Producing the Postmodern Moment: Television Commercials from 1948-1989

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Cultural Production

Abstract

According to a school of social theorists, a massive cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity left its mark on a myriad of socially constructed elements of society. The production of culture perspective argues that cultural objects need to be understood in terms of the social, economic and technological environments in which they were produced, envisioning the final aesthetic of cultural objects as shaped by social structural forces, and thus at least partially independent of the aesthetic goals of their creators. The history of the shot change suggests that innovations in television commercials emerged from the interplay between artists and their medium as they attempt to push other prior viewpoints or effects that are largely unrelated to time and space. While existing empirical evidence for the ‘postmodern moment’ is slim, pilot data show a three-fold increase in shot changes per minute (SCPM), and splined regression suggests that the pattern of increasing SCPM began in the early nineteen-sixties. Several possible explanations for the dramatic increase in SCPM may be evaluated using additional data collected at UCLA’s Film and Television Archives.

Author

• Lucas Sherry, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill