Television Books
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A Companion to Television
Book SynopsisThe latest edition of the acclaimed volume on television studies, featuring new original essays from leading scholars in the field Although the digital age has radically altered the media and communications landscape worldwide, television continues to play a significant part of our lives. From its earliest beginnings through to the present day, television and its influence has been the subject of extensive study, critique, and analysis. A Companion to Television brings together contributions from prominent international scholars comprising a wide range of perspectives on the medium. Original essays define television in its current state, explore why it is still relevant, survey the ways in which television has been studied, discuss how television has changed, and consider what television might look like in the future. Now in its second edition, this compendium includes fresh chapters that cover technological changes affecting television, contemporary apprTable of ContentsNotes on Contributors ix List of Tables and Figures xvii Part I Introduction 1 Introduction 3 Janet Wasko and Eileen R. Meehan Part II Theoretical Overview 15 1 Critical Perspectives on Television from the Frankfurt School to the Politics of Representation 17 Doug Kellner Part III History 39 2 Our TV Heritage: Tracing the Logics of the Television Archive 41 Lynn Spigel 3 Locating the Televisual in Golden Age Television 63 Caren J. Deming and Deborah V. Tudor 4 The Past is Now Present Onscreen: Television, History, and Collective Memory 79 Gary R. Edgerton Part IV Industry 105 5 Broadcasting in the Age of Netflix: When the Market is Master 107 Sylvia Harvey 6 The Audiovisual Industry and the Structural Factors of the Television Crisis 129 Giuseppe Richeri 7 Netflix, Inc. and Online Television 145 Jane Shattuc 8 Television Advertising: Texts, Political Economy, and Ideology 165 Matthew P. McAllister and Lars Stoltzfus‐Brown 9 Contested Connections: Public Broadcasting and Culture in Common 183 Graham Murdock Part V Genres 199 10 Reality TV: Performances and Audiences 201 Annette Hill 11 Revisiting the Trade in Television News 221 Andrew Calabrese and Christopher C. Barnes 12 Twitter Watchers: The Care and Feeding of Cable News Flow in the Age of Trump 247 Deborah L. Jaramillo 13 Television and Sports 265 Michael R. Real and William M. Kunz Part VI Programs 285 14 30 Rock and the Satirical Representation of the Television Industry 287 Lauren Bratslavsky 15 Nothing New Under the Sun: The Reimplementation of 80s Sitcom Tropes in NBC’s This is Us 307 Novotny Lawrence Part VII Audiences 325 16 Children and Television: A Special Audience for a Special Medium 327 Dafna Lemish 17 Watching Television: A Political Economic Approach 345 Eileen R. Meehan 18 The Female Television Audience Updated: Women’s Television Culture in the Age of New Media 361 Andrea Press and Sarah R. Johnson 19 Television as a Moving Aesthetic: In Search of the Ultimate Aesthetic – The Self 379 Julianne H. Newton Part VIII International Case Studies 403 20 Television in Latin America: Stages of Transition 405 John Sinclair 21 Drama, Audiences, and Authenticity: Television Programming and Audiences in Post‐Apartheid South Africa 423 Ruth Teer‐Tomaselli 22 Television in the Arab Region: History, Structure, and Transformations 439 Joe F. Khalil 23 Sixty Years of Chinese Television: History, Political Economy, and Ideology in a Conflicted Global Order 459 Yuezhi Zhao and Zhenzhi Guo Index 477
£143.06
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A Companion to Reality Television
Book SynopsisInternational in scope and more comprehensive than existing collections, A Companion to Reality Television presents a complete guide to the study of reality, factual and nonfiction television entertainment, encompassing a wide range of formats and incorporating cutting-edge work in critical, social and political theory.Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors ix Introduction 1Laurie Ouellette Part One Producing Reality: Industry, Labor, and Marketing 9 1 Mapping Commercialization in Reality Television 11June Deery 2 Reality Television and the Political Economy of Amateurism 29Andrew Ross 3 When Everyone Has Their Own Reality Show 40Mark Andrejevic 4 Cast-aways: The Plights and Pleasures of Reality Casting and Production Studies 57Vicki Mayer 5 Program Format Franchising in the Age of Reality Television 74Albert Moran Part Two Television Realities: History, Genre, and Realism 95 6 Realism and Reality Formats 97Jonathan Bignell 7 Reality TV Experiences: Audiences, Fact, and Fiction 116Annette Hill 8 From Participatory Video to Reality Television 134Daniel Marcus 9 Manufacturing “Massness”: Aesthetic Form and Industry Practice in the Reality Television Contest 155Hollis Griffin 10 God, Capitalism, and the Family Dog 171Eileen R. Meehan Part Three Dilemmas of Visibility: Identity and Difference 189 11 The Bachelorette’s Postfeminist Therapy: Transforming Women for Love 191Rachel E. Dubrofsky 12 Fractured Feminism: Articulations of Feminism, Sex, and Class by Reality TV Viewers 208Andrea L. Press 13 “It’s Been a While Since I’ve Seen, Like, Straight People”: Queer Visibility in the Age of Postnetwork Reality Television 227Joshua Gamson 14 The Wild Bunch: Men, Labor, and Reality Television 247Gareth Palmer 15 The Conundrum of Race and Reality Television 264Catherine R. Squires 16 Tan TV: Reality Television’s Postracial Delusion 283Hunter Hargraves Part Four Empowerment or Exploitation? Ordinary People and Reality Television 307 17 Reality Television and the Demotic Turn 309Graeme Turner 18 DI(t)Y, Reality-Style: The Cultural Work of Ordinary Celebrity 324Laura Grindstaff 19 Reality Television’s Construction of Ordinary People: Class-Based and Nonelitist Articulations of Ordinary People and Their Discursive Affordances 345Nico Carpentier Part Five Subjects of Reality: Making/Selling Selves and Lifestyles 367 20 Mapping the Makeover Maze: The Contours and Contradictions of Makeover Television 369Brenda Weber 21 House Hunters, Real Estate Television and Everyday Cosmopolitanism 386Mimi White 22 Life Coaches, Style Mavens, and Design Gurus: Everyday Experts on Reality Television 402Tania Lewis 23 Reality Television Celebrity: Star Consumption and Self-Production in Media Culture 421Julie A. Wilson 24 Producing “Reality”: Branded Content, Branded Selves, Precarious Futures 437Alison Hearn Part Six Affective Registers: Reality, Sentimentality, and Feeling 457 25 A Matter of Feeling: Mediated Affect in Reality Television 459Misha Kavka 26 “Walking in Another’s Shoes”: Sentimentality and Philanthropy on Reality Television 478Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi Part Seven The Politics of Reality: Global Culture, National Identity, and Public Life 499 27 Reality Television, Public Service, and Public Life: A Critical Theory Perspective 501Peter Lunt 28 Reality Talent Shows in China: Transnational Format, Affective Engagement, and the Chinese Dream 516Ling Yang 29 Reality Television from Big Brother to the Arab Uprisings: Neoliberal, Liberal, and Geopolitical Considerations 541Marwan M. Kraidy Index 557
£45.55
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A History of Broadcasting in the United States
Book SynopsisThis powerful history of broadcasting in the United States goes beyond traditional accounts to explore the field''s important social, political, and cultural ramifications. It examines how broadcasting has been organized as a business throughout much of the 20th century, and focuses on the aesthetics of programming over the years Surveys four key broadcasting periods from 1921 to 1996, drawing on a range of new sources to examine recent changes in the field, including coverage of the recent impact of cable TV and home video Includes new data from collections at the Library of Congress and the Library of American Broadcasting Ideal for anyone seeking a readable history of the field, offering the most current coverage available Trade Review"The book is wonderfully punctuated with rare photographs from the Library of American Broadcasting. The organization easily guides the reader through the narrative. A lot of reference source material comes from the periodicals and publications of the time. In addition to the rich collection at the Maryland Library of American Broadcasting collection, Gomery ventured into other national archives." (Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, September 2010) “The book remains distinctive on several levels. It is a somewhat provocative survey that in 357 pages effectively renders broadcasting’s first sixty years.” (Journalism History, Spring 2009) "Douglas Gomery is a master of the historical archive. This is a thoroughly researched, eminently readable book, written in a very accessible and entertaining style that holds the attention of readers, while also providing new information and documentation for scholars. A must read for media historians and media history courses." ( Richard Butsch, author of The Making of American Audiences) “Gomery [is] a leading historian … .Here’s a history worth reading. Producers, undergraduates in media studies, and fans of media history should be avid readers." ( Television Quarterly)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vi Preface: Why a History of Broadcasting in the USA? ix Acknowledgments xvii Introduction: Broadcasting’s Beginning: The Big Bang 1 Part I: The Network Radio Era, 1921–1950 1 1. Industrial Innovation and Diffusion: The Radio Networks 13 2. Radio’s Social, Cultural, and Political Impact: The First Mass Medium 38 3. The Development of a New Aesthetic: Sounds 71 Part II: Transition, 1945–1957 105 4. TV Replaces Radio in the Living Room 107 5. Radio Reinvents Itself: Top 40 and Beyond 142 Part III: Network Television Dominates, 1958–1982 165 6. CBS, NBC, and ABC Covering the USA 167 7. Network TV’s Social, Cultural, and Political Impact 197 8. The Genre Machine: From Maverick to M*A*S*H 231 Part IV: Contemporary History, 1982–1996 279 9. Radio: The FM Era 281 10. Television: Remote Control Paradise 299 Epilogue: Still a Broadcasting Nation: 1996 and into the Future 338 Appendix: Sorry, Wrong Number 346 Index 353
£89.25
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A History of Broadcasting in the United States
Book SynopsisThis powerful history of broadcasting in the United States goes beyond traditional accounts to explore the field''s important social, political, and cultural ramifications. It examines how broadcasting has been organized as a business throughout much of the 20th century, and focuses on the aesthetics of programming over the years Surveys four key broadcasting periods from 1921 to 1996, drawing on a range of new sources to examine recent changes in the field, including coverage of the recent impact of cable TV and home video Includes new data from collections at the Library of Congress and the Library of American Broadcasting Ideal for anyone seeking a readable history of the field, offering the most current coverage available Trade Review"The book is wonderfully punctuated with rare photographs from the Library of American Broadcasting. The organization easily guides the reader through the narrative. A lot of reference source material comes from the periodicals and publications of the time. In addition to the rich collection at the Maryland Library of American Broadcasting collection, Gomery ventured into other national archives." (Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, September 2010) "Douglas Gomery is a master of the historical archive. This is a thoroughly researched, eminently readable book, written in a very accessible and entertaining style that holds the attention of readers, while also providing new information and documentation for scholars. A must read for media historians and media history courses." Richard Butsch, author of The Making of American Audiences “At once more expansive and finely detailed than almost any other book out there on the subject, this work will appeal to both experts in the field and those new to this history. A "must have" for media historians." Susan Murray, New York University “Gomery [is] a leading historian … .Here’s a history worth reading. Producers, undergraduates in media studies, and fans of media history should be avid readers." Television QuarterlyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vi Preface: Why a History of Broadcasting in the USA? ix Acknowledgments xvii Introduction: Broadcasting’s Beginning: The Big Bang 1 Part I: The Network Radio Era, 1921–1950 1 1. Industrial Innovation and Diffusion: The Radio Networks 13 2. Radio’s Social, Cultural, and Political Impact: The First Mass Medium 38 3. The Development of a New Aesthetic: Sounds 71 Part II: Transition, 1945–1957 105 4. TV Replaces Radio in the Living Room 107 5. Radio Reinvents Itself: Top 40 and Beyond 142 Part III: Network Television Dominates, 1958–1982 165 6. CBS, NBC, and ABC Covering the USA 167 7. Network TV’s Social, Cultural, and Political Impact 197 8. The Genre Machine: From Maverick to M*A*S*H 231 Part IV: Contemporary History, 1982–1996 279 9. Radio: The FM Era 281 10. Television: Remote Control Paradise 299 Epilogue: Still a Broadcasting Nation: 1996 and into the Future 338 Appendix: Sorry, Wrong Number 346 Index 353
£37.00
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Better Living through Reality TV
Book SynopsisCombining cutting-edge theories of culture and government with programming examplesincluding Todd TV, Survivor, and American IdolBetter Living through Reality TV moves beyond the established concerns of political economy and cultural studies to conceptualize television''s evolving role in the contemporary period. A major textbook on the impact of reality and lifestyle television on today's programming, and on broader social, cultural and political trends Draws on a range of examples from The Apprentice and American Idol to Extreme Makeover and Wife Swap Argues that reality television teaches viewers to monitor, motivate, improve, transform and protect themselves in the name of freedom, enterprise, and personal responsibility Trade Review“This book does not simply pay lip service to the claim that reality television is a democratic and populist force.” (Communication Booknotes Quarterly, Jan.-Mar. 2009) “Better Living presents Foucault’s concept of govermentality in an accessible way as the authors combine this theoretical concept with rich textual examples from various reality TV shows. In fact, one of the strengths of Better Living is the detailed examples that Ouellette and Hay provide to support their arguments.” (Journal of the Communication Inquiry)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations. Introduction. 1. Charity TV: Privatizing Care, Mobilizing Compassion. 2. TV Interventions: Personal Responsibility and Techniques of the Self. 3 Makeover TV: Labors of Reinvention. 4. TV and the Self-Defensive Citizen. 5. TV's Constitutions of Citizenship. 6. Playing TV's Democracy Game. Notes. Index.
