By: David Bianculli
For: The New York Daily News, July 12, 1996
For: The Boston Globe, July 12, 1996

TV Looks at itself in 2 new projects:

Two lengthy and ambitious TV productions have crossed my desk recently, each of which attempts to take a serious look at television itself. One is a new PBS series, which I expected to be entertaining, the other is a media literacy guide for schools, which I expected to be boring.

Wrong on both counts.

"Signal to Noise: Life With Television," the new three-part PBS series that premiers Friday night at 10 on WNET, Ch.13, has the same basic structure as "Scanning Television", a new four-set video distributed in the U.S. by the Center for Media Literacy in Los Angeles.

Both productions examine TV by serving up lots of self-contained, quick-hit pieces crafted by many different producers.

Using that same basic recipe, "Scanning Television" inspires while "Signal to Noise" infuriates.

"Signal to Noise", like the PBS "Television" documentary series of a few years ago, is maddeningly simplistic and condescending in its approach.

Not every segment is awful, however, Michael Cho's "Tonight's Top Story" piece, in next week's show, follows Los Angeles TV news reporter Deborah Snell as she gathers information on a crime story, and presents not only the report as it was broadcast , but also what was left on the cutting-room floor.

But, one of Friday's "Signal to Noise" pieces, Sherry Millner's feature on and visits with Roseanne, exemplifies the utter inanity that makes "Signal to Noise" so disappointing. That story, so puffy and fluffy, belongs on E! not public TV.

Another "Signal to Noise" piece points, quite correctly, at parents and teachers as key soldiers in the fight for media literacy and better TV usage. One excellent way for parents and especially teachers to do that is to contact the Center for Media Literacy (1-800-226-9494) and cough up the $220 for the full "Scanning Television" instructional package.

That video set, conceived by Canadian media literacy experts John Pungente and Gary Marcuse, provides 40 short pieces that can serve as springboard discussions about TV - how it sells, what images it projects, and how to use it. There's not a dud in the bunch, and many of the pieces are delightfully artistic and thought-provoking.

The very first videos in the piece, "Super Models Super Envy" dissects an aggressively sexy British TV ad, and hits the street for viewer reaction. Another piece shows how and why a Canadian TV ad for Mazda was altered because of objections from viewers who were cat lovers.

The manipulation of TV ads is just one of the media issues laid bare by "Scanning Television", but all are presented in a fashion that is more analytical than critical. And there's one cartoon short, the hilariously ultra-violent "Watching TV" that by itself is worth the purchase price for schools and should have kids buzzing in the hallways afterward.

And thinking about TV more seriously, too, which is the whole point.