Television is one of the most ubiquitous communicative mediums in contemporary culture.
It is the most hated and, clearly, the most loved as well. It is reviled as the stuff of consumer daydreams and violent fantasies. It is sneered at as the detritus of an image-mad society, set adrift by the hegemony of happy, channel zapping zombies merrily flitting through MTV and Oprah without stopping for anything but an infomercial break. While most clearly deplore its supposed aesthetic banality and ideological muddle, very few question the centrality of television in defining the Zeitgeist. This course will examine television in all its awful wonderment.