£80.70
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Better Living through Reality TV
Book SynopsisCombining cutting-edge theories of culture and government with programming examplesincluding Todd TV, Survivor, and American IdolBetter Living through Reality TV moves beyond the established concerns of political economy and cultural studies to conceptualize television''s evolving role in the contemporary period. A major textbook on the impact of reality and lifestyle television on today's programming, and on broader social, cultural and political trends Draws on a range of examples from The Apprentice and American Idol to Extreme Makeover and Wife Swap Argues that reality television teaches viewers to monitor, motivate, improve, transform and protect themselves in the name of freedom, enterprise, and personal responsibility Trade Review"Better Living through Reality TV achieves what cultural theory does at its best: a fascinating, insightful, and clear-eyed look at contemporary society as seen through the lens of pop culture." --Mark Andrejevic "With this book, reality TV finally 'gets real'." --Nick CouldryTable of ContentsList of Illustrations. Introduction. 1. Charity TV: Privatizing Care, Mobilizing Compassion. 2. TV Interventions: Personal Responsibility and Techniques of the Self. 3 Makeover TV: Labors of Reinvention. 4. TV and the Self-Defensive Citizen. 5. TV's Constitutions of Citizenship. 6. Playing TV's Democracy Game. Notes. Index.
£31.30
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Beyond the Box
Book SynopsisBeyond the Box gives students and couch potatoes alike a better understanding of what it means to watch television in an era of profound technological change. Charts the revolution in television viewing that is currently underway in living rooms across the world Probes how the Internet's development has altered how television is made and consumed Looks at a range of topics and programmes - from voting practices on American Idol to online forums for Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans Offers a fresh and innovative perspective that focuses on the shift in audience experience and how it has blurred established boundaries Trade Review"Ross's stance is academic, but she also considers the stance of fans, producers, creators and marketers. Together, these voices combine to create a new understanding of the connectedness of all parties in the process of telling stories, both authorised and unauthorised." (Science Fiction Film and Television, July 2010) "Couch potato television students worldwide will gain immensely from Beyond the Box: Television and the Internet, an articulate examination of what it means to watch television in this era of profound technological change … .This book is an exciting example of what happens when an academic, spurred on by a passion, throws caution to the wind and mixes things up." (M/C Reviews: Culture & Media, January 2009)Table of ContentsIntroduction: Online/Offline~What It Means to “Watch (and Make) TV” in the Age of the Internet. 1. Fascinated with Fandom: the Interactively Aware Viewers of Xena and Buffy. 2. Power to the People, or the Industry?: American Idol Voting, “Adult Swim” Bumping, and Viral Video-ing. 3. Managing Millenials: Teen Expectations of Tele-Participation. 4. No Network Is An Island: Lost’s Tele-participation and ABC’s Return to Industry Legitimacy. 5. Conclusion: The Remains Of The Day: The Future Of “TV”
£72.86
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A European Television History
Book SynopsisEuropean Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of television in Europe since its inception. The volume interrogates the history of the medium in divergent political, economic, cultural and ideological national contexts Taking a comparative approach to the topic, the volume is organized around a set of common questions, themes, and methodological reflections Deals with European television in the context of television historiography and transnational traditions Case study chapters written by scholars from different European countries to reflect their specific areas of expertise Trade Review"The approaches of this book...should become part of the preparation of anyone teaching about television." (Communication Research Trends, 2009) "A European Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of television in Europe since its inception. The volume interrogates the history of the medium in divergent political, economic, cultural and ideological national contexts." (Viewfinder, March 2009)Table of ContentsList of Contributors vii Acknowledgements ix 1 Introduction: Comparative European Perspectives on Television History 1Jonathan Bignell and Andreas Fickers 2 Early TV: Imagining and Realising Television 55Knut Hickethier 3 Institutionalising European Television: The Shaping of European Television Institutions and Infrastructures 79Christina Adamou, with Isabelle Gaillard and Dana Mustata 4 Searching for an Identity for Television: Programmes, Genres, Formats 101Jérôme Bourdon, with Juan Carlos Ibáñez, Catherine Johnson and Eggo Müller 5 TV Nations or Global Medium? European Television Between National Institution and Window on the World 127Sonja de Leeuw, with Alexander Dhoest, Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano, François Heinderyckx, Anu Koivunen and Jamie Medhurst 6 American Television: Point of Reference or European Nightmare? 154Ib Bondebjerg, with Tomasz Goban-Klas, Michele Hilmes, Dana Mustata, Helle Strandgaard-Jensen, Isabelle Veyrat-Masson and Susanne Vollberg 7 European Television Events and Euro-visions: Tensions between the Ordinary and the Extraordinary 184Rob Turnock, with Alexander Hecht, Dana Mustata, Mari Pajala and Alison Preston 8 European Television Audiences: Localising the Viewers 215Mats Björkin, with Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano 9 Conclusion: Reflections on Doing European Television History 229Andreas Fickers and Jonathan Bignell 10 European Television Archives and the Search for Audiovisual Sources 257Andy O’Dwyer Index 264
£89.25
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A European Television History
Book SynopsisEuropean Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of television in Europe since its inception. The volume interrogates the history of the medium in divergent political, economic, cultural and ideological national contexts Taking a comparative approach to the topic, the volume is organized around a set of common questions, themes, and methodological reflections Deals with European television in the context of television historiography and transnational traditions Case study chapters written by scholars from different European countries to reflect their specific areas of expertise Trade Review"The approaches of this book...should become part of the preparation of anyone teaching about television." (Communication Research Trends, 2009) "With this collection, Bignell and Fickers bring together an outstanding team of scholars to draw together the best of existing and new scholarship in the field. This collection should inform all future studies of television, media history and, given the centrality of media to the formation of contemporary Europe, the study of European history as a whole." Sean Cubitt, Director of the Program in media and Communications, University of MelbourneTable of ContentsList of Contributors vii Acknowledgements ix 1 Introduction: Comparative European Perspectives on Television History 1Jonathan Bignell and Andreas Fickers 2 Early TV: Imagining and Realising Television 55Knut Hickethier 3 Institutionalising European Television: The Shaping of European Television Institutions and Infrastructures 79Christina Adamou, with Isabelle Gaillard and Dana Mustata 4 Searching for an Identity for Television: Programmes, Genres, Formats 101Jérôme Bourdon, with Juan Carlos Ibáñez, Catherine Johnson and Eggo Müller 5 TV Nations or Global Medium? European Television Between National Institution and Window on the World 127Sonja de Leeuw, with Alexander Dhoest, Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano, François Heinderyckx, Anu Koivunen and Jamie Medhurst 6 American Television: Point of Reference or European Nightmare? 154Ib Bondebjerg, with Tomasz Goban-Klas, Michele Hilmes, Dana Mustata, Helle Strandgaard-Jensen, Isabelle Veyrat-Masson and Susanne Vollberg 7 European Television Events and Euro-visions: Tensions between the Ordinary and the Extraordinary 184Rob Turnock, with Alexander Hecht, Dana Mustata, Mari Pajala and Alison Preston 8 European Television Audiences: Localising the Viewers 215Mats Björkin, with Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano 9 Conclusion: Reflections on Doing European Television History 229Andreas Fickers and Jonathan Bignell 10 European Television Archives and the Search for Audiovisual Sources 257Andy O’Dwyer Index 264
£37.95
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Television Truths
Book SynopsisTelevision Truths considers what we know about TV, whether we love it or hate it, where TV is going, and whether viewers should bother going along for the ride.Trade Review“John Hartley’s Television Truths is a complex and engaging work, inspired by an ambitious project of knowledge — a distinctive characteristic of this original and farsighted scholar.” (International Journal of Communication, April 2009) “Grand in scope, bold, witty, and engaging, Television Truths fashions a provocative new philosophy for the study and appreciation of both TV and a TV polity.” ( Jonathan Gray, author of Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality, co-editor of Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World) “As always, John Hartley’s provocative arguments and examples push against the boundaries and restrictions of conventional approaches. His focus on the multiple contexts of television adds greatly to our store of key questions about ‘television.’” ( Horace Newcomb, Director, George Foster Peabody Awards, The University of Georgia)Table of ContentsList of Figures. List of Tables. Acknowledgments. 1. Television Truths (Argumentation of TV). Part I: Is TV True? (Epistemology of TV):. 2. The Value Chain of Meaning. 3. Public Address Systems: Time, Space, and Frequency. 4. Television and Globalization. Part II: Is TV a Polity? (Ethics/Politics of TV):. 5. Television, Nation, and Indigenous Media. 6. A Television Republic?. 7. Reality and the Plebiscite. Part III: Is TV Beautiful? (Aesthetics of TV):. 8. From a “Wandering Booby” to a Field of Cows: The Television Live Event. 9. Shakespeare, Big Brother, and the Taming of the Self. 10. Sync or Swim? Plebiscitary Sport and Synchronized Voting. Part IV: What Can TV Be? (Metaphysics of TV):. 11. “Laughs and Legends” or the Furniture that Glows? Television as History. 12. Television in Knowledge Paradigms. References. Index
£80.70
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Defining Visions
Book SynopsisDefining Visions is a powerful narrative social history that examines television's rise as the great certifying agent in American life. This newly updated and fully revised edition extends its coverage to the end of the 20th century. It defines the Television Age as a discrete period in American history bracketed by monumental eventsthe triumph of the Allied victory of WWII and the devastation of 9/11. A powerful narrative social history that examines television's rise as the great ''certifying agent'' in American life Extends its coverage to the end of the twentieth century, and defines the ''Television Age'' as a discrete period in American history that is bracketed by the end of WWII and 9/11 Includes discussions of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton impeachment; the massacre at Columbine High School; the 2000 presidential election; and the tragic events of September 11, 2001 Considers the cultural impact of recent prime-time programsTrade Review“In this engaging, old-fashioned look at television, Watson argues that television defined for Americans the social issues of race, gender, violence, sex, work, consumption, behavior, and values in the decades following WW II. The book delights with its engaging style, sometimes savoring of Variety. Include[es] new illustrations, bringing each chapter up to the present, and significantly expanding the epilogue. Highly recommended.” Choice “Once again one of our most eminent broadcast historians has produced a work that is both good history and good reading, and a brilliant and analytic integration of sources – many of them mined from heretofore unavailable material. This elegant history of television is a study of the box that changed history and its changing status in the era of the web with implications for democracy and society writ large.” Everette E. Dennis, Fordham Graduate School of Business, New York “A really good book about the history of American television would, by necessity, also be a book about all of the most important social and cultural themes of the last half of the twentieth century. Defining Visions is that really good book.” Robert Thompson, Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University Praise for the first edition of Defining Visions: “Cogent and discerning assessment ... .A comprehensively revised second edition … . As one of our most astute media observers, Watson makes an estimable case.” Television Quarterly "[Defining Visions] is a beautifully-written, textured analysis of American television. Watson has produced good history and good analytic integration of sources and original observations..." Everette Dennis, Felix E. Larkin Distinguished Professor of Communications and Media Management, Fordham University "Watson's Defining Visions ably introduces the reader to television culture in an informative, often entertaining manner. ....Watson might well join the ranks of authors Neil Postman and Erik Barnouw...attracting those within and outside the academy. As it stands, Defining Visions will most likely find a receptive readership among undergraduates." Robin R. Means, Journal of Popular Film & Television “Especially versatile for teaching the influence of television on race, class and gender and presents a rich background for examining violence, advertising, character and democracy.” The Docket "This refreshing approach--devoid of cultural studies--has an important strength: in revealing television as a powerful part of American life, not just an idle preference, it presents youthful readers with a view that contrasts with much they have heard about television. The book delights with its engaging style." -R.W. Morrow, Morgan State University Table of Contents1: Television Enters the Picture. 2: Television and the Melting Pot: Race and Ethnicity. 3: Home on screen: Gender and Family. 4: The Killing Tube: Violence and Crime. 5: TV Goes all the Way: Romance and Sexuality. 6: The Boxed-In Workplace: Jobs and Professions. 7: Tuning Out Restraint: Indulgence and Advertising. 8: Taking the Cue: Television and the American Personality. 9: Deep Focus: Television and the American Character. 10: The Webbed Republic: Democracy in the Television Age. Epilogue. Select Bibliography. Index
£32.25
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Defining Visions
