[Air-L] TV in dorms

[Jason Mittell]

Kevin's point about dorm TVs may be a tangent, but certainly related to the
shifting media ecosystem. I don't think his experience is an anomaly -
that's the policy at Middlebury as well, and I think it's true at a lot of
residential colleges that cable feeds are limited to common areas or must be
purchased as an add-on to a suite.

It used to be a real factor limiting the way people consumed media, as
in-room TVs were only for gaming or videotapes/DVDs, and common areas were
the way that students watched current TV. But today, my students gather only
for "appointment viewing" (weekly Office, Grey's Anatomy, 24, or Lost
viewing seem to be most common), and watch everything else online via Hulu
or BitTorrent (usually alone or with a friend). For me teaching television,
it makes it easier to get them to watch a specific program, but harder to
consume a channel's flow with ads and a schedule.

-Jason


>   I worked for a year and a half at The University of the South in
> Sewanee, Tennessee, a liberal arts college in the southeastern United
> States.  Their residence halls are an anomaly, particularly among
> affluent institutions in the United States, in that they do (did?) not
> provide cable television to each individual room or suite.  They only
> provide cable television to common rooms on each floor.  It certainly
> seemed that some of these issues - negotiation, shared community, etc.
> - were actively considered and played a significant role in this
> setup.
>

---
Jason Mittell, Associate Professor of American Studies and Film & Media
Culture
Chair of Film & Media Culture Department
Middlebury College
208 Axinn Center at Starr Library
Middlebury, Vermont 05753
(802) 443-3435 / fax: (802) 443-2805
Homepage: http://go.middlebury.edu/mittell
Blog: http://justtv.wordpress.com