Reading the Media | StreamScapeX

Episodes

Season 1, 5 episodes

Episode 1: Donna Haraway Reads 'The National Geographic'
- Now playing
- 28m
Donna Haraway— of A Cyborg Manifesto fame, and one of today’s most recognized public intellectuals—reads National Geographic in this 1987 video. Interested in the ways meaning traffics between species, or rather, how meaning is made of images of interactions between species, Harraway looks into the case of Koko the gorilla, who was taught a variation of American Sign Language by her human keepers. How does the "cultured" gorilla come to represent universal man?, Haraway asks. How do relationships between human and non-human animals reveal how we think about ourselves? About gender, race, and class? Haraway untangles the web of meanings, tracing what gets to count as nature, for whom and when in this feminist journey through the anthropological junglescape.
Episode 2: Flo Kennedy Reads U.S. Press on South Africa
- 28m
With dry wit and unremitting intensity lawyer, actor, and activist Florynce “Flo” Kennedy investigates the way U.S. media acted in support of apartheid in South Africa through what it published (or didn’t) in this 1985 episode of Paper Tiger Television. Cutting together news media describing the “petty annoyances” of racism with accounts of militarized dispossession and other anti-Black projects of the apartheid regime, Kennedy showcases how the media uses a language of neutrality to obscure its ideological commitments.
Episode 3: Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times
- 38m
Linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky discusses U.S. foreign policy towards Central America through deconstruction of an article published in The New York Times on the Nicaraguan conflict of the mid-1980s. By examining this article against the reality of the conflict, Chomsky illustrates propagandistic strategies which The New York Times, still perhaps the most regarded English-language newspaper, utilizes in order to support antidemocratic and often violent U.S. foreign policy towards Central America.
Episode 4: Martha Rosler Reads Vogue
- 26m
Vogue: It is glamour. It is excitement, romance, drama, wishing, dreaming, winning, success. The artist Martha Rosler is known today for, among other work, her videos exploring the semiotics of gendered labor and her collages restaging and interrogating scenes of American consumption, domesticity, and war. This 1982 episode of Paper Tiger Television itself has a collage-like structure, focusing on impressions, personal stories and, most provocatively, looking at Vogue's place in creating and recreating class power.
Episode 5: Murray Bookchin Reads Time Magazine
- 28m
Historian, political philosopher, environmentalist, and anarchist Murray Bookchin demonstrates how Time magazine obliterates time in this 1982 episode of Paper Tiger Television.

Reading the Media

1 season

Overview

Founded by a collective of radical media makers in 1981, Paper Tiger Television pioneered edutainment. Broadcast on public access television, the collective took a grassroots, DIY approach to media production that showcased how television was made through television, while critiquing corporate media and attempting to build a more equitable form of moving image. As one of the founders put it: “It is one thing to critique the mass media and rail against their abuses. It is quite another to create viable alternatives.” Punk and experimental, Paper Tiger Television was such an alternative. The series, Reading the Media, featured all manner of intellectuals, artists, and activists analyzing, and satirizing newspapers, magazines, and even cigarette ads to decipher their hidden codes, messages, and ideologies.

Fun facts

Episodes
Ran for 1 season and 5 episodes
Source for Episodes, opens in a new tab

Details

Status: Ended
Seasons: 1
Episodes: 5
Original language: English
Countries: US

Network

Paper Tiger Television

Cast

Episodes

Season 1, 5 episodes

Episode 1: Donna Haraway Reads 'The National Geographic'
- Now playing
- 28m
Donna Haraway— of A Cyborg Manifesto fame, and one of today’s most recognized public intellectuals—reads National Geographic in this 1987 video. Interested in the ways meaning traffics between species, or rather, how meaning is made of images of interactions between species, Harraway looks into the case of Koko the gorilla, who was taught a variation of American Sign Language by her human keepers. How does the "cultured" gorilla come to represent universal man?, Haraway asks. How do relationships between human and non-human animals reveal how we think about ourselves? About gender, race, and class? Haraway untangles the web of meanings, tracing what gets to count as nature, for whom and when in this feminist journey through the anthropological junglescape.
Episode 2: Flo Kennedy Reads U.S. Press on South Africa
- 28m
With dry wit and unremitting intensity lawyer, actor, and activist Florynce “Flo” Kennedy investigates the way U.S. media acted in support of apartheid in South Africa through what it published (or didn’t) in this 1985 episode of Paper Tiger Television. Cutting together news media describing the “petty annoyances” of racism with accounts of militarized dispossession and other anti-Black projects of the apartheid regime, Kennedy showcases how the media uses a language of neutrality to obscure its ideological commitments.
Episode 3: Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times
- 38m
Linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky discusses U.S. foreign policy towards Central America through deconstruction of an article published in The New York Times on the Nicaraguan conflict of the mid-1980s. By examining this article against the reality of the conflict, Chomsky illustrates propagandistic strategies which The New York Times, still perhaps the most regarded English-language newspaper, utilizes in order to support antidemocratic and often violent U.S. foreign policy towards Central America.
Episode 4: Martha Rosler Reads Vogue
- 26m
Vogue: It is glamour. It is excitement, romance, drama, wishing, dreaming, winning, success. The artist Martha Rosler is known today for, among other work, her videos exploring the semiotics of gendered labor and her collages restaging and interrogating scenes of American consumption, domesticity, and war. This 1982 episode of Paper Tiger Television itself has a collage-like structure, focusing on impressions, personal stories and, most provocatively, looking at Vogue's place in creating and recreating class power.
Episode 5: Murray Bookchin Reads Time Magazine
- 28m
Historian, political philosopher, environmentalist, and anarchist Murray Bookchin demonstrates how Time magazine obliterates time in this 1982 episode of Paper Tiger Television.

Episodes

E1 Episode 1: Donna Haraway Reads 'The National Geographic'

E2 Episode 2: Flo Kennedy Reads U.S. Press on South Africa

E3 Episode 3: Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times

E4 Episode 4: Martha Rosler Reads Vogue

E5 Episode 5: Murray Bookchin Reads Time Magazine

Overview

Fun facts

Details

Network

Cast

More like this

Episodes

E1 Episode 1: Donna Haraway Reads 'The National Geographic'

E2 Episode 2: Flo Kennedy Reads U.S. Press on South Africa

E3 Episode 3: Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times

E4 Episode 4: Martha Rosler Reads Vogue

E5 Episode 5: Murray Bookchin Reads Time Magazine

Episode 1: Donna Haraway Reads 'The National Geographic'

Episode 2: Flo Kennedy Reads U.S. Press on South Africa

Episode 3: Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times

Episode 4: Martha Rosler Reads Vogue

Episode 5: Murray Bookchin Reads Time Magazine

Episode 1: Donna Haraway Reads 'The National Geographic'

Episode 2: Flo Kennedy Reads U.S. Press on South Africa

Episode 3: Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times

Episode 4: Martha Rosler Reads Vogue

Episode 5: Murray Bookchin Reads Time Magazine