Book SynopsisDefining Visions is a powerful narrative social history that examines television's rise as the great certifying agent in American life. This newly updated and fully revised edition extends its coverage to the end of the 20th century. It defines the Television Age as a discrete period in American history bracketed by monumental eventsthe triumph of the Allied victory of WWII and the devastation of 9/11. A powerful narrative social history that examines television's rise as the great ''certifying agent'' in American life Extends its coverage to the end of the twentieth century, and defines the ''Television Age'' as a discrete period in American history that is bracketed by the end of WWII and 9/11 Includes discussions of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton impeachment; the massacre at Columbine High School; the 2000 presidential election; and the tragic events of September 11, 2001 Considers the cultural impact of recent prime-time programsTrade Review“In this engaging, old-fashioned look at television, Watson argues that television defined for Americans the social issues of race, gender, violence, sex, work, consumption, behavior, and values in the decades following WW II. The book delights with its engaging style, sometimes savoring of Variety. Include[es] new illustrations, bringing each chapter up to the present, and significantly expanding the epilogue. Highly recommended.” Choice “Once again one of our most eminent broadcast historians has produced a work that is both good history and good reading, and a brilliant and analytic integration of sources – many of them mined from heretofore unavailable material. This elegant history of television is a study of the box that changed history and its changing status in the era of the web with implications for democracy and society writ large.” Everette E. Dennis, Fordham Graduate School of Business, New York “A really good book about the history of American television would, by necessity, also be a book about all of the most important social and cultural themes of the last half of the twentieth century. Defining Visions is that really good book.” Robert Thompson, Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University Praise for the first edition of Defining Visions: “Cogent and discerning assessment ... .A comprehensively revised second edition … . As one of our most astute media observers, Watson makes an estimable case.” Television Quarterly "[Defining Visions] is a beautifully-written, textured analysis of American television. Watson has produced good history and good analytic integration of sources and original observations..." Everette Dennis, Felix E. Larkin Distinguished Professor of Communications and Media Management, Fordham University "Watson's Defining Visions ably introduces the reader to television culture in an informative, often entertaining manner. ....Watson might well join the ranks of authors Neil Postman and Erik Barnouw...attracting those within and outside the academy. As it stands, Defining Visions will most likely find a receptive readership among undergraduates." Robin R. Means, Journal of Popular Film & Television “Especially versatile for teaching the influence of television on race, class and gender and presents a rich background for examining violence, advertising, character and democracy.” The Docket "This refreshing approach--devoid of cultural studies--has an important strength: in revealing television as a powerful part of American life, not just an idle preference, it presents youthful readers with a view that contrasts with much they have heard about television. The book delights with its engaging style." -R.W. Morrow, Morgan State University Table of Contents1: Television Enters the Picture. 2: Television and the Melting Pot: Race and Ethnicity. 3: Home on screen: Gender and Family. 4: The Killing Tube: Violence and Crime. 5: TV Goes all the Way: Romance and Sexuality. 6: The Boxed-In Workplace: Jobs and Professions. 7: Tuning Out Restraint: Indulgence and Advertising. 8: Taking the Cue: Television and the American Personality. 9: Deep Focus: Television and the American Character. 10: The Webbed Republic: Democracy in the Television Age. Epilogue. Select Bibliography. Index
£89.25
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Office and Philosophy
Book SynopsisJust when you thought paper couldn't be more exciting, this book comes your way! This bookjammed full of paperunites philosophy with one of the best shows ever: The Office. Addressing both the current American incarnation and the original British version, The Office and Philosophy brings these two wonders of civilization together for a frolic through the mundane yet curiously edifying worlds of Scranton's Dunder-Mifflin and Slough's Wernham-Hogg. Is Michael Scott in denial about death? Are Pam and Jim ever going to figure things out? Is David Brent an essentialist? Surprisingly, The Office can teach us about the mind, Aristotle, and humiliation. Even more surprisingly, paper companies can allow us to better understand business ethics. Don't believe it? Open this book, and behold its beautiful paper Join the philosophical fray as we explore the abstract world of philosophy through concrete scenes of the unexamineTrade Review"An entertaining look at the ethical and philosophical lessons of 'The Office'." (Venue, November 2008)Table of ContentsIntroduction. A note to our Suppliers in the US and the UK: Support Philosophy - it uses lots of paper…. A Note to Bitter Brits and Confused Americans…. The Dundies: Some Awards for Making this Book Possible. Memo 1: Paper Thin Morality. 1. Screws and Nails: Paper Tigers and Moral Monsters in The Office (US): J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Hartwick College). 2. Flirting in The Office: What Can Jim and Pam’s Romantic Antics Teach Us about Moral Philosophy? (US): Mark D. White (College of Staten Island). 3. Can Michael Ever Learn?: Empathy and the Self-Other Gap (US): Andrew Terjesen (Rhodes College). 4. Leaving the Dice Alone: Pointlessness and Helplessness at Wernham-Hogg (UK): Wim Vandekerckhove (Ghent University) and Eva Tsahuridu (University of Greenwich Business School). 5. The Virtues of Humor: What The Office Can Teach Us About Aristotle’s Ethics (UK): Sean McAleer (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire). Memo 2: Know Thyself!. 6. Pam and Jim on the Make: The Epistemology of Self-Deception (US): Stefanie Rocknak (Hartwick College). 7. What Dwight Doesn’t Know Can’t Hurt Him—Or Can It?. Deception and Self-Deception in The Office (US): Randall M. Jensen (Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa). 8. Authenticity or Happiness? Michael Scott and the Ethics of Self-Deception (US): Peter Murphy (University of Indianapolis) and Jonathan Evans (University of Indianapolis). 9. Humiliation in The Office (and at Home) (US): John Elia (Wilson College). Memo 3: Funny and not-so-funny Business. 10. Laughter between Distraction and Awakening: Marxist Themes in The Office (US): Michael Bray (at Southwestern University). 11. Being-in-The Office: Sartre, the Look, and the Viewer (US): Matthew Meyer (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) and Greg Schneider (University of Minnesota). 12. A Boy that Swims Faster than a Shark: Jean Baudrillard Visits The Office (UK): Russell Manning (Yarra Valley Grammar, Melbourne). Memo 4: Mind Your Business!. 13. Stakeholders vs. Stockholders in the American Office (US): Rory E. Kraft, Jr. (York College of Pennsylvania). 14. Attacking with the North: Affirmative Action and The Office (US): David Kyle Johnson (King’s College in Wilkes-Barre). 15. Darkies, Dwarves, and Benders: Political (In)Correctness in The Office (UK): Thomas Nys (Utrecht University). 16. The Hostile Office: Michael as a Sexual Harasser (US): Keith Dromm (Northwestern State University). 17. The Obscene Watermark: Corporate Responsibility at Dunder-Mifflin (US): David Kyle Johnson (King’s College in Wilkes-Barre). Memo 5: Philosophy at the water-cooler…. 18. For L’Amour: Love and Friendship in The Office (US): Robert Arp (University at Buffalo) and Jamie Watson (Florida State University). 19. Look at the Ears! The Problem of Natural Kinds (UK): Thomas Nys (Utrecht University). 20. Gareth Keenan Investigates Paraconsistent Logic: The Case of the Missing Tim and the Redundancy Paradox (UK): Morgan Luck (Charles Sturt University). 21. Being Your Self in The Office (US): Rick Mayock (West Los Angeles College). 22. Michael Scott is Going to Die (US): Meg Lonergan (Hartwick College) and J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Hartwick College). Appendix A, From Our Office to Yours: The University of Scranton and The Office. Appendix B, Question: What do you need to know about Dwight K. Schrute?. Corporate Filing System (Index). Employees (Notes on Contributors)
£17.05
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Miami Vice
Book SynopsisMiami Vice captures the glitter and glamour embodied by Crockett and Tubbs by offering an anatomy of a ground-breaking work in the police procedural genre. The volume explores Vice's combination of disparate influences (MTV, film noir, soap opera, action films) as well as the social and cultural moments when it burst onto the network.Trade Review"All in all, the careful, detailed analysis of the various contexts of network television turns this study into a useful handbook especially for film students who can use it as blueprint for analysing other series." (European Journal of American Studies, 2011) "[Lyons] displays, in addition to still other virtues, an attentiveness to visual texture and theme as refined as that in the best film criticism. This book offers the richest account of a single television program I've ever read, describing a defining show of the Reagan years...Lyons's treatment of the series' conflicted ideology is equally illuminating." (Cinema Journal, 1 June 2011) Table of ContentsAcknowledgments. Introduction. 1. I Want My MTV Cops: Miami Vice as Television Commodity. 2. Guns, Glitter, and Glamour: Styling the Show. 3. Losing the Plot?: Storytelling in Miami Vice. 4. Risky Business: the Cultural Politics of Vice. Afterword. Broadcast Date Notes. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
£18.00
University of Toronto Press Europe UnImagined
Book SynopsisEurope Un-Imagined examines one of the world’s first and only trans nationally produced television channels, Association relative à la télévision européenne (ARTE). ARTE calls itself the European culture channel and was launched in 1991 with a French-German intergovernmental mandate to produce television and other media that promoted pan-European community and culture. Damien Stankiewicz’s ground-breaking ethnographic study of the various contexts of media production work at ARTE (the newsroom, the editing studio, the screening room), reveals how ideas about French, German, and European culture coalesce and circulate at the channel. He argues that the reproduction of nationalism often goes unacknowledged and unremarked upon, and questions whether something like a European imagination can be produced. Stankiewicz describes the challenges that ARTE staff face, including rapidly changing media technologies and audiences, unreflective national stereotyping,Trade Review"Stankiewicz’s work is provocative, and it should be taught in all courses in media studies and on the anthropology of the media because it will provide fodder for lively discussions about the role of television in crafting shared cultural and national identities." -- Kristen Ghodsee * H-Net Reviews, June 2018 *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Bienvenue a ARTE / Wilkommen bei ARTE Chapter 2: Producing trans/national media Chapter 3: Trans/national belonging Chapter 4: Re-presenting history on and at ARTE Chapter 5: culture, "culture," Culture Chapter 6: Trans/national audiences Conclusions and Provocations
£26.99
University of Toronto Press Europe UnImagined
Book SynopsisEurope Un-Imagined examines one of the world’s first and only trans nationally produced television channels, Association relative à la télévision européenne (ARTE). ARTE calls itself the European culture channel and was launched in 1991 with a French-German intergovernmental mandate to produce television and other media that promoted pan-European community and culture. Damien Stankiewicz’s ground-breaking ethnographic study of the various contexts of media production work at ARTE (the newsroom, the editing studio, the screening room), reveals how ideas about French, German, and European culture coalesce and circulate at the channel. He argues that the reproduction of nationalism often goes unacknowledged and unremarked upon, and questions whether something like a European imagination can be produced. Stankiewicz describes the challenges that ARTE staff face, including rapidly changing media technologies and audiences, unreflective national stereotyping,Trade Review"Stankiewicz’s work is provocative, and it should be taught in all courses in media studies and on the anthropology of the media because it will provide fodder for lively discussions about the role of television in crafting shared cultural and national identities." -- Kristen Ghodsee * H-Net Reviews, June 2018 *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Bienvenue a ARTE / Wilkommen bei ARTE Chapter 2: Producing trans/national media Chapter 3: Trans/national belonging Chapter 4: Re-presenting history on and at ARTE Chapter 5: culture, "culture," Culture Chapter 6: Trans/national audiences Conclusions and Provocations
£60.35
University of Texas Press Directed by God
Book SynopsisThe first study of its kind, Directed by God analyzes several representations of Jewish religiosity in Israeli film and television that challenge secular Zionism in contemporary Israeli society.Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1. Jewish and Human: Images of Orthodox Jews Chapter 2. Jewish and Israeli: Images of Mizrahi Jews Chapter 3. Jewish and Fanatic: Images of Religious Zionists Chapter 4. Jewish and Popular: Images of Religion on TV Afterword Notes Bibliography Filmography Index
£59.50
University of Texas Press Directed by God
Book SynopsisThe first study of its kind, Directed by God analyzes several representations of Jewish religiosity in Israeli film and television that challenge secular Zionism in contemporary Israeli society.Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgments A Note on Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1. Jewish and Human: Images of Orthodox Jews Chapter 2. Jewish and Israeli: Images of Mizrahi Jews Chapter 3. Jewish and Fanatic: Images of Religious Zionists Chapter 4. Jewish and Popular: Images of Religion on TV Afterword Notes Bibliography Filmography Index
£20.89
University of Texas Press Connecting The Wire
Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive, season-by-season analysis of the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire, this book explicates the complex narrative arc of the entire series and its sweeping vision of institutional failure in the postindustrial United States.Trade Review[A] smart, engaging book-length examination . . . . Stanley Corkin, in his deep analysis, approaches David Simon’s masterful series from a media studies perspective without losing any of the sociological focus. * Film International *Despite The Wire’s run on HBO ending in 2008, many of the themes and topics examined are still relevant today. . . Connecting the Wire provides a comprehensive resource for utilizing the HBO series as a device for further geographic, sociological, and media studies research and discussions. Whether a loyal viewer of the series while it aired, or someone only vaguely familiar with the show (which can easily still be binged watched today), Corkin’s treatment of the television show provides depth, insight and context for what the back cover touts as “critically acclaimed as one of the best television shows ever produced." * Popular Culture Studies Journal *A careful analysis of the popular HBO television series The Wire...Connecting the Wire is an important read for…scholars of race, poverty and urban inequality. Corkin works to analyze The Wire in the context of some of the important discussions about deindustrialization and urban decline. Connecting the Wire is also an important tool or those who teach in this area. * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction One. Season 1: Drugs, Race, and the Structures of Social Immobility Two. Season 2: The Wire, the Waterfront, and the Ravages of Neoliberalism Three. Season 3: Drugs, Space, and Redevelopment Four. Season 4: A Neoliberal Education: Space, Knowledge, and Schooling Five. Season 5: The Demise of the Public Sphere—News, Lies, and Policing Conclusion: The Wire and the New Dawn (Maybe) Notes Bibliography Index
