Television review

I really enjoyed reading this one! I thought the layout was a bit busy and distracting, but there was some fantastic analysis across different spheres (soap opera-African-American-reality tv etc.) of television. Off of the first point, I was never quite sure where I was supposed to be looking, but there were so many interesting things to catch my eye that it almost didn’t matter. I read “The Real Africa” first, and it set a high bar– I thought it was an excellent integration of all the material we’ve been studying over the semester, trenchantly focused. I thought the Nenna/Fatima comparison piece was particularly effective. I wasn’t totally sure what to do with the next “Live from Africa” segment… I liked that they included it as a snippet, but felt that it would have benefited from some analysis on the part of the group members. (If only to direct the eye/ear of the reader/viewer.) I thought the Africa Live scrapblog was well-orchestrated and presented with compelling and interesting analysis. (My one highly minor technical gripe is that the youtube clip insertion blocked out part of the background quote several times. Like I said, really minor but the form did hinder content somewhat there.) The “Going Tribal” section raised some thought-provoking questions and sound analysis, and I particularly liked how, once again, everything comes back to Tomb Raider! The “Africa on Stage”/soap opera section was great; I loved having a glimpse into South African pop culture in the mundane/inane yet trainwreck fascinating world of soap opera. I thought that the “Dramatizing Africa” section could have used a bit more analysis and a little less summary/explanation, but I thought the stereotype checklist was a nice touch.

As I said, I thought the television group did a great job. I thought all of the sections were handled adeptly, and liked the ratings system and whole television channel conceit. The setup could possibly have been restructured to be a little more user-friendly and streamlined, but it was a cool concept and the whole project was well-executed.