TEL 420 – Pilot Study #1 – Jack Webb

For this assignment you will be conducting an auteur-centered approach to media content. This paper should be about 5 double-spaced pages and is due on Tuesday, February 8. Please refer to the TV episodes that were presented in class, and if possible other media content that Webb has had some hand in the production process. I have put the video we watched in class on reserve in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications main office.

Please consider the following questions for this essay:

• What is an auteur? Is Jack Webb a viable auteur? Why or why not?
• Are there specific themes or motifs that are exhibited in Jack Webb’s work? If so, what are they and provide examples?
• Describe how the aesthetic properties of Webb’s television creations adds to and/or detracts from the overall narrative structure of his body of work. Please provide examples.
• What implications does this have for society?

Some general suggestions:

• Focus on thematic characteristics across Webb’s body of work rather than focusing on intended meaning in individual programs
• View the author (Webb) as an textual construct – a collection of visual, verbal, etc…, or as narrative parts that construct the whole