Week 6 Core Response

"TV While You Wait" provides us with a discussion of television as it occupies and is incorporated into waiting spaces. These spaces can becomes politicized, based on class. Boredom becomes a luxury for some and a time consuming activity for others.

There is a brief mention of the content that is shown on these televisions in waiting spaces. McCarthy observes that this content tends to be reruns that have been seen multiple times as well as content made explicitly for that space, such as the movie trivia in Planet Hollywood. What intrigued me about this mention of content is the intent behind the curation of it, mainly who is curating this content and what is their aim?

My concern with this idea is how this content is curated and who decides how to select content (ex: are reruns cheaper?). Does the tendency to choose content that is more likely to be defined as daytime television suggest that the disruptable flow of waiting rooms is similar to that of the housewife we have already read about? I’m tempted to consider the motivation behind curated content suggests certain power structures of society. For instance, considering my own experience in waiting rooms, there always seems to be a lack of control over the content. I am subjected to watch what is chosen for me and through the way it has been chosen to be represented to me physically in this space. Oftentimes the volume is even kept to a minimum if heard at all, sometimes with captions and sometimes without. What is the purpose then of television while you wait if you aren’t able to completely immerse yourself in the content as distraction from your boredom?