Kategoria BISAC: Performing Arts >> Television - History & Criticism

Using our favourite Springfield family as a case study, Watching with The Simpsons examines the textual and social role of parody in offering critical commentary on other television programs and genres.

Jonathan Gray brings together textual theory, discussions of television and the public sphere, and ideas of parody and comedy. Including primary audience research, it focuses on how The Simpsons has been able to talk back to three of television s key genres - the sitcom, adverts and the news - and on how it holds the potential to short-circuit these genre s...

Using our favourite Springfield family as a case study, Watching with The Simpsons examines the textual and social role of parody in offering critical commentary on other television programs and genres.

Jonathan Gray brings together textual theory, discussions of television and the public sphere, and ideas of parody and comedy. Including primary audience research, it focuses on how The Simpsons has been able to talk back to three of television s key genres - the sitcom, adverts and the news - and on how it holds the potential to short-circuit these genre s...

Television Studies: The Key Concepts is the definitive reference guide to an area of rapidly expanding academic interest. Among those aspects of television studies covered in this comprehensive and up-to-date guide are:

• theoretical perspectives which have shaped the study of television - Marxism; semiology; feminism
• concepts which have shaped the study of television - narrative; representation; bias
• television genres - soap opera; news; science fiction
• methods used for understanding television - content analysis; audience research
• relevant social,...

Examining the role of dramatized narratives in Russian television, this book stresses the ways in which the Russian government under Putin use primetime television to express a new understanding of what it means to be Russian, answering key questions of national identity for modern Russians in dealing with their recent history: 'What really happened to us?' and, accordingly, 'Why?'

The book covers important issues in Russian television today, including:

• the reworking of new 'national' on-screen heroes
• its relationship with classic literature
• the...

Richard Nixon hammed it up on Laugh-In, Bill Clinton hung out on MTV, and talk shows are now regular stops on the campaign trail. Television doesn't just affect politics - it is politics. In The Sound Bite Society, Jeffrey Scheuer argues that the rise of television is responsible for the decline of the American left. Political argument was simplified to quick, telegraphic sound bites as it shifted to television, and the more simplistic it became, the more the rules of engagement favoured the right wing. Television's visual and rhetoric conventions are biased towards simplicity, Scheuer...

Genre and Television proposes a new understanding of television genres as cultural categories, offering a set of in-depth historical and critical examinations to explore five key aspects of television genre: history, industry, audience, text, and genre mixing. Drawing on well-known television programs from Dragnet to The Simpsons, this book provides a new model of genre historiography and illustrates how genres are at work within nearly every facet of television-from policy decisions to production techniques to audience practices. Ultimately, the book...

Genre and Television proposes a new understanding of television genres as cultural categories, offering a set of in-depth historical and critical examinations to explore five key aspects of television genre: history, industry, audience, text, and genre mixing. Drawing on well-known television programs from Dragnet to The Simpsons, this book provides a new model of genre historiography and illustrates how genres are at work within nearly every facet of television-from policy decisions to production techniques to audience practices. Ultimately, the book...

This book offers a history of Japanese television audiences and the popular media culture that television helped to spawn. In a comparatively short period, the television industry helped to reconstruct not only postwar Japanese popular culture, but also the Japanese social and political landscape. During the early years of television, Japanese of all backgrounds, from politicians to mothers, debated the effects on society. The public discourse surrounding the growth of television revealed its role in forming the identity of postwar Japanese during the era of high-speed growth (1955 - 1973)...

Launched in 1980, cable network Black Entertainment Television (BET) has helped make blackness visible and profitable at levels never seen prior in the TV industry. In 2000, BET was sold by founder Robert L. Johnson, a former cable lobbyist, to media giant Viacom for 2.33 billion dollars.

This book explores the legacy of BET: what the network has provided to the larger US television economy, and, more specifically, to its target African-American demographic. The book examines whether the company has fulfilled its stated goals and implied obligation to African-American communities....

Launched in 1980, cable network Black Entertainment Television (BET) has helped make blackness visible and profitable at levels never seen prior in the TV industry. In 2000, BET was sold by founder Robert L. Johnson, a former cable lobbyist, to media giant Viacom for 2.33 billion dollars.