£20.89
University of Texas Press Not Your Average Zombie
Book SynopsisAnalyzing humanized zombies in popular culture across nearly a century, this innovative book discloses how the extra-ordinary undead mediate our fears of losing agency in the world of the living.Trade ReviewKee provides a compelling synthesis of theory and criticism...useful for horror scholars interested in how portrayals of zombie intersect with race and gender. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *[An] ambitious study...Not Your Average Zombie is an insightful, clearly written, and well-researched book that both students and experts in the field of zombie studies will enjoy. * Alphaville *Kee's Not Your Average Zombie is an important book…Put simply: if it's the one book you read about or cite on zombie, you've made an excellent choice. * American Quarterly *[Not Your Average Zombie] offers a fresh theoretical framework to a fast-growing field…a fascinating contribution to the critical conversation about the zombie as a fantastic figure. * Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts *Rather than conclude that the zombie genre is static, [Kee] highlights extraordinary examples of the zombies, zombification, and zombie culture that hint at human agency amongst those often deemed brainless pawns or dehumanized bodies...In each chapter, Kee spends several pages establishing context before she focuses on her examples of extraordinary zombies. What results is robust coverage of every possible example. * ImageTexT *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. From the Zombi to the Zombie: The Extra-Ordinary Undead Part I. Zombie Identities Chapter 1. From Cannibals to Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields: Haiti, Vodou, and Early Zombie Films Chapter 2. Racialized and Raceless: Race after Death and Zombie Revolution Chapter 3. "You Can't Hurt Me, You Can't Destroy Me, You Can't Control Me": White Women in Zombie Films Chapter 4. A Proud and Powerful Line: Women of Color and Voodoo Part II. Playing the Zombie Chapter 5. "Be Safe, Have Fun, Eat Brains": Playing the Zombie in Video Games Chapter 6. I Walked with a Zombie: Performing the Living Dead Conclusion. "I Think I'm Dead." Notes Bibliography Index
£63.00
University of Texas Press Not Your Average Zombie
Book SynopsisAnalyzing humanized zombies in popular culture across nearly a century, this innovative book discloses how the “extra-ordinary” undead mediate our fears of losing agency in the world of the living.Trade ReviewKee provides a compelling synthesis of theory and criticism...useful for horror scholars interested in how portrayals of zombie intersect with race and gender. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *[An] ambitious study...Not Your Average Zombie is an insightful, clearly written, and well-researched book that both students and experts in the field of zombie studies will enjoy. * Alphaville *Kee's Not Your Average Zombie is an important book…Put simply: if it's the one book you read about or cite on zombie, you've made an excellent choice. * American Quarterly *[Not Your Average Zombie] offers a fresh theoretical framework to a fast-growing field…a fascinating contribution to the critical conversation about the zombie as a fantastic figure. * Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts *Rather than conclude that the zombie genre is static, [Kee] highlights extraordinary examples of the zombies, zombification, and zombie culture that hint at human agency amongst those often deemed brainless pawns or dehumanized bodies...In each chapter, Kee spends several pages establishing context before she focuses on her examples of extraordinary zombies. What results is robust coverage of every possible example. * ImageTexT *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. From the Zombi to the Zombie: The Extra-Ordinary Undead Part I. Zombie Identities Chapter 1. From Cannibals to Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields: Haiti, Vodou, and Early Zombie Films Chapter 2. Racialized and Raceless: Race after Death and Zombie Revolution Chapter 3. "You Can't Hurt Me, You Can't Destroy Me, You Can't Control Me": White Women in Zombie Films Chapter 4. A Proud and Powerful Line: Women of Color and Voodoo Part II. Playing the Zombie Chapter 5. "Be Safe, Have Fun, Eat Brains": Playing the Zombie in Video Games Chapter 6. I Walked with a Zombie: Performing the Living Dead Conclusion. "I Think I'm Dead." Notes Bibliography Index
£19.79
University of Texas Press Creating the Viewer
Book SynopsisA study of the largely hidden world of primary media market research and the different methods used to understand how the viewer is pictured in the industry. The first book on the intersection between market research and media, Creating the Viewer takes a critical look at media companies’ studies of television viewers, the assumptions behind these studies, and the images of the viewer that are constructed through them. Justin Wyatt examines various types of market research, including talent testing, pilot testing, series maintenance, brand studies, and new show “ideation,” providing examples from a range of programming including news, sitcoms, reality shows, and dramas. He looks at brand studies for networks such as E!, and examines how the brands of individuals such as showrunner Ryan Murphy can be tested. Both an analytical and practical work, the book includes sample questionnaires and paths for study moderators and research analysts to foll
£73.95
University of Texas Press The Television Code
Book SynopsisRevisiting early debates about TV content and censorship from industry and government perspectives, this book recounts the development of the Television Code, the TV counterpart to the Hays Motion Picture Production Code.Trade Review[A] valuable resource for media scholars and graduate students. * Choice *Jaramillo has authored a work with applications across many disciplines, especially history, media law, and even political science. Her search for primary sources in both the development of the code and the short life of the [Television Broadcasters Association] is a valuable insight into the origins of U.S. television. * Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media *[The Television Code] is a strong intellectual contribution to debates about what television is and who it serves which will no doubt become a staple in reading lists of television history and regulation...The Television Code is an engaging, well-written, and thought-provoking study on the key role played by regulation in the early negotiations about television’s identity. * Critical Studies in Television *An essential account of a transitional period in television’s rise, The Television Code establishes the [National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters'] role in crafting the industry’s master narratives and would interest scholars and students of US broadcast history, media policy, and censorship... Jaramillo’s careful attention to the voices of the various players involved in the Code further enriches the complicated history of commercial broadcasting and provides a model for rigorous archival research. * Television & New Media *[The Television Code] is a well-researched, articulate, and sound book that would contribute toward thinking of popular culture studies in ways that intersect with overlooked subfields such as media policy, and, perhaps, political sociology. This book effectively maps out the road to the Television Code, along with the detours and back roads that led to its ultimate implementation. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *Table of Contents Illustrations Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction: The Television Code and the Trade Association 1. Regulatory Precedents before Television: The Government and the NAB Experiment with Radio 2. Distinguishing Television from Radio via the Trade Association: The Rise and Fall of the Television Broadcasters Association 3. The Industry Talks about a Television Code: Discourses of Decency, Self-Regulation, and Medium Specificity 4. The Television Audience Speaks Out: Viewer Complaints and the Demand for Government Intervention 5. The Federal Communications Commission: Impotent Bureaucrats, Underhanded Censors, or Exasperated Intermediaries? 6. Senator William Benton Challenges the Commercial Television Paradigm Conclusion: After the Code Appendix A. The Television Code: Section on “Acceptability of Program Material” Appendix B. The Television Code: Section on “Decency and Decorum in Production” Notes Bibliography Index
£22.79
University of Texas Press Television Rewired
Book SynopsisFrom Twin Peaks (including the 2017 return) to Girls, a veteran critic and scholar draws on decades of industry expertise and exclusive interviews with renowned creators to examine the rise of art television.Trade ReviewNochimson's book is well worth reading not only for its insights but for the dialogue and reflection it opens up among readers. * Lost in the Movies *Television Rewired is an essential contribution to the still-crystallizing critical definition of auteur television…from the unique perspective of a critic who has engaged with the medium in profound ways. * 25 Years Later *This book details the creative process of each of the series [that developed the concept of the television auteur], based on interviews and detailed research by the author…Recommended. * CHOICE *A lively and fascinating book...Throughout Nochimson is thoroughly consumed by the question of what constitutes television art, and what plausibly counts as a defense of its achievements; her prose is utterly compelling in its gentle unfolding of such complex and challenging questions. * New Review of Film and Television Studies *[Nochimson provides] solid, but accessible, insights into the process of auteur television expression....After reading Television Rewired, I learned a new vocabulary for television viewing. The book is not a judgment of what is good or bad. Nochimson expanded my appreciation for television by explaining exactly what it is I am watching. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *Table of Contents Introduction: The David Effect The Founding Titans: Men without Formula Chapter 1. David Lynch, Twin Peaks Chapter 2. David Chase, The Sopranos Chapter 3. David Simon, The Wire The Legacy: New Options, New Questions, Retooled Formulas Chapter 4. David Simon and Eric Overmyer, Treme Chapter 5. Matt Weiner, Mad Men Chapter 6. Lena Dunham, Girls Chapter 7. Backlash! Formula 2.0 Coda: The Return of David Lynch Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£25.19
University of Texas Press Tragedy Plus Time
Book SynopsisAs the saying goes, Comedy equals tragedy plus time, but in the face of tragedies on a national scale, comedy becomes the medium through which audiences untangle accepted understandings of what it means to be American.Trade ReviewFocusing on comedy programs from the 1990s and early 2000s, including Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons, and In Living Color, the author adeptly explains how these programs not only offer a means of escape for viewers processing national trauma, but also create new narratives that bleed out into national dialogue, with perhaps unintentional but wide-reaching consequences reverberating in the United States today...A must for media and communication studies departments, this work will also appeal to many comedy fans, traumatologists, and the generally curious. * Library Journal *Tragedy plus Time feels prescient. Reading the book, I got the sense that I was immersed in a discourse that society will be examining for the foreseeable future in trying to understand the relationship between comedy and trauma...Tragedy plus Time advances a noteworthy collection of ideas about how collective trauma is (often unexpectedly) processed through humor...While aimed toward comedy scholars broadly, this book is particularly valuable to those curious about comedy’s intersection with history and politics. * Studies in American Humor *[An] insightful and innovative book...Scepanski is fairly thorough in his writing on both the general topic as well as its neatly-ordered subtopics. * Houston Press *[A] truly excellent new book...Tragedy Plus Time is sophisticated, compelling, timely and well-written. It has a wide appeal for readers of all generations and backgrounds—just like television itself. * Northeast Popular & American Culture Association *Scepanski effectively demonstrates throughout his book that the perceived status of television comedy as lowbrow entertainment, its ever-narrowing target audience, and its propensity to offend combine to place the TV comedy genre in an opportune position to address sensitive topics...Perhaps more than ever, this sort of historical and contextual perspective on television comedy is urgently needed for the complex mapping of the current American media culture and its ramifications. If comedy is an often quickly overlooked or dismissed genre, Scepanski proves that it should not be, given its significance in shaping Americans’ sense of national identity and history. * Film Quarterly *Tragedy Plus Time takes a serious look at how comedy and satire in American media make light of dark matters...thorough and engaging...Scepanki’s study is useful to understand the ways that comedy constructs a view of the past, thereby influencing perceptions of historical events. Those lessons do not disappear but become integrated into worldviews going forward, shaping how national trauma plays a role in both national and individual identity. * PopMatters *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Broadcast Nationalism, National Trauma, and Television Comedy Chapter 1: The Kennedy Assassination and the Growth of Sick Humor on American Television Chapter 2: Censored Comedies and Comedies of Censorship Chapter 3: Emotional Nonconformity in Comedy Chapter 4: Conspiracy Theories and Comedy Chapter 5: African American Comedies and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots Chapter 6: Television Comedy and Islamophobia after 9/11 Chapter 7: Comedy and Trump as Trauma in Narrowcast America Conclusion Afterword Notes Bibliography Index
£35.10
University of Texas Press Only the Names Have Been Changed
Book SynopsisIn the postwar era, the police procedural series Dragnet informed Americans on the workings of the criminal justice system and instructed them in their responsibilities as citizens.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Dragnet and the Police Procedural Chapter 1. “Our Neo-realism”: The Hollywood Semi-documentary Cycle Chapter 2. Silence, Not Sirens: Dragnet’s Aural Realism Chapter 3. Saturation and Citizenship: Dragnet on Television and in Culture Chapter 4. Professionalization and Public Relations: Dragnet and the LAPD Epilogue: “One of Us” Notes Bibliography Index
£35.10
University of Texas Press Creating the Viewer
Book SynopsisA study of the largely hidden world of primary media market research and the different methods used to understand how the viewer is pictured in the industry.
