1、 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLEThis article was downloaded by: Curtin University LibraryOn: 19 October 2008Access details: Access Details: subscription number 778558588Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mo
2、rtimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UKJournal of Applied Communication ResearchPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http:/ Assessment of Television Programs in Israel: Can Viewers RecognizeProduction Value?Jacob ShamirOnline Publication Date: 01 August 2007
3、To cite this Article Shamir, Jacob(2007)Quality Assessment of Television Programs in Israel: Can Viewers Recognize ProductionValue?,Journal of Applied Communication Research,35:3,320 341To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00909880701434406URL: http:/dx.doi.org/10.1080/00909880701434406Full terms a
4、nd conditions of use: http:/ article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial orsystematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.The publisher does not give
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6、ceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directlyor indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.Quality Assessment of TelevisionPrograms in Israel: Can ViewersRecognize Production Value?Jacob ShamirTelevision programs production value i
7、s highly regarded by professionals as a crucialdimension of program quality. This study examines the degree to which lay viewers,rather than professionals, are sensitive to television programs production value as adistinct evaluative dimension, their ability to pass educated judgments on productionv
8、alue, and the impact of these judgments on their overall program appreciation andquality assessment. Based on a large-scale survey of television viewers in Israel, we findthat production value makes up a distinct evaluative dimension, indicating that viewersare sensitive to production considerations
9、. Production value assessments also explaintelevision program appreciation and quality evaluations. On the other hand, there areindications that lay viewers are not very good at discerning gradations of productionvalue among different programs and genres. These findings are discussed in the context
10、ofthe conflicting interests among Israeli program makers and television channel franchisersto cut costs or to invest in the quality and production value of domestically producedprograms. Based on the findings, a deliberative procedure is suggested which canaccommodate these conflicting interests by
11、combining lay viewers quality assessmentswith professionals more considered and informed judgments.Keywords: Television Program Quality; Production Value; Consensus Conference; IsraelIntroductionQuality assessment of television programs is a challenging endeavor with importantpolicy and public inter
12、est implications. It raises questions of democratization of taste,professional autonomy, and conflicting economic interests. The communicationJacob Shamir (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication andJournalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Corre
13、spondence to: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, MountScopus Campus, Jerusalem, Israel 91905. Email: jshamirmscc.huji.ac.il. The author gratefully acknowledges thefinancial support of the Israel Science Foundation as well as the illuminating comments of the two reviewers andthe journal editor.ISSN 0090
14、-9882 (print)/ISSN 1479-5752 (online) # 2007 National Communication AssociationDOI: 10.1080/00909880701434406Journal of Applied Communication ResearchVol. 35, No. 3, August 2007, pp. 320C1341Downloaded By: Curtin University Library At: 17:10 19 October 2008revolution in Israel in the 1990s brought t
15、hese issues to the fore and affords insightinto the complexities of policy considerations where professional values and expertiseseem to conflict with claims for the sovereignty of popular preferences.The introduction of multiple cable, satellite, and commercial channels in Israel inthe 1990s impose
16、d new and severe economic realities on the market. Ambitions forquick returns on investments, coupled with fierce competition between the cable andsatellite carriers over users and between commercial channels over limited advertisingfunds, led to massive cuts in domestic programs production budgets.
17、 The first to beaffected were genres with higher production value, such as drama and documentaries,which are more expensive to produce. As a result, the community of domesticprogram makers*writers, editors, directors, and actors*suffered a severe economiccrunch. Along with these new economic realiti
18、es, a new consumer sovereignty andmarket forces discourse came to the fore, perpetuated primarily by televisionchannels franchisers.1It stressed competition, profitability, and the sovereignty ofconsumers to determine what is right for them (Shamir, 2002). This rhetoricpromoted program popularity as
19、 the most realistic notion of quality and the bestindicator of viewers preferences. Television professionals in Israel, just like in Britaina decade earlier (Mulgan, 1990), stepped out to counter these economic andideological threats, framing their struggle primarily in terms of setting professional
20、standards of quality and of production value.Academic research in this area has advocated the superiority of professionalsquality assessments over those of audiences. This emerged strongly from the mostcomprehensive multinational research program to date on the assessment oftelevision quality (Ishik
21、awa, 1996b). In addition, Ishikawa (1996a) views the qualityassessments of professionals as more valid and legitimate than viewers assessments,which he considers to play only a complementary role. Similarly, Rosengren,Carlsson, and Tagerud (1996) regard professional quality as the most central andpo
22、ssibly most important yardstick by which their other types of quality can beassessed. Indeed, much of the research on the topic which has involved professionalsinvited not only their artistic insights and assessments of production quality, but alsoexpected them to assume lay viewers perspectives and
23、 reflect on their experiences(e.g., Albers, 1996; Leggatt, 1996b; Shamir, 2002). Television audiences, on the otherhand, were usually considered to be nave about the production of televisionprograms and were merely consulted about their experiences of the programs and thegratification they derived f
24、rom them.This paper tests these assumptions. It examines empirically whether televisionviewers are sensitive to production aspects of television programs and how valid theirassessments are. Policy-wise, this research is important in that it attempts to gobeyond the vested interests and values which
25、underlie the conflicting views of Israeliprofessionals and channel franchisers. Based on the findings, a deliberative procedureis suggested which can accommodate these conflicting interests by combining layviewers quality assessments with professionals more considered and informedjudgments.TV Progra
