4
Television and Familiarity
"Shows are made for people to see themselves"

Television is a taken for granted, common component of daily life. A discussion of familiarity on this level refers simply to the existence of the device and of the medium. It is by way of this very familiar medium entwined within the everyday processes of living that much understanding of social constructs occurs.

It is common knowledge that people watch programs largely for entertainment purposes and that many or most people obtain the majority of their local and national news information by way of television. The Nielson Company publishes monthly the numbers of audience, broken down demographically, that tune in to particular channels and programs throughout the segmented 'dayparts' as a validation to advertisers that particular, definable people watch in quantifiable numbers. Several studies that have examined the use of television in the home have found that the television set is often turned on for companionship. While attending to other tasks, it is common for persons working at home to keep the set on and listen in. Broadcast schedules have been shown to actually segment and define the time of day, particularly for the housewife (Modeleski). Many children are kept occupied with the television set in the role of baby-sitter. The elderly and persons with limited mobility spend much of their time in front of the set. None of these statistics reveal anything new but are interesting in recapitulating the insidious fact of television's constant presence.

Generations that have grown up with television and all that it presents, represents and entails are literate with the medium as a matter of course. Technology is one of the crucial constituents of life, self and identity. The girls have grown up with the various discourses of television and have quite naturally learned to regard them as a normal and integral part of life. Along with the telephone, the radio, tape and CD player, and, to fluctuating degrees, the computer, television is both a device and a medium of communication that the girls have been exposed to and encouraged to use and interact with since birth.

The girls illustrate a media literacy that is image-based. They are accustomed to the languages of several media at once. "The post-TV generation" utilizes a new "multidimensional language" composed of a new "grammar of images" (Pittman). Generations that grew up with television communicate differently than earlier generations that consume media "one at a time." "TV babies "seem to be happy processing information from different sources almost simultaneously.....It's as if information from each source finds its way to a different cluster of thoughts and.....it all makes sense" (Pittman). It is a literacy that is both similar to and distinct from reading, writing and other basic communicative modes and practices. Television has its own distinct modes of discourse, relying mostly upon the representation of face-to-face, believable communication. Television is representation, but what it represents are other forms of communication.

The physical presence of the television set itself is an issue central to the familiarity of television in daily life. A televisual literacy has developed largely due to the fact of television's omnipresence. Television is constantly available at home, at school, in airports, shopping stores and malls, hospitals, doctors' offices and most any place that people spend time.

The place or the space where television is viewed is significant in a consideration of familiarity and literacy issues. Several theorists have concentrated on the use of television within the home, with most of their studies focusing on the particular habits of usage by the members within the home (Morley, Gray). Rather than the particular procedures families use to organize and structure their use of television within the home, it is the concept of home itself that I think important to highlight as "a construct, a place, not a space" (Silverstone 26). The primary space in which viewers watch television is not always their place of residence. Home is "not just one place, but locations (which) enable and promote varied and everchanging perspectives" (hooks 149). "Places are human spaces, the focus of experience and intention, memories and desires" (Silverstone 27). That the television is physically within the home, that it is most often a very natural and usual part of the home gives credibility to television as an important part of daily and familiar life. Television becomes part of the home which is a "product of practical and emotional commitment to a given space (and) can be seen as a phenomenological reality in which identities are forged and securities are maintained" (Silverstone 29).

Another level of familiarity is that in which the content is presented on television. Television's programs are so familiar and accessible that we have come to take the televisual, along with the 'actual' as a normal component of life. Television program creators are very aware of the fact that familiarity attracts attention and they utilize this knowledge as a tactic in the structuring of television's texts. Television communicates to its audience by utilizing a discourse of the familiar. The texts convey situations and characters whose attributes are recognizable by the intended viewer. The settings and fixtures, the characters' appearance and styles of dress, their use of language, the situations that they become involved in including relationships, jobs and recreational activities are all chosen with identification by the audience in mind.

From television series we find not only entertainment, but also useful information on how to live, how to function, how to be in the world. These 'guidelines' come through the characters; how they behave and reason. The intended reading of all this information is largely ideological, providing 'instructions' on what kind of person to be, how to be a good citizen, in what ways to express maleness and femaleness, what is appropriate activity for each sex. Ideology through all media, and television especially, is, of course, unavoidable (Hall).

Through the highly familiar existence and attributes of television, the girls are exposed to familiar aspects of their own lives and types of people. It is this familiarity which provides legitimization to the notion of the virtual family in the shape of a television character. My analysis of the girls' use of television's characters begins from an assumption of an engrained televisual literacy. Rather than looking at television as a technological device that is distant from and additional to our psychology and mental processes, I assume a natural and close association with television's texts and mode of communication. This televisual literacy is evidenced in the ways in which the girls speak about their lives and the stories they watch on television.