£25.19
Duke University Press Technicolored
Book SynopsisFrom early sitcoms such as I Love Lucy to contemporary prime-time dramas like Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder, African Americans on television have too often been asked to portray tired stereotypes of blacks as villains, vixens, victims, and disposable minorities. In Technicolored black feminist critic Ann duCille combines cultural critique with personal reflections on growing up with the new medium of TV to examine how televisual representations of African Americans have changed over the last sixty years. Whether explaining how watching Shirley Temple led her to question her own self-worth or how televisual representation functions as a form of racial profiling, duCille traces the real-life social and political repercussions of the portrayal and presence of African Americans on television. Neither a conventional memoir nor a traditional media study, Technicolored offers one lifelong television watcher''s careful, personal, and timely anaTrade Review"Ann duCille offers an eloquent analysis of the relationship between representations of people of color and their absence in television from the 1950s to the present. She skillfully blends her comprehensive, historically grounded research with personal memories and her present connection to television. . . . Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty." -- K. Sorensen * Choice *"In her book Technicolored, Ann duCille deftly blends memoir and television criticism to create an important critical intervention into the study of race and media." -- Jacqueline Johnson * Film Quarterly *"Technicolored is a beautifully written and deeply engaging text that makes media criticism available in multiple registers. Media critics, Black Studies scholars, those interested in literary experiments that bridge memoir and theory, and all students of culture will learn considerably from duCille’s achievement." -- Michael Litwack * The Black Scholar *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Black and White and Technicolored: Channeling the TV Life 1 1. What's in a Game? Quiz Shows and the "Prism of Race" 22 2. "Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear": Stigmatic Blackness and the Rise of Technicolored TV 52 3. The Shirley Temple of My Familiar: Take Two 83 4. Interracial Loving: Sexless in the Suburbs of the 1960s 112 5. "A Credit to My Race": Acting Black and Black Acting from Julia to Scandal 134 6. A Clear and Present Absence: Perry Mason and the Case of the Missing "Minorities" 159 7. "Soaploitation": Getting Away with Murder in Primetime 183 8. The Punch and Judge Judy Shows: Really Real TV and the Dangers of a Day in Court 209 9. The Autumn of His Discontent: Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, and the Politics of Palatability 232 10. The "Thug Default": Why Racial Representation Still Matters 261 Epilogue. Final Spin: "That's Not My Food" 285 Notes 289 Bibliography 311 Index 325
£112.20
Duke University Press Technicolored
Book SynopsisFrom early sitcoms such as I Love Lucy to contemporary prime-time dramas like Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder, African Americans on television have too often been asked to portray tired stereotypes of blacks as villains, vixens, victims, and disposable minorities. In Technicolored black feminist critic Ann duCille combines cultural critique with personal reflections on growing up with the new medium of TV to examine how televisual representations of African Americans have changed over the last sixty years. Whether explaining how watching Shirley Temple led her to question her own self-worth or how televisual representation functions as a form of racial profiling, duCille traces the real-life social and political repercussions of the portrayal and presence of African Americans on television. Neither a conventional memoir nor a traditional media study, Technicolored offers one lifelong television watcher's careful, personal, and timely analysis of how television continues to shape notions of race in the American imagination.Trade Review"Ann duCille offers an eloquent analysis of the relationship between representations of people of color and their absence in television from the 1950s to the present. She skillfully blends her comprehensive, historically grounded research with personal memories and her present connection to television. . . . Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty." -- K. Sorensen * Choice *"In her book Technicolored, Ann duCille deftly blends memoir and television criticism to create an important critical intervention into the study of race and media." -- Jacqueline Johnson * Film Quarterly *"Technicolored is a beautifully written and deeply engaging text that makes media criticism available in multiple registers. Media critics, Black Studies scholars, those interested in literary experiments that bridge memoir and theory, and all students of culture will learn considerably from duCille’s achievement." -- Michael Litwack * The Black Scholar *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Black and White and Technicolored: Channeling the TV Life 1 1. What's in a Game? Quiz Shows and the "Prism of Race" 22 2. "Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear": Stigmatic Blackness and the Rise of Technicolored TV 52 3. The Shirley Temple of My Familiar: Take Two 83 4. Interracial Loving: Sexless in the Suburbs of the 1960s 112 5. "A Credit to My Race": Acting Black and Black Acting from Julia to Scandal 134 6. A Clear and Present Absence: Perry Mason and the Case of the Missing "Minorities" 159 7. "Soaploitation": Getting Away with Murder in Primetime 183 8. The Punch and Judge Judy Shows: Really Real TV and the Dangers of a Day in Court 209 9. The Autumn of His Discontent: Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, and the Politics of Palatability 232 10. The "Thug Default": Why Racial Representation Still Matters 261 Epilogue. Final Spin: "That's Not My Food" 285 Notes 289 Bibliography 311 Index 325
£27.90
Duke University Press The Apartment Complex
Book SynopsisThe contributors to The Apartment Complex offer global perspectives on films from a diverse set of genres—from film noir and comedy to horror and musicals—that use apartment living to explore modern urbanism's various forms and possibilities.Trade Review"[The Apartment Complex is] a concise, remarkably wide-ranging book on an unusual topic. ... Stark and satisfying. ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers." -- W. W. Dixon * Choice *"The Apartment Complex builds upon the premise of Wojcik’s earlier book that wedded cinema studies to urban studies. . . Its strength lies in how the individual essayists apply Wojcik’s thesis— developed for post–World War II American films— to the more recent output of international films and television." -- Carrie Rickey * Film Quarterly *"Wojcik has produced a book unrestricted by the limits of genre, history, nation, or industry figure, and illuminates important visual and thematic connections between films in global screen culture." -- Anna Maria Sapountzi * Open Screens *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: What Makes the Apartment Complex? / Pamela Robertson Wojcik 1 1. Palaces of Pleasure and Deceit among the Clouds: The Depression-Era Cinematic Penthouse Plot / Merrill Schleier 21 2. From Walter Neff to C.C. Baxter: Billy Wilder's Apartment Plots / Steven Cohan 44 3. Alain Renais, Tsai Ming-liang, and the Apartment Plot Musical / Joe McElhaney 65 4. Movement and Stasis in Fassbinder's Apartment Plot / Michael DeAngelis 84 5. Housework, Sex Work: Feminist Ambivalence at 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles / Annamarie Jagose 105 6. Home's Invasion: Repulsion and the Horror of Apartments / Veronica Fitzpatrick 126 7. Reattachment Theory: Gay Marriage and the Apartment Plot / Lee Wallace 145 8. "We Don't Need to Dream No More. We Got Real Estate": The Wire, Urban Development, and the Racial Boundaries of the American Dream / Paula J. Massood 168 Bibliography 187 Contributors 195 Index 197
£86.70
Duke University Press The Apartment Complex
Book SynopsisThe contributors to The Apartment Complex offer global perspectives on films from a diverse set of genresfrom film noir and comedy to horror and musicalsthat use apartment living to explore modern urbanism's various forms and possibilities.Trade Review"[The Apartment Complex is] a concise, remarkably wide-ranging book on an unusual topic. ... Stark and satisfying. ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers." -- W. W. Dixon * Choice *"The Apartment Complex builds upon the premise of Wojcik’s earlier book that wedded cinema studies to urban studies. . . Its strength lies in how the individual essayists apply Wojcik’s thesis— developed for post–World War II American films— to the more recent output of international films and television." -- Carrie Rickey * Film Quarterly *"Wojcik has produced a book unrestricted by the limits of genre, history, nation, or industry figure, and illuminates important visual and thematic connections between films in global screen culture." -- Anna Maria Sapountzi * Open Screens *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: What Makes the Apartment Complex? / Pamela Robertson Wojcik 1 1. Palaces of Pleasure and Deceit among the Clouds: The Depression-Era Cinematic Penthouse Plot / Merrill Schleier 21 2. From Walter Neff to C.C. Baxter: Billy Wilder's Apartment Plots / Steven Cohan 44 3. Alain Renais, Tsai Ming-liang, and the Apartment Plot Musical / Joe McElhaney 65 4. Movement and Stasis in Fassbinder's Apartment Plot / Michael DeAngelis 84 5. Housework, Sex Work: Feminist Ambivalence at 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles / Annamarie Jagose 105 6. Home's Invasion: Repulsion and the Horror of Apartments / Veronica Fitzpatrick 126 7. Reattachment Theory: Gay Marriage and the Apartment Plot / Lee Wallace 145 8. "We Don't Need to Dream No More. We Got Real Estate": The Wire, Urban Development, and the Racial Boundaries of the American Dream / Paula J. Massood 168 Bibliography 187 Contributors 195 Index 197
£22.79
Duke University Press Camp TV
Book SynopsisQuinlan Miller reframes American television history by tracing a camp aesthetic and the common appearance of trans queer gender characters in both iconic and lesser known sitcoms throughout the 1950s and 1960s.Trade Review"Camp TV offers us theoretical and methodological challenges to presumptions and argumentations common in queer media histories…hence the usefulness here of a new terminology entirely. What the book also offers, however, is an impressive model of full-scale approach to queer media histories." -- Taylor Cole Miller * New Review of Film and Television Studies *"A revelatory historical reassessment of US network sitcom of the 1950s and 1960s.… Miller combines scholarly rigor with the engaged, politicized vivacity of a subversive connoisseur and the banter of a raconteur in order to rewrite dominant histories of the sitcom, camp, and LGBTQIA+ media representation.… A tour de force abounding with compelling and witty textual analyses fueled by painstaking archival research." -- Ken Feil * Journal of Cinema and Media Studies *"A detailed picture of the production and cultural contexts of queer gender appearance in sitcoms, ranging from non-conforming dress and gestures to critiques of heterosexual marriage." -- Katharine Mussellam * Jump Cut *"[Camp TV] is impressive and provides a necessary re-reading of neglected and devalued texts that cast our present studies of contemporary queerness into provocative question. . . . This book will be a valuable contribution to courses in television history, queer studies and, especially, studies of the queer in popular culture, and will be an antidote to institutional narratives that have solidified unproductively around the ‘newness’ of queer TV." -- Judith Fathallah * Critical Studies in Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Trans Gender Queer: New Terms for TV History 1 1. Camp TV and Queer Gender: Sitcom History 27 2. Queer Gender and Bob Cummings: Hollywood Camp TV 55 3. Marriage Schmarriage: Sex and the Single Person 88 4. Trans Camp TV: Methods for Girl History 131 Conclusion. Around-the-Clock Queer Gender: Digital Camp TV 155 Notes 165 Bibliography 197 Index 211
£90.10
Duke University Press Breaking Bad and Cinematic Television
Book SynopsisAngelo Restivo uses the innovative show Breaking Bad as a point of departure for theorizing a new aesthetics of television in which the concept of the cinematic points to the ways in which television can change the ways viewers relate to and interact with the world.Trade Review"Graduate students, scholars, and professionals interested in how television has changed over- time, the filming and creation of Breaking Bad, and the shift in television should find this book to be in their lane." -- Natalie Brown * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *Table of ContentsNote to the Reader ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. The Cinematic 25 2. The House 54 3. The Puzzle 81 4. Just Gaming 116 5. Immanence: A Life 137 Notes 159 Bibliography 171 Index 179
£86.70
Duke University Press Camp TV
