ABSTRACT

The dominant educational approach has been social rather than aesthetic. Film, television and, latterly, video have been perceived as components of the popular culture. Richards and Leavis and Thompson were influential in making the mass media subjects for study, but their purpose was corrective: commercial entertainment was pervasive and corrosive, inculcating 'stock attitudes and stereotyped ideas', and exploiting 'the cheapest emotional responses'. Television and film technologies are not identical, the primary difference being that radio waves allow instantaneous and uninterrupted transmission. Similarly, a videotape can record continuously for several hours, far longer than has ever been physically possible on film. The processes of composition and execution are sometimes similar to, though never the same as, those undertaken by the writer. In addition to the dramatist's concern with dialogue and relationship through the positioning and movement of actors, the film-maker continually adjusts the relationships of actors and environments to the framed composition.