Video/Television Production
Video and Television production courses played a fundamental role in the Media Studies program. Video tape is one of the first courses offered by the Center for Understanding Media in 1971. Because of the medium's newness and portability, The Center for Understanding Media found it to be important to offer courses which "demonstrated ways to utilize the VTR to explore and enhance individual teaching styles and conscious level raising." Media literacy was a key component in shaping the Media Studies program. The Media Studies program continues to emphasize the importance of combining theory and practice, and is not a media training site, but an experience where you learn from the tools. Here is the original course description offered July 12-30, 1971.
In 1974, the program expanded into a full-fledged Master of Arts in Media Studies program. The program was originally taught through Antioch College before being moved to The New School. Below is the course catalog for the 1974, where "workshops" were offered to promote media literacy, as well as courses in pedagogy for educators to teach children about new media.
In the 1980 course catalog for the Cinematic Arts, Television and Media Studies program, Television courses increased in number. The newly included word "television" in the program's title implies a shift in culture that centers around creating, and an implied importance of television in the early 1980s culture. This course catalog even included television media management courses, acting, writing, and production courses.
In the 1988 course catalog, Video had become far less prominent in the classroom than it was in 1980, where video and television media were the prominent mode of production.
By 1997, the rhetoric shifts to the point where it is obvious that television has become a cultural staple, as shown by such quotes as, “course shows you how to shape, shoot, and edit a kind of television that reflects and provokes, even muses and considers.”
Video Production I and II are still being offered in 1997, as well.
In the Fall 2007 course catalog, Video production had taken on a new meaning. In the early course catalogs, video was one of the newest technologies being offered. However, by 2007, Video has changed from videotape and video recorders to mini DVand digital editing. The term "video" changes within the course of the Media Studies history reflecting not only the change in technology, but also the change that the curriculum must go through in order to accommodate the newest technologies.
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