Book SynopsisQuinlan Miller reframes American television history by tracing a camp aesthetic and the common appearance of trans queer gender characters in both iconic and lesser known sitcoms throughout the 1950s and 1960s.Trade Review"Camp TV offers us theoretical and methodological challenges to presumptions and argumentations common in queer media histories…hence the usefulness here of a new terminology entirely. What the book also offers, however, is an impressive model of full-scale approach to queer media histories." -- Taylor Cole Miller * New Review of Film and Television Studies *"A revelatory historical reassessment of US network sitcom of the 1950s and 1960s.… Miller combines scholarly rigor with the engaged, politicized vivacity of a subversive connoisseur and the banter of a raconteur in order to rewrite dominant histories of the sitcom, camp, and LGBTQIA+ media representation.… A tour de force abounding with compelling and witty textual analyses fueled by painstaking archival research." -- Ken Feil * Journal of Cinema and Media Studies *"A detailed picture of the production and cultural contexts of queer gender appearance in sitcoms, ranging from non-conforming dress and gestures to critiques of heterosexual marriage." -- Katharine Mussellam * Jump Cut *"[Camp TV] is impressive and provides a necessary re-reading of neglected and devalued texts that cast our present studies of contemporary queerness into provocative question. . . . This book will be a valuable contribution to courses in television history, queer studies and, especially, studies of the queer in popular culture, and will be an antidote to institutional narratives that have solidified unproductively around the ‘newness’ of queer TV." -- Judith Fathallah * Critical Studies in Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Trans Gender Queer: New Terms for TV History 1 1. Camp TV and Queer Gender: Sitcom History 27 2. Queer Gender and Bob Cummings: Hollywood Camp TV 55 3. Marriage Schmarriage: Sex and the Single Person 88 4. Trans Camp TV: Methods for Girl History 131 Conclusion. Around-the-Clock Queer Gender: Digital Camp TV 155 Notes 165 Bibliography 197 Index 211
£22.49
Duke University Press Breaking Bad and Cinematic Television
Book SynopsisAngelo Restivo uses the innovative show Breaking Bad as a point of departure for theorizing a new aesthetics of television in which the concept of the cinematic points to the ways in which television can change the ways viewers relate to and interact with the world.Trade Review"Graduate students, scholars, and professionals interested in how television has changed over- time, the filming and creation of Breaking Bad, and the shift in television should find this book to be in their lane." -- Natalie Brown * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *Table of ContentsNote to the Reader ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. The Cinematic 25 2. The House 54 3. The Puzzle 81 4. Just Gaming 116 5. Immanence: A Life 137 Notes 159 Bibliography 171 Index 179
£22.79
Duke University Press Figures of Time
Book SynopsisMany contemporary television series from Modern Family to How to Get Away with Murder open an episode or season with a conflict and then go back in time to show how that conflict came to be. In Figures of Time Toni Pape examines these narratives, showing how these leaps in time create aesthetic experiences of time that attune their audiences to the political doctrine of preemption—a logic that justifies preemptive action to nullify a perceived future threat. Examining questions of temporality in Life on Mars, the political ramifications of living under the auspices of a catastrophic future in FlashForward, and how Damages disrupts the logic of preemption, Pape shows how television helps shift political culture away from a model of rational deliberation and representation toward a politics of preemption and conformity. Exposing the mechanisms through which television supports a fear-based politics, Pape contends, will allow for the reTrade Review"Graduate students, scholars, and professions interested in media, time, and politics might find this book useful to help better understand the use of time in storytelling and its effects on politics and relatability." -- Morgan Danker * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Preemptive Narratives and Televisual Futures 1 1. The Serial Machine: Toward Figures of Time 38 2. Three Representations and a Figural: Bergsonian Variations on Metric Time, the Virtual, and Creative Becoming 73 3. Loop into Line: The Moral Command of Preemption 109 4. Damages as Procedural Television 142 Afterword. Anarchival Television 176 Acknowledgments 183 Notes 185 Works Cited 203 Index 215
£90.10
Duke University Press Figures of Time
Book SynopsisToni Pape examines contemporary television that often presents a conflict-laden conclusion first before relaying the events that led up to that inevitable ending, showing how this narrative structure attunes audiences to the fear-based political doctrine of preemption—a logic that justifies preemptive action to nullify a perceived future threat.Trade Review"Graduate students, scholars, and professions interested in media, time, and politics might find this book useful to help better understand the use of time in storytelling and its effects on politics and relatability." -- Morgan Danker * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Preemptive Narratives and Televisual Futures 1 1. The Serial Machine: Toward Figures of Time 38 2. Three Representations and a Figural: Bergsonian Variations on Metric Time, the Virtual, and Creative Becoming 73 3. Loop into Line: The Moral Command of Preemption 109 4. Damages as Procedural Television 142 Afterword. Anarchival Television 176 Acknowledgments 183 Notes 185 Works Cited 203 Index 215
£22.49
Duke University Press Her Stories
Book SynopsisFrom The Guiding Light to Passions, Elana Levine traces the history of daytime television soap operas as an innovative and highly gendered mass cultural form.Trade Review“Her Stories is the definitive account of a sphere of televisual expression long overlooked and too often maligned, told clearly and compellingly by an accomplished historian and committed viewer whose research has left few stones unturned. A major contribution to our understanding of American television and its intersection with women's lives, traced across more than seven decades.” -- Michele Hilmes, Professor Emerita of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison“Her Stories offers an important history of American soap operas, from the genre's transition from radio to television in the 1950s and its heyday in the classic network era to its diminished significance in the age of streaming. Elana Levine's rich industrial history smartly mines scripts, trade journals, and production notes, and sponsors' memos. Most significantly, it places these developments into the larger context of women's everyday lives and the changing politics of gender.” -- Lynn Spigel, author of * TV by Design: Modern Art and the Rise of Network Television *"For soap fans, past and present, who wonder why the shows they love have disappeared, or deteriorated beyond recognition, or who think they know what could-have-should-have been done, if only, Elana Levine’s new book, Her Stories, connects the dots with a combination of nuance and rigorous research." -- Lynn Liccardo, Soap Opera Critic and author of * as the world stopped turning... *"Elana Levine has crafted a comprehensive history that is about so much more than daytime dramas. In Levine's research, soap operas are also about cultural impacts, articulations of gender, and the production of media texts as both economic and cultural objects. . . . As soap opera become relics of television past, Her Stories becomes a valuable account of media history." -- Linda Levitt * Popmatters *"A fascinating study of the history of soap opera . . . full of wonderful details. . . . Levine makes clear that despite the widespread dismissal of soap operas, they were far from marginal to the history of television, but rather absolutely central." -- Kelly Faircloth * Jezebel *"Elana Levine is a longtime fan of soap operas, so in Her Stories, she merges personal experience with extensive research to examine how the genre has shaped our understanding of gender and predicted the potential decline of broadcast network television." -- Evette Dionne * Bitch Magazine *“Her Stories makes a compelling and rigorous case that soap opera indeed plays a leading role in shaping U.S. histories of both gender and television.... Levine’s study also, by its very existence, shows that television’s gendered past remains largely unsettled and unacknowledged – a search that is still worth pursuing.” -- Madeline Ullrich * View *“With Her Stories, Levine contributes a valuable refocalization of the history of American television. By using soaps as a through line, Levine provides profound insights into the shifting standards, approaches, and trends that shaped representation and industrial structure over the course of seven decades.” -- Lauren Wilks * New Review of Film and Television Studies *"Elana Levine masterfully examines the micro- and macrolevel issues of the American broadcast television industry through the lens of the daytime soap opera. . . . . Through the intertwining of daytime soap operas with the cultural, industrial, and economic aspects of television, Her Stories makes an airtight argument that the history of one is the history of the other." -- Laura C. Brown * Journal of Popular Culture *“Her Stories is not just a history of soap operas.... Her Stories is a compelling and exhaustive history of American culture told through soap operas.” -- Abby Whitaker * H-Soz-Kult *“Elana Levine’s terrific new book is accessible and authoritative, of interest to anyone concerned with the study of television, and an excellent demonstration of how to handle a complex media studies research project.” -- Christine Geraghty * Feminist Media Studies *“In Her Stories, as in her other work, Levine does not shy away from the high stakes of her history, forging an argument that proponents of prestige television are rarely compelled (or able) to make: that...soap operas index the conflicts and character of American culture from mid-century to the present day.” -- Annie Berke * Los Angeles Review of Books *“[Her Stories] will appeal to media scholars, broadcast and television historians, and women’s, gender and sexuality scholars.... The narrative sparkles with clear evidence from a variety of soaps and a compelling argument about the significance of soap opera to not only women’s history but also to network broadcast television history and American society at large.” -- Serenity Sutherland * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Part I. The New TV Soap: Late 1940s to Early 1960s 1. Serials in Transition: From Radio to Television 19 2. Daytime Therapy: Help and Healing in the Postwar Soap 44 Part II. The Classic Network Era: Mid-1960s to Late 1980s 3. Building Network Power: The Broadcasting Business and the Craft of Soap Opera 73 4. Turning to Relevance: Social Issue Storytelling 106 5. Love in the Afternoon: The Fracturing Fantasies of the Soap Boom 153 Part III. A Post-Network Age: Late 1980s to 2010s 6. Struggles for Survival: Stagnation and Innovation 199 7. Reckoning with the Past: Reimagining Characters and Stories 236 8. Can Her Stories Go On? Soap Opera in a Digital Age 280 Notes 299 Bibliography 357 Index 369
£112.20
Duke University Press Seeing by Electricity
Book SynopsisAlready in the late nineteenth century, electricians, physicists, and telegraph technicians dreamed of inventing televisual communication apparatuses that would see by electricity as a means of extending human perception. In Seeing by Electricity Doron Galili traces the early history of television, from fantastical image transmission devices initially imagined in the 1870s such as the Telectroscope, the Phantoscope, and the Distant Seer to the emergence of broadcast television in the 1930s. Galili examines how televisual technologies were understood in relation to film at different cultural moments-whether as a perfection of cinema, a threat to the Hollywood industry, or an alternative medium for avant-garde experimentation. Highlighting points of overlap and divergence in the histories of television and cinema, Galili demonstrates that the intermedial relationship between the two media did not start with their economic and institutional rivalry of the late 1940s but rather goes back to their very origins. In so doing, he brings film studies and television studies together in ways that advance contemporary debates in media theory.Trade Review“Digging into television's origins and discovering secret lineages and unexpected ancestors, Doron Galili unearths the true reasons that fiercely opposed—and indissolubly linked—television and cinema. A masterful contribution to media archeology.” -- Francesco Casetti, author of * The Lumière Galaxy: Seven Key Words for the Cinema to Come *“Assembling wonderful material and offering nuanced readings of both filmic and theoretical texts, Doron Galili makes important interventions in the ongoing debates over media specificity and television's historiography. He is part of a new generation of scholars who are helping to put television's complicated and often occluded genealogy into conversation with the latest media studies debates. A page-turner, Seeing by Electricity will resonate with a broad spectrum of readers.” -- William Uricchio, Professor of Comparative Media Studies, MIT"Seeing By Electricity ... historicizes a prolonged moment, or a mediascape, when boundaries between media were porous, whereas the otherwise antagonistic relationships between media can be seen as symbiotic. From this perspective, the book challenges a commonly accepted historical narrative, and suggests instead a more flexible and broader contextualization of radio, television, and film as mutually contributing networks." -- Rea Amit * Critical Inquiry *“Galili’s writing is flowing and engaging which makes the book an interesting read not only for scholars of television and media but for anyone who is interested in the field and the development of the technology. In the world where questions about media and media specificity