegraph by press agencies, the transmission
\nof photographs, the circulation of films (by plane), then the circulation
\nof video signals through transmission and satellite. Live broadcasting, in
\nthis context, is the quintessence of ‘news’, whose ‘discovery’ has been a
\nmajor break in the history of the press, if it has not marked the birth of the
\nmodern press altogether (Schudson, 1978).
\nWhy such pressure I certainly do not want to privilege either a critical
\nexplanation, from the top down (the media economy has created a need for
\nconsumers), or a populist explanation, from the bottom up (liveness is a
\nnatural need for the modem citizen). Rather, there has been a mutual
\nadjustment between technique, society and economy. From the top, major
\ninstitutions have all used news, then radio and television liveness, to create
\na connection between the masses and events (thereby reinforcing mass
\nsentiments). At the base, the need to connect oneself, with others, to the
\nworld’s events, is central to the development of the modem nation, as
\nAnderson has noted (1991). But then, did Max Weber not write that the
\nnewspaper was the cement of the modem nation
\nThis historical perspective may possibly lead to an explanation as to why
\nmost prophecies of the death of mass television have been repeatedly
\nbelied by historical evolution. Broadcasting has not yet been defeated by
\nnarrowcasting, particularly not by the ultimate form of narrowcasting, the
\nVCR, which is supposed to give one a chance to free oneself completely
\nfrom the constraints of scheduling. However, as is well known, the VCR
\nremains subject to the programme schedule. The only exception is in the
\ncase of big immigrant communities who live in countries where they have
\nno television channels in their own language, and resort massively to video
\nconsumption. However, most people still watch more broadcast (or even
\ncable and satellite) television than video. Furthermore, video recording
\nitself is used not to detach oneself completely from the channels’
\nschedules, but only for slightly delayed viewing of some specific programmes
\none is not free to watch on a specific evening. This explains why
\naudience measurement systems can actually include part of the VCR
\nviewing of a specific programme in their statistics, as in the UK where this
\nis called timeshift viewing.
\nThe taste for ‘live broadcasting’ (in the sense of ‘non-VCR’ viewing)
\ncan be related to the need to know others are watching at the same time.
\nFurthermore, watching television ‘live’, even though one is dealing with
\nthe broadcasting of recorded programmes, offers a guarantee that, at any
\ngiven time, the flow can be interrupted by a special newsflash. Thus, even
\nwhen we are completely engrossed in a major fiction film, we are not
\ncompletely cut off from world events. This possibility has been noted by
\ntheoreticians of liveness, notably by Mellencamp (1990). An example: on
\nDownloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012
\nBourdon, Live television 553
\nthe evening of Itzhak Rabin’s assassination (November 1995), the French
\nsecond channel was broadcasting a variety show, recorded as if live, a
\ntypical example of what I have called continuity television. At the time
\nwhen the event was discovered, the show was not interrupted. However,
\nthe information was chromakeyed at the bottom of the screen, which
\ncreated a strange sensation: what looked live was not really live. A tragedy
\nwas taking place, and the show’s participants kept talking happily. Of
\ncourse, viewers particularly interested in the event could have always
\nchanged to CNN, LCI (the French non-stop news channel) or to radio.
\nThe promise of liveness in contemporary television
\nMost of the aforementioned examples have been taken from general
\naudience and national channels. Let us now qualify my initial claim that
\nliveness will not disappear with the ‘new television’. Obviously, the
\nmultiplicity of channels and the increased competition and ‘choice’ they
\nentail have some implications for liveness. The most talked-about aspect of
\nthis transformation is the emergence of ‘global news’. CNN and BBC
\nWorld, even though they broadcast some magazines, promise the viewers
\nregular news bulletins and instant interruption in case of the occurrence of
\na newsworthy event: they can be included in the long history of the
\nrhetorics of live television. One cannot be certain that these transformations
\nare about globalization, or mostly about globalization. In countries which
\nhave the capital, and when the cable market has matured long enough,
\nproducers create a national news channel, which is more successful than
\nthe Anglo-Saxon or American model. Non-stop news channels are now
\nbroadcasting in France, Germany and Italy; many are planned in other
\ncountries.