Sister G: I watch the news sometimes but not all that much because they don't really tell nuthin' like it truly is, you know. The news people, they are all like rich whites from the upper east side and then they are talkin' about what happens down here - but they don't have it right.
Renalda: I don't like to watch soap operas so much or telenovelas like my mother and my aunt - they love them! But I like better the shows at night with kids or teenagers or whatever.
Elva: We like Malibu Shores now. The kids are younger and there was a Spanish girl for awhile.
Renalda: And a black guy. Malibu Shores is kind of like Beverly Hills was at first but this show at least has some people besides only white.
Renalda: No. It don't matter, really. If I want to see all Spanish people, I can just watch the stories on Telemundo but they are not as good, really, as the regular TV shows. It doesn't matter if nobody is Mexican or whatever. You just notice it 'cause it's kind of different if there is somebody different on.
Elva: Only on certain shows, you know. Not like in Moesha and those others (programs with predominate black characters). Those shows - you expect everybody to be black or somethin' - they are made for people to see themselves.

The girls discuss what happens on programs they like:

Renalda: I like to hear them talkin' about things that go on for them, you know, like with school and boyfriends and with their homes sometimes, too.
Keisha: I like to see them goin' through the things that they do. They (the female characters on Beverly Hills) are always changin' boyfriends and the one is all interested in bein' in beauty shows.
LJ: And Kelly was stuck on cocaine for awhile.
Sister G: Yeah, she was hung up with Collin. He was just like a brother or two I have known - fine and very tempting, but always up to somethin' no good!
LJ: Collin now is in jail and Valerie is his girlfriend now. She is supposed to pay his way out but she didn't do it yet.
Renalda: This scene with them and drugs - it's kind of like the way it is, but not really, 'cause maybe they have the money to make it easier.
Sister G: Yeah, that's right. If you go down for anything here - it's not as easy to get off and you don't get right out either.
LJ: Collin didn't get right out - but Kelly got fine real quick when she had to go into rehab. She looked bad, like for real, but she got better too quick.
Renalda: There was a whole scene with drinking on Party of Five. Remember that girl, Jill? She was Bailey's girlfriend.
LJ: Yeah, she was a coke freak, too. She died of overdose, or in a car wreck?
Renalda: She died of overdose, but before that she was drunk and wrecked and almost died.

The girls discuss whether events that occur on the programs also occur in their lives:

Elva: Other things go on, too, not just drugs. Julia (Party of Five), was pregnant and she had some problem and had a miscarriage. For awhile, the show was pretty intense. We were always watching it. There was a girl we know who thought she was pregnant and she didn't tell her mother or no one. She was watchin' the show then, too. Sometimes we saw it together with Renalda.
Renalda: Yeah, that was very strange, you know, 'cause Julia and Heather (friend or Renalda and Elva), they was in the same way and I think it was hard for Heather to see 'cause Julia was freaked. She was dissin' her nice boyfriend and Heather didn't even have no boyfriend that cared for her like that.
Elva: She was tellin' lies to her family and skippin' school. She went off to visit that weird boyfriend of hers - the one in reform school.
Renalda: Yeah, it was good - pretty true like the way it is when you, or someone, is pregnant and you are young and don't know what to do. I thought she was gonna have to go and have an abortion.
Sister G: I saw some of those shows. They took the easy way makin' her have a miscarriage - like they couldn't talk about really havin' an abortion on TV, you know, it might be a 'negative influence', or somethin'.
LJ: That's bull, too. 'Cause abortions are very common for a lot of people I know - a lot of girls, young ones even. But on TV, it's too tame, you know, like they got to be careful.
Keisha: There is other stuff that happens that's like the stuff I got to deal with. There was kind of the opposite thing when Chloe (Malibu Shores) met that guy from the poorer part of town and she liked him, but her friends gave her trouble over it. Well, I know what this is like 'cause once I was seein' this brother and he was from Gramercy area, he went to a private school, I could only really see him on weekends, and I didn't even let my friends meet him. I went to his house and I met his mother. They was wealthy! He and me, we got on good, but there was things between our lives, differences, I guess, and that made it not work out. But now I don't even care that much about tryin' to have no boyfriend, 'cause anyway, I can just watch it on TV.
Elva: That thing with Chloe and the guy didn't work out, neither.
Renalda: Yeah, but at least they go to school together. That makes a difference - if you're on the same level with people.

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