ERIC Number: ED310462
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1989-May
Pages: 27
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Intertextuality and Television Discourse: The Max Headroom Story.
Braddlee
Max Headroom, the computer-generated media personality, presents a good opportunity for an investigation of the degree of intertextuality in television. Max combines narrative genres (science fiction and film noir), television program types (prime-time episodic narrative, made-for-TV movie, talkshows), advertising and programming, and electronic and print media. Analysis of one channel of discourse, commercials and advertising, shows that neither advertisers nor textual theorists can rest safely on their assumptions. The text involved here is complex in the very sense that culture itself is complex, and readings of media that reduce complexity to a simplistic ideological positioning of readers are reductive and based on an overprivileging of dominance over the intelligence of viewers, and their power to expose and exploit contradictory textual elements. By over-emphasizing the hegemonic and deemphasizing the emancipatory or oppositional, injustice is done to both the complexity of texts, and their potential for encouraging critical positionings among readers. Only through empirical investigation of individuals' readings in a consistent and systematic fashion will it be possible to determine the relationships between viewers and texts. (MS)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Opinion Papers; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A