arise again with the introduction of streaming services, looking at the way film, radio and early television interact gives an insight into intermediality. A valuable perspective for our post-cinema and post-television era.” -- Julia Stolyar * Early Popular Visual Culture *“Seeing by Electricity is a major contribution to the rapidly developing field of media archaeology. Galili pays appropriate obeisance to theorists including Siegfried Zielinski and Mary Ann Doane, but he grounds his arguments firmly in deeply researched historical accounts of optical devices and electrical instruments, conceptions of vision, imperial fantasies and utopian imaginaries…. Galili succeeds with aplomb.” -- John Wyver * Critical Studies in Television *“Seeing by Electricity offers its reader a nuanced and digestible consideration of the forces, entities, and contexts that shaped the conception, development, and perception of television in the United States and Europe from the late 1870s until the late 1930s.” -- Laura C. Brown * Media Industries *“Galili’s careful attention to the nineteenth and early twentieth century makes Seeing By Electricity a kind of escape to the past. As such it is an especially good pandemic read, allowing us to travel backwards whiles nevertheless speaking to our present landscape of video calls, online cocktail parties, remote learning, telecommuting, and binge-watching—all accelerated and amplified by social distancing and stay at home orders.” -- Alison Reiko Loader * Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film *"The book is well written and offers interesting glimpses of the early fascination with television..." -- J. M. King * Choice *“From time to time a book in one’s field of research comes along and you pick it up and cannot put it down. This is one such book.... What Galili has achieved is not just a technology-focused account ... but one which engages with cultural, economic, social, and political contexts also.” -- Jamie Medhurst * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *“Seeing by Electricity is a genuinely unique effort that is easy to read yet thought-provoking.... Seeing by Electricity is of tremendous value to those interested in television history, film and art theory, media and communications or cultural history, or the history of technology.” -- Bryant Macfarlane * JHistory, H-Net Reviews *“Seeing by Electricity is a scholarly work of the highest order, combining rigorous historical research and expansive theoretical engagement with key debates across television studies, film studies, and digital media studies to rethink fundamental assumptions about media history and notions of mediality and media change.” -- Ariel Rogers * Technology and Culture *“Galili’s excavation of the history of the medium that became known as television offers a model for how to think through both the recent past and the mercurial present of moving image transmission.... Deeply researched and thoroughly informed by theory, Seeing by Electricity’s discussion of media fantasy and reality ... offers exciting new pathways for thinking about the emergence of a new medium.” -- Christina G. Petersen * Journal of Cinema and Media Studies *"In its methodological and historiographical ambition to revisit some of the definitions of modernity as a guiding concept in media studies, Galili’s publication represents a culmination point of three decades of academic research into the medium’s long history." -- Anne-Katrin Weber * Cultural Critique *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Part I. Archaeologies of Moving Image Transmission 1. Ancient Affiliates: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Cinema and Television 17 2. Severed Eyeballs and Prolonged Optic Nerves: Television as Modern Prosthetic Vision 50 3. Happy Combinations of Electricity and Photography: Moving Image Transmission in the Early Cinema Era 74 Part II. Debating the Specificity of Television, On- and Off-Screen 4. Cinema's Radio Double: Hollywood Comes to Terms with Television 105 5. "We Must Prepare!": Dziga Vertov and the Avant-Garde Reception of Television 145 6. Thinking across Media: Classical Film Theory's Encounter with Television 167 Conclusion 184 Notes 189 Bibliography 221 Index 239
£98.60
Duke University Press Her Stories
Book SynopsisFrom The Guiding Light to Passions, Elana Levine traces the history of daytime television soap operas as an innovative and highly gendered mass cultural form.Trade Review“Her Stories is the definitive account of a sphere of televisual expression long overlooked and too often maligned, told clearly and compellingly by an accomplished historian and committed viewer whose research has left few stones unturned. A major contribution to our understanding of American television and its intersection with women's lives, traced across more than seven decades.” -- Michele Hilmes, Professor Emerita of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison“Her Stories offers an important history of American soap operas, from the genre's transition from radio to television in the 1950s and its heyday in the classic network era to its diminished significance in the age of streaming. Elana Levine's rich industrial history smartly mines scripts, trade journals, and production notes, and sponsors' memos. Most significantly, it places these developments into the larger context of women's everyday lives and the changing politics of gender.” -- Lynn Spigel, author of * TV by Design: Modern Art and the Rise of Network Television *"For soap fans, past and present, who wonder why the shows they love have disappeared, or deteriorated beyond recognition, or who think they know what could-have-should-have been done, if only, Elana Levine’s new book, Her Stories, connects the dots with a combination of nuance and rigorous research." -- Lynn Liccardo, Soap Opera Critic and author of * as the world stopped turning... *"Elana Levine has crafted a comprehensive history that is about so much more than daytime dramas. In Levine's research, soap operas are also about cultural impacts, articulations of gender, and the production of media texts as both economic and cultural objects. . . . As soap opera become relics of television past, Her Stories becomes a valuable account of media history." -- Linda Levitt * Popmatters *"A fascinating study of the history of soap opera . . . full of wonderful details. . . . Levine makes clear that despite the widespread dismissal of soap operas, they were far from marginal to the history of television, but rather absolutely central." -- Kelly Faircloth * Jezebel *"Elana Levine is a longtime fan of soap operas, so in Her Stories, she merges personal experience with extensive research to examine how the genre has shaped our understanding of gender and predicted the potential decline of broadcast network television." -- Evette Dionne * Bitch Magazine *“Her Stories makes a compelling and rigorous case that soap opera indeed plays a leading role in shaping U.S. histories of both gender and television.... Levine’s study also, by its very existence, shows that television’s gendered past remains largely unsettled and unacknowledged – a search that is still worth pursuing.” -- Madeline Ullrich * View *“With Her Stories, Levine contributes a valuable refocalization of the history of American television. By using soaps as a through line, Levine provides profound insights into the shifting standards, approaches, and trends that shaped representation and industrial structure over the course of seven decades.” -- Lauren Wilks * New Review of Film and Television Studies *"Elana Levine masterfully examines the micro- and macrolevel issues of the American broadcast television industry through the lens of the daytime soap opera. . . . . Through the intertwining of daytime soap operas with the cultural, industrial, and economic aspects of television, Her Stories makes an airtight argument that the history of one is the history of the other." -- Laura C. Brown * Journal of Popular Culture *“Her Stories is not just a history of soap operas.... Her Stories is a compelling and exhaustive history of American culture told through soap operas.” -- Abby Whitaker * H-Soz-Kult *“Elana Levine’s terrific new book is accessible and authoritative, of interest to anyone concerned with the study of television, and an excellent demonstration of how to handle a complex media studies research project.” -- Christine Geraghty * Feminist Media Studies *“In Her Stories, as in her other work, Levine does not shy away from the high stakes of her history, forging an argument that proponents of prestige television are rarely compelled (or able) to make: that...soap operas index the conflicts and character of American culture from mid-century to the present day.” -- Annie Berke * Los Angeles Review of Books *“[Her Stories] will appeal to media scholars, broadcast and television historians, and women’s, gender and sexuality scholars.... The narrative sparkles with clear evidence from a variety of soaps and a compelling argument about the significance of soap opera to not only women’s history but also to network broadcast television history and American society at large.” -- Serenity Sutherland * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Part I. The New TV Soap: Late 1940s to Early 1960s 1. Serials in Transition: From Radio to Television 19 2. Daytime Therapy: Help and Healing in the Postwar Soap 44 Part II. The Classic Network Era: Mid-1960s to Late 1980s 3. Building Network Power: The Broadcasting Business and the Craft of Soap Opera 73 4. Turning to Relevance: Social Issue Storytelling 106 5. Love in the Afternoon: The Fracturing Fantasies of the Soap Boom 153 Part III. A Post-Network Age: Late 1980s to 2010s 6. Struggles for Survival: Stagnation and Innovation 199 7. Reckoning with the Past: Reimagining Characters and Stories 236 8. Can Her Stories Go On? Soap Opera in a Digital Age 280 Notes 299 Bibliography 357 Index 369
£27.90
Duke University Press Millennials Killed the Video Star
Book SynopsisDrawing on interviews with industry workers from MTV programs such as The Real World and Teen Mom, Amanda Ann Klein examines the historical, cultural, and industrial factors leading to MTV's shift away from music videos to reality programming in the early 2000s and 2010s.Trade Review“Amanda Ann Klein's extended interviews with both participants and producers of MTV programming as well as her inspired and enjoyable writing make this book an important, compelling, and lively contribution to the study of media and culture.” -- Brenda R. Weber, author of * Latter-day Screens: Gender, Sexuality, and Mediated Mormonism *“Amanda Ann Klein's engaging book analyzes a specific phenomenon: MTV's twenty-first-century reality television programming. But her detailed and thoughtful account reveals so much about the history of a transformative television genre, the evolution of an iconic cable channel, and the construction of identity for an entire generation, making it essential reading to understand contemporary American media and culture.” -- Jason Mittell, author of * Television and American Culture *"My mother used to tell me that Jersey Shore would rot my brain; with Millennials Killed the Video Star, Amanda Ann Klein would seem to agree. In this release, the East Carolina University film professor helps make sense of the noise, walking readers through MTV’s evolution from music videos to scripted reality TV—maximizing stereotypes about race, gender, and class along the way, and shaping how an entire generation would come to understand identity." -- Emma Kenfield * IndyWeek *“[Millennials Killed the Video Star] is a fascinating analysis of media construction and presentation of identities, and how audiences respond to or reject those identities.... Klein’s writing is thoughtful and crisp.... Her writing blends an academic perspective and a fan perspective to produce a thoroughly entertaining analysis.” -- Fiona McQuarrie * PopMatters *"Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- C. A. Nadon * Choice *“Through her insightful and engaging writing, Klein successfully weaves together industry studies, media and cultural analysis, interviews, and an entertaining retelling of her own personal encounter with Jersey Shore’s DJ Pauly D. The author successfully crafts a book that would appeal to multiple audiences across disciplines.” -- Abshi Iftin * Journal of Popular Culture *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction. What Killed the Video Star? 1 1. "It's Videos, Fool": A Targeted History of MTV (1981–2004) 24 2. "This Is the True Story . . .": The Real World and MTV's Turn to Identity (1992–) 57 3. "She's Gonna Always Be Known at the Girl Who Didn't Go to Paris": Can-Do and At-Risk White Girls on MTV (2004–2013) 89 4. "If You Don't Tan, You're Pale": The Regional and Ethnic Other on MTV (2009–2013) 124 5. "That Moment Is Here, Whether I Like It or Not": When MTV's Programming Fails (2013–2014) 153 Conclusion. Catfish and the Future of MTV's Reality Programming (2012–) 173 Appendix A. MTV Reality Series since 1981 189 Appendix B. Other Television Series Discussed in This Book 193 Notes 197 References 213 Index 233
£72.25
Duke University Press Media Crossroads