26、ms in Israel 321Downloaded By: Curtin University Library At: 17:10 19 October 2008The Notion of Television Program QualityOne cannot approach the question of television program quality without acknowl-edging the rich body of work on aesthetic judgment in the fields of aesthetics,philosophy of art, a
27、nd sociology of art. While questions about the nature of art,aesthetic experience, and aesthetic judgment are probably as old as art itself, theybecame the focus of a recognized branch of philosophy only in the 18th century withthe works of German philosophers such as Kant and Schiller (Wollheim, 19
28、80). Thiscentury is also often seen as the period in which the fine arts emerged in their modernform as a self-contained practice and discourse (e.g., Kristeller, 1992). There is wideagreement among social historians and sociologists that these developments wereclosely related to social and economic
29、 changes, particularly to the emergence ofWestern capitalist society (Wolf, 1993). Furthermore, current sociologists of the artsand postmodern thinkers tend to dismiss classical assumptions concerning theessentialist nature of aesthetic value, the disinterestedness of aesthetic experience, andthe ab
30、ility to separate aesthetic judgment from appreciation. They consider theseassumptions to be ideological and class-bounded, and thus arbitrary (e.g., Bourdieu,1984). This criticism has also made inroads among scholars of aesthetics, althoughothers consider it to be only a limited account of the natu
31、re of the aesthetic, incapableof fully explaining its specificity (Wolf, 1993). In any case, the relative nature ofaesthetic judgment is nowadays widely shared across relevant disciplines in thehumanities and the social sciences.In accordance with this view, quality is often taken to mean the degree
32、 to which thecharacteristics of an entity satisfy highly regarded normative standards. Thus, forexample, Rosengren et al. (1996) see quality as a relation between a characteristicand a set of values (p. 21). Hence it is, by definition, a property, which is: ascribedrather than possessed; variable ra
33、ther than constant; and, obviously, normative andsubjective rather than objective. To cite Mepham:Quality, whether we are talking about the quality of TV programming, of books, offootball matches or of people, can only ever be given meaning with the purposesthat give these things a place in peoples
34、lives, the values which they serve. (1990,p. 56)Therefore, in assessing the quality of television broadcasting (or any other type ofquality for that matter), one must explicate the set of valued standards, norms, uses,and gratifications which guide the evaluation. Different value systems and differe
35、ntnormative theories on the social role of the mass media produce different qualityjudgments, and many types of quality may simultaneously coexist.Acknowledging the normative nature of quality assessment, most discussion aboutand research into television programming quality avoids simple, definitive
36、 answers.Rather, the present academic focus is on trying to delineate and describe a range ofpossible types of quality by identifying culturally relevant and influential ideologies,value systems, professional standards, and normative communication models whichunderlie such conceptions. For example,
37、Mulgan (1990) advocates the need tobalance different and often contradictory types of television quality, skillfully laying322 J. ShamirDownloaded By: Curtin University Library At: 17:10 19 October 2008out seven such types: quality in terms of production values; quality as viewerspreferences and mar
38、ket demand; quality as an aesthetic particular to the televisionmedium; quality which cherishes communal values and social integration, oralternatively quality based on high regard for individualistic participatory values;quality as truth-telling and fairness; and, finally, quality as diversity. Sim
39、ilarly,Mepham (1990) suggests a concept of quality which draws upon the values ofdiversity, usability, and truth-telling. Other views, rooted in literary theory, seequality as related to the number of interpretations and critical accounts generated bya work of art (Sheppard, 1987), to the works dive
40、rgence from its audiences horizonof expectations (Jauss Mulgan, 1990).A variety of other quality typologies appear in Ishikawa (1996b). This volumereports the results of a comprehensive multinational research program into thequality assessment of television. The program, supported by the Japan Broad
41、castingCorporation (NHK), was set up to examine television quality across cultures,methodological approaches, and television systems. For example, Rosengren et al.(1996) offer a typology of four broadly conceived dimensions of quality, each tappinga different relationship in the communication chain.
42、 Descriptive quality stresses therelationship between message and reality as the basis for setting quality standards.Receiver use quality focuses on message effects, and on uses and gratificationscriteria as the basis for quality assessments (messageC1receiver relationship). Senderuse quality is def
43、ined in terms of the societal functions fulfilled by television andmass media in general (messageC1sender relationship). Finally, the fourth type isprofessional quality, which looks at quality from the point of view of professionals.These types of quality have been further synthesized in the NHK-sup
44、ported researchinto three major perspectives on television quality: quality from the perspective ofaudiences, quality from the point of view of professionals, and quality as diversity.Quality from the Perspective of Professionals and ExpertsThe rationale for considering experts perceptions of qualit
45、y as a yardstick forassessing television quality generally is based on the assumption that professionalknowledge and know-how inevitably shape quality values. These, in turn, affect thework output and choices made in the television industry (Hillve Leggatt, 1996b). Thus, television professionals poi
46、nt of view must be addressed inany effort to map the range of relevant quality perspectives.Several studies have attempted to uncover quality criteria from the point of view ofwriters, producers, directors, and other television professionals. In his research for thePeacock Committee on Financing the
47、 BBC, Nossiter (1986) lists five dimensions ofquality based on 120 interviews with television professionals. These dimensions serveas a point of reference to later work on the subject and include technical excellence,content, clarity of objective, innovation, and relevance. The last two criteria are
48、 alsomentioned by Blumler (1991) as important to television professionals, based oninterviews with a large number of British and American producers, writers, andTV Programs in Israel 323Downloaded By: Curtin University Library At: 17:10 19 October 2008directors. He further lists expressive richness,
49、 authenticity, controversial engagement,and integrity as other important dimensions. Another unstructured attempt to tapprofessionals conceptions of quality was made by the Broadcasting Research Unit inthe UK (1989). It invited a group of professionals to outline, in writing, the essentialelements in any definition of standards as quality (p. 6). The resulting collectionof thoughts is sometime