\nThe real change that CNN heralds is also related to a different
\nrelationship with the nation, with television as a national enunciator. In the
\n1960s, it was the BBC (in the UK) or the ORTF (in France), which used
\nthe promise of live broadcasting. In the 1990s, it is international (and,
\nincreasingly, national) non-stop news channels. But, above the channels,
\nthere is a meta-enunciator: the national or private cable company marketing
\nits services to the viewers. A non-stop news channel is always an important
\npart of the promise of this meta-enunciator. Thus, Paris-Cable promises to
\nParisian viewers a ‘bouquet’ of channels, including both CNN and LCI.
\nNon-stop news channels might not be the ones with the biggest audience
\nshares, but they have another privilege. Studying remote control switching
\npatterns might well show us that viewers ‘check up on’ the news channels
\nregularly. If such a pattern is confirmed, live broadcasting might not be
\ndisappearing – rather, it would be entering a new chapter in its history.
\nDownloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012
\n554 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nAppendix
\nI thought it useful to offer a recapitulation of the definitions of some elementary
\nsequences of the televisual flow. This is intended as a non-exhaustive reminder. It
\nshould also be noted that similar attempts have been made by other authors, at least
\nfor specific genres. Most authors, however, separate the visual and the verbal
\nelements which, in my opinion, must be combined. For continuity television, my
\ndistinction between ‘routing turns’, ‘direct address’, and ‘involved commentary’,
\nclosely resembles that of Goffman (1981: 235-6); for radio, between three modes
\nof announcing, ‘three-way’ (which includes the audience as ratified participant in
\nthe interaction), ‘direct announcing’ (direct address), and ‘action override’ (involved
\ncommentary). For news, see Hartley (1982: 109-11), who calls ‘accessed
\nvoice’ what I call ‘routed turns’ or ‘interview excerpts’. For documentary, see
\nComer (1996).
\nElementary sequences of non-fiction television
\nA. Live\/continuity television
\nAl. Direct address Look at the camera. Mediator addressing the viewers.
\nA2. Addressed actuality Look at the camera. Deixis (story about current affairs)
\nbut use of the third person.
\nA3. Involved commentary In sports programmes or media events, off-camera
\ncommentary of known intercessor (visualizable voice). Deixis related to the
\ncontents of the picture (‘now we can see the goal keeper .. .’).
\nA4 and A5. Routing and routed turns. Mediators (routing) and participants
\n(routed) televisual tum-taking. Visualized voices (occasionally only visualizable,
\nbut only for very short moments), no look at the camera.
\nB. Edited television
\nBl. Credits No voice. Acousmatic music. Written material.
\nB2. Acousmatic commentary. Acousmatic voice, with an effect of reading,
\nsometimes background acousmatic music.
\nB3. Interview excerpt Visualized voice (sometimes only visualizable when the
\ninterview is illustrated by short shots). Look close to the axis of the camera but not
\ndirected at the camera.
\nB4. Non-contemporary address Look at the camera. Voice telling a story. No
\ndeixis (e.g. historical narration within a documentary).
\nDownloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012
\nBourdon, Live television 555
\nBS. Voice-on news In news or current affairs programmes, off-camera commentary
\nof a journalist known to the viewer (visualizable voice). Sometimes live voice
\non edited visual material: in that case it should be considered as continuity
\ntelevision.
\nNote
\nThis article was published in a shorter version in French in Reseaux 81: 61-78,
\n1997. It has its remote origins in a thesis written under the direction of Christian
\nMetz, who was not only a fine theorist but the best of pedagogues.
\nReferences
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\n556 Media, Culture & Society 22(5)
\nHouston, B. (1984) ‘Viewing Television: The Metapsychology of Endless Consumption’,
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\nJerome Bourdon was a Researcher at the Institut National de L’ Audiovisuel,
\nParis (1983-97) and since then has been Senior Lecturer at the
\nDepartment of Communications, Tel Aviv University. He has just published
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\nAddress: Department of Communications, Tel Aviv University, 69978
\nIsrael. [email: jeromeb@post.tau.ac.il]
\nDownloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LIB on January 13, 2012 <\/p>\n
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