Book SynopsisThe contributors to Media Crossroads examine space and place in media as they intersect with sexuality, race, ethnicity, age, class, and ability.Trade Review“Media Crossroads offers a remarkable set of essays that demonstrate the new insights that can emerge when we apply a purposeful intersectional lens in media studies. As we move through screen spaces of different types (past, present, public, private) in different media (television, cinema, video games, social media), we feel the exhilaration of this volume's collective experimental project to identify and interrogate spatialized structures of power across the media landscape.” -- Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, author of * Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity *“Media Crossroads invites scholars to rethink space and intersectionality, including and going beyond the confines of cities, lands, and architectures. Its analysis of commercial, mainstream, and avant-garde film and media as well as its focus on intersectionality makes it an innovative and important contribution to film and media studies.” -- Yeidy M. Rivero, author of * Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Commercial Television, 1950–1960 *"The intersectional lens developed in [Media Crossroads] is original, vigorous, and reflective enough to alter the readers' perspectives towards media texts that they have seen before and the ones they will experience in the future. Its lasting influence will make the readers rethink, reconfigure, and reimagine the potential of intersectional space and identities on and offscreen." -- Da Ye Kim * E3W Review of Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Intersections and/in Space / Paula J. Massood, Angel Daniel Matos, and Pamela Robertson Wojcik 1 I. Digital Intersections 1. "Where Do Aliens Pee?": Bathroom Selfies, Trans Activism, and Reimagining Spaces / Nicole Erin Morse 21 2. The Queerness of Space and the Body in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda Series / Angel Daniel Matos 34 3. The Digital Flâneuse: Exploring Intersectional Identities and Spaces through Walking Simulators / Matthew Thomas Payne and John Vanderhoef 50 II. Cinematic Urban Intersections 4. Blurring Boundaries, Exploring Intersections: Form, Genre, and Space in Shirley Clarke's The Connection / Paula J. Massood 67 5. Intersections in Madrid's Periphery: Cinematic Cruising in Eloy de la Iglesia's La semana del asesino (1972) / Jacqueline Sheean 82 6. Encounters and Embeddedness: The Urban Cinema of Ramin Bahrani / Amy Corbin 96 7. Perpetual Motion: Mobility, Precarity, and Slow Death Cinema / Pamela Robertson Wojcik 111 III. Urbanism and Gentrification 8. Senior Citizens under Siege: Number Our Days (1976) and Gray Power Activism in Venice / Joshua Glick 127 9. Music City Makeover: The Televisual Tourism of Nashville / Noelle Griffis 141 10. Portland at the Intersection: Gentrification and the Whitening of the City in Portlandia's Hipster Wonderland / Elizabeth A. Patton 155 11. Criminal Properties: Real Estate and the Upwardly Mobile Gangster / Erica Stein 167 IV. Race, Place, and Space 12. Dressing the Part: Black Maids, White Stars in the Dressing Room / Desirée J. Garcia 183 13. "I Do Not Know That I Find Myself Anywhere": The British Heritage Film and Spaces of Intersectionality in Amma Asante's Belle (2013) / Sara Louise Smyth 195 14. Queerness, Race, and Class in the Midcentury Suburb Film Crime of Passion (1956) / Merrill Schleier 206 15. Fair Play: Race, Space, and Recreation n Black Media Culture / Peter C. Kunze 221 V. Style and/as Intersectionality 16. The Toxic Intertwining of Small Town Lives in Happy Valley / Ina Rae Hark 237 17. Tattooed Light and Embodied Design: Intersectional Surfaces in Moana / Kirsten Moana Thompson 250 18. Vaguely Visible: Intersectional Politics in Bertrand Bonello's Nocturama (2016) / Malini Guha 262 Notes 275 Bibliography 303 Contributors 329 Index 335
£75.65
Duke University Press Media Crossroads
Book SynopsisThe contributors to Media Crossroads examine space and place in media as they intersect with sexuality, race, ethnicity, age, class, and ability.Trade Review“Media Crossroads offers a remarkable set of essays that demonstrate the new insights that can emerge when we apply a purposeful intersectional lens in media studies. As we move through screen spaces of different types (past, present, public, private) in different media (television, cinema, video games, social media), we feel the exhilaration of this volume's collective experimental project to identify and interrogate spatialized structures of power across the media landscape.” -- Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, author of * Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity *“Media Crossroads invites scholars to rethink space and intersectionality, including and going beyond the confines of cities, lands, and architectures. Its analysis of commercial, mainstream, and avant-garde film and media as well as its focus on intersectionality makes it an innovative and important contribution to film and media studies.” -- Yeidy M. Rivero, author of * Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Commercial Television, 1950–1960 *"The intersectional lens developed in [Media Crossroads] is original, vigorous, and reflective enough to alter the readers' perspectives towards media texts that they have seen before and the ones they will experience in the future. Its lasting influence will make the readers rethink, reconfigure, and reimagine the potential of intersectional space and identities on and offscreen." -- Da Ye Kim * E3W Review of Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Intersections and/in Space / Paula J. Massood, Angel Daniel Matos, and Pamela Robertson Wojcik 1 I. Digital Intersections 1. "Where Do Aliens Pee?": Bathroom Selfies, Trans Activism, and Reimagining Spaces / Nicole Erin Morse 21 2. The Queerness of Space and the Body in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda Series / Angel Daniel Matos 34 3. The Digital Flâneuse: Exploring Intersectional Identities and Spaces through Walking Simulators / Matthew Thomas Payne and John Vanderhoef 50 II. Cinematic Urban Intersections 4. Blurring Boundaries, Exploring Intersections: Form, Genre, and Space in Shirley Clarke's The Connection / Paula J. Massood 67 5. Intersections in Madrid's Periphery: Cinematic Cruising in Eloy de la Iglesia's La semana del asesino (1972) / Jacqueline Sheean 82 6. Encounters and Embeddedness: The Urban Cinema of Ramin Bahrani / Amy Corbin 96 7. Perpetual Motion: Mobility, Precarity, and Slow Death Cinema / Pamela Robertson Wojcik 111 III. Urbanism and Gentrification 8. Senior Citizens under Siege: Number Our Days (1976) and Gray Power Activism in Venice / Joshua Glick 127 9. Music City Makeover: The Televisual Tourism of Nashville / Noelle Griffis 141 10. Portland at the Intersection: Gentrification and the Whitening of the City in Portlandia's Hipster Wonderland / Elizabeth A. Patton 155 11. Criminal Properties: Real Estate and the Upwardly Mobile Gangster / Erica Stein 167 IV. Race, Place, and Space 12. Dressing the Part: Black Maids, White Stars in the Dressing Room / Desirée J. Garcia 183 13. "I Do Not Know That I Find Myself Anywhere": The British Heritage Film and Spaces of Intersectionality in Amma Asante's Belle (2013) / Sara Louise Smyth 195 14. Queerness, Race, and Class in the Midcentury Suburb Film Crime of Passion (1956) / Merrill Schleier 206 15. Fair Play: Race, Space, and Recreation n Black Media Culture / Peter C. Kunze 221 V. Style and/as Intersectionality 16. The Toxic Intertwining of Small Town Lives in Happy Valley / Ina Rae Hark 237 17. Tattooed Light and Embodied Design: Intersectional Surfaces in Moana / Kirsten Moana Thompson 250 18. Vaguely Visible: Intersectional Politics in Bertrand Bonello's Nocturama (2016) / Malini Guha 262 Notes 275 Bibliography 303 Contributors 329 Index 335
£21.59
Duke University Press Writings on Media
Book SynopsisWritings on Media collects Stuart Hall's most important work on the media, reaffirming his stature as an innovative media theorist while demonstrating the continuing relevance of his methods of analysis.Trade Review“How refreshing and urgent to revisit Stuart Hall’s formative ideas about racism, identity, ideology, and media at the very moment that media has become such a contested site and source of ideological work. Hall’s searing and critical insights about what media does, how it works, and why it matters have never been as pressing as they are today. In our global and national media ecologies where disputes over facts, epistemological turmoil, fake news, and ideological rigidities are routine, Charlotte Brunsdon’s curated collection of Hall’s essays on the media is a remarkable and indispensable gift.” -- Herman Gray, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz“Stuart Hall revolutionized the critical study of media, positioning them—newspapers, photographs, television—as key sites of struggle over cultural meaning and power, and thus as central to the project of cultural studies. Above all, however, Hall did not just write about media but used them prolifically as outlets for critical intervention in the world. This superb set of essays testifies to the uniquely powerful voice of one of the most important public intellectuals in postimperial Britain.” -- Ien Ang, Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies, Western Sydney University"Brunsdon . . . gifts us with the evolution and contours of Hall’s thought(s) about media more broadly in work he produced mostly in the decade of the 1970s or thereabouts: about photography and the visual arts, about the press, about radio and broadcasting, and finally about television. . . What the American reader learns from this collection is this: Hall was a prescient, energetic thinker of specificity and generality at the same time. . . ." -- Amy Villarejo * Critical Studies in Television *"This is the true magic here: what Hall furnished for us during the course of his life, and what Brunsdon has collected and contextualized in Writings on Media, is an invitation into Hall’s world—to see the world as he did. This vision is bright eyed, and delighted, and serious, and humble. . . . In all of his prose, it is unmistakable just how much Hall absolutely wants you in it with him, and to share his questions, and to identify possible answers, and to figure it out with you. And, that is a very precious gift indeed." -- Max Wiggins * College & Research Libraries *"This series is a veritable motherlode for Hall devotees and neophytes alike. . . . As Brunsdon points out, ensures that even the older or more micro-focused pieces in this volume still have ample value for current scholarship in media, film and cultural studies, and for the broader intersections around the analysis of politics, race, identity and ideological formation." -- Bill Yousman * Screen *Table of ContentsEditor's Note on the Text vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: A History of the Present / Charlotte Brunsdon 1 Part I. The Photograph in Context Introduction to Part I 15 1. Preface to Black Britain: A Photographic History 23 2. Media and Message: The Life and Death of Picture Post 26 3. The Social Eye of Picture Post 34 4. The Determinations of New Photographs 54 5. Reconstruction Work: Images of Post-war Black Settlement 78 6. Vanley Burke and the "Desire for Blackness" 95 Part II. Media Studies and Cultural Studies Introduction to Part II 101 7. Film Teaching: Liberal Studies 111 8. The World of the Gossip Column 122 9. A World at One with Itself 131 10. Introduction to Paper Voices 141 11. Down with the Little Woman 155 12. Mugging: A Case Study in the Media 162 13. Introduction to Media Studies at the Centre 169 14. The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media 177 Part III. Television Introduction to Part III 201 15. Television as a Medium and Its Relation to Culture 209 16. Watching the Box 237 17. Gogglebox Gigolos 242 18. TV Types 245 19. Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse 247 20. Media Power: The Double Bind 267 21. Will Annan Open the Box? 276 22. Which Public, Whose Service? 281 23. Black and White in Television 297 Coda 315 24. Stuart Hall's Desert Island Discs 317 Index 331 Place of First Publication 343
£75.65
Duke University Press On Living with Television
Book SynopsisIn On Living with Television, Amy Holdsworth examines the characteristics of intimacy, familiarity, repetition, and duration that have come to exemplify the medium of television. Drawing on feminist television studies, queer theory, and disability studies as well as autobiographical life-writing practices, Holdsworth shows how television shapes everyday activities, from eating and sleeping to driving and homemaking. Recounting her own life with television, she offers a sense of the joys and pleasures Disney videos brought to her disabled sister, traces how bedtime television becomes part of a daily routine between child and caregiver, explores her own relationship to binge-eating and binge-viewing, and considers the idea of home through the BBC family drama Last Tango in Halifax. By foregrounding the ways in which television structures our relationships, daily routines, and sense of time, Holdsworth demonstrates how television emerges as a potent vehicle for writing aboutTrade Review“This book is a stunning achievement. In prose that is as graceful as it is compassionate, Amy Holdsworth gives voice to the unseen scenarios of care and relationality that television enters every day. How we watch television, she shows us, is how we anchor ourselves to places and people, and how we learn to be alone. Television creates space for holding our struggles and restores our capacities in ways that go beyond simply coping. This once-in-a-decade book reinvents the methods and language of television studies.” -- Anna McCarthy, author of * The Citizen Machine: Governing by Television in 1950s America *“In this wonderfully innovative book, Amy Holdsworth explores television as a lifelong companion that intersects with ordinary habits, affects, and caretaking in the home. Combining her personal experience with a brilliant pursuit of questions that cross interdisciplinary fields, Holdsworth shows how television relates to embodied practices of everyday time and resonates