This book explores the legacy of BET: what the network has provided to the larger US television economy, and, more specifically, to its target African-American demographic. The book examines whether the company has fulfilled its stated goals and implied obligation to African-American communities....

True Stories of Law & Order reveals the fascinating and shocking facts behind 25 of the hit show's most popular episodes - from the incredible account of how a woman's repressed memory leads to the solving of a 30-year-old cold case to the high-profile investigation of tranvestite millionaire Robert Durst. And just like in Law & Order, the actual crime is just the beginning, as you follow these cases from the initial stages of the investigation through the trial and up to the often controversial verdicts.

Part of the reason millions of fans tune in to Law & Order is the...

It is called, with deceptive simplicity, The Village. It is the world of tomorrow, or today. A man known only as Number 6 enters its storybook-like confines. He will learn, over and over again, that inside it there is no freedom, and from it there is no escape. He is without defenses, except for one invisible weapon: his uncrushable spirit.

The depiction of computers on the various "Star Trek" series has ranged from lame to breathtakingly imaginative. This book covers the gamut, and makes lucid and entertaining comparison of these fictional computers with those that now exist or are likely to inhabit our future. Throughout its history, "Star Trek" has been an accurate reflection of contemporary ideas about computers and their role in our lives. Affectionately but without illusions, The Computers of Star Trek shows how those ideas compare with what we now know we can and will do with computers.

An in-depth and personal look at the most popular and best-remembered local shows from the golden years of Detroit TV
Long before cable, prepackaged syndication, infomercials, do-it-yourselfers, and reality shows cluttered the television dial, there was a brand of entertainment that has today nearly vanished from the airwaves: local TV. And with its colorful and quirky cast of characters, Detroit TV arguably offered some of the best of the best of local programming anywhere in the nation-a smorgasbord of exuberant, one-of-a-kind television shows.
Based on actual interviews with the...

In this incisive defense of a much-maligned genre, Nochimson demonstrates how soap opera validates an essentially feminine perspective, and responds to complex issues of women's desire and power.

Even though soap opera commands a vast and loyal audience, it has been trivialized by the mainstream media and even libeled as a form of pornography designed to keep women in their place. In this incisive defense of a much-maligned genre, Martha Nochimson demonstrates how soap opera validates an essentially feminine perspective and responds to complex issues of women's desires and power by...

Spanning eight decades from the beginnings of commercial radio to the current era of international consolidation and emerging digital platforms, this pioneering volume illuminates the entire course of American broadcasting by offering the first comprehensive history of a major network. Bringing together wide-ranging original articles by leading scholars and industry insiders, it offers a comprehensive view of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) that brings into focus the development of this key American institution and the ways that it has intersected with, and influenced, the central...

This is the first book to examine an outstanding decade of British television drama. The 1980s witnessed a series of changes and innovation in television, in which a fourth channel was established, studio production gave way largely to location filming, and programs reflected key political events. In this fascinating collection of twelve essays, the innovative programs of the period are analyzed and placed within their social and political contexts. The writers analyze programs as diverse as "Yes, Prime Minister," "The Jewel in the Crown," and "Inspector Morse" as well as politically...

How does television influence people? "Cultivation" research examines the relationship between how much television people watch and what they believe: avid viewers' beliefs are very different from those of occasional viewers. James Shanahan and Michael Morgan, leading scholars in this field, explore the differences in viewers' beliefs on issues such as violence, sex roles and political attitudes. Their compelling account, the first book-length study of this important and controversial area, will be of interest to students and scholars in communication, sociology, political science and...

Television news and the Cold War grew simultaneously in the years following World War II, and their history is deeply intertwined. In order to guarantee sufficient resolve in the American public for a long term arms buildup, defense and security officials turned to the television networks. In need of access to official film and newsmakers to build themselves into serious news organizations, and anxious to prove their loyalty in the age of blacklisting, the network news divisions acted as unofficial state propagandists. This book analyzes the shocking extent of their collaboration.