Response One
While talking about the concept of flow in live television, Feuer (p. 15), using the idea of William Raymond, invokes it to explain the effects of immediacy and the present experience given by television. In his argument, William posits that “flow” in television ideology are mere illusions. To him, “it is more accurate to mention that dialectics of flow and segmentations constitutes television.” Television is a continuous, never-ending process in which it is impossible to separate individual texts from it. Just within the already existing flow, some features like commercials, series, and predictability recur. Also, the experience of flow is associated with television viewing situations. These situations include; the home setting, furniture, and one’s daily life. To conclude, why is the concept of “flow” a defining factor of live television?
Response Two
In this reading, the author is challenged by giving the proper meaning of cinema. He further expresses that he often mistakes the term cinema for a hole. Nevertheless, Cinema has various features surrounding it that make the term a complex matter (Howard, p. 346). Besides having darkness as a substance of its reverie, cinema also portrays the absence of worldliness, contrary to cultural appearance. The other defining feature of cinema is the film image, sound, epic art, ideological vigilance, and spectator culture. Howard, (p. 349).
Response Three
Even though some black folks did not articulate their need for snapshots, most had a passionate attachment to it. In answering the questions regarding the roles snapshots play in Black folks’ lives, Bell (p. 62) noted that people could insure against the past’s loss only by creating pictorial genealogies. Also, genealogies were perceived as a way of sustaining ties. In most black homes, photographs, especially snapshots, were “central to alters’ creation.” Such commemorative places paid homage to the dead as well as absent loved family members. It’s through snapshots that the relationship with the dead could be made continuous by seeing their portraits. To conclude, Bell (p. 63) expressed that the pictures on the walls played a great role as maps guiding the black folks through divers’ journeys seeking to restore historical relations and seek to recover strands of oppositional worldviews the black lives.
Response Four
Ideology is interpreted as the portrayal of the theoretical connections of individuals to their real conditions of existence. While approaching the functionality and structure of ideology, two dimensions are considered; the positive and negative sides (Althusser, p. 109). According to the reading, “ideology is nothing in so far, but just a pure dream” (p. 108). Also, “ideology has no history.” This argument leaves many with the thought if it’s true that ideology has no history. In response to this argument, ideology has no history attached to it; however, this does not mean that there is no history in it. The most sensitive argument is that ideology’s peculiarity is endowed with functionality and system, making it a non-historical reality. For instance, the fact that functions and structures associated with ideology are immutable (p.110). It is, therefore, concluded that ideology does not correspond to reality because they constitute an illusion. As such, ideology only makes an illusion of reality and can be interpreted to discover the universe’s reality behind its imaginary representation.
References
Althusser, L. (n.d.). Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Bell, H. (n.d.). Art on My Mind: Visual Politics. New York: The New Press.
Feuer, J. (n.d.). The Concept of Live Television: Ontology as Ideology.
Howard, R. (nd). The Rustle of Language. New York