Without Television

The purpose of this follow-up study was to learn more about the leisure choices, hobbies, and lifestyles of young adults who had grown up without a television. Study participants responded to an online questionnaire that asked about their health, physical activity habits, hobbies, and level of current television viewing. A mixed methods approach to gathering and analyzing data revealed a picture of young adults who live active lives, watch little television, and appear to have a strong sense of personal agency to direct their lives. Themes of agency, including forethought and intentionality, and self-regulation were evident in the qualitative responses, as well as creation and choosing challenging hobbies or activities. This study provided much information for future research to examine the influence of television on youth development, specifically agency, challenge and life-long habits.

“I’m not Always Laughing at the Jokes”

Humor in popular culture plays with our perceptions and sense of dislocation. The inherently ambiguous logic of humor allows for multiple interpretations of social phenomena, and constructs the world as arbitrary, multiple, and tenuous (Mulkay, 1988). At the same time, humor is one of the central elements of much of what young people find appealing in popular culture. Exploring the potential of humor to interrogate cultural assumptions, Australian and American students participated in a cross-cultural television study. The student cohorts then communicated on line, developing their reading of the sitcom in a cross-cultural forum. Their responses highlight the disruption to accepted patterns of social order that the play upon form, or parody, delivers. Through exploring ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ readings of a television parody, this chapter explores how humorous conventions function to reflexively position readers, and thus invite critical readings of popular and engaging texts. It also examines broader questions of the role of the US in producing and distributing popular culture, and how readers might find creative and critical ways to deal with culturally disparate world views.

Riding Critical and Cultural Boundaries

This chapter explores the impact of new technologies on young peoples’ literacy practices, with a particular focus on humour as text. Acknowledging ways in which rapidly-changing cultural and technological conditions have reshaped how people work and play, the authors work within expanded definitions of literacy, or multiliteracies. Exploring the potential of humour to interrogate cultural assumptions, Australian and American students participated in a cross cultural television study. They viewed a ‘foreign’ sitcom, asking to what extent knowledge of the sitcom’s cultural norms was fundamental to an appreciation of the intended humour of the series. The student cohorts then communicated on line, developing their reading of the sitcoms in a cross cultural forum. The study asks how the students’ multiliterate practices, including their critical interpretations of television comedy, hold implications for literacy education.