Investigating Ideology: Technology in TV Detective Series and Everyday Life

[eng] Fictional cultural artifacts offer greater insights into everyday life than factual accounts because they serve as a window into our collective subconscious. When interacting with fictional universes, audiences assume that, save for those details that are explicitly differentiated, conditions in these made-up realms resemble conditions in the real world. Identifying the assumptions required to make sense of a cultural artifact helps to understand assumptions the audience brings to everyday life. Television relies on mass audiences and conveys messaging in a variety of semiotic modes. Structuralist linguistics focuses on language as a vehicle for ideology. Semiotics uses similar methods to analyze narratives, examining texts in hopes of discovering context. Context represents the assumptions that a reader/viewer brings to the text. In combination, original broadcasts of the television shows Columbo and CSI over a period that coincided with the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. I watched and coded 67 episodes (each) of both Columbo and CSI — using Greimasian actantial modeling and my own analytical model to code technology’s narrative role in each episode. Based on the analysis conducted on episodes of Columbo starting in 1970 and running through CSI episodes that ended in 2015, technology’s narrative role changed in the following sequence and was portrayed: 1. As a threat and impediment to human engagement with truth. 2. As a muted, neutral actor background actor in society 3. As a tool that is useful when embedded in human reason 4. As the embodiment of, and synonymous with, science and thus knowledge 5. As possessing quasi-magical powers fomenting direct communion with truth This signifies a society moving from skepticism about technology, toward reifying and eventually deifying technological devices. Technology is recognized as synonymous with science, before becoming a force for moral, intellectual and practical guidance. Many once prayed first thing in the morning, and then again at night before bed. Now the first and last thing many people do each day is look at their mobile phone. [spa] Los artefactos culturales ficticios ofrecen una mayor comprensión de la vida cotidiana que los relatos fácticos porque sirven como una ventana a nuestro subconsciente colectivo. Al interactuar con universos ficticios, el público supone que, salvo por los detalles que se diferencian explícitamente, las condiciones en estos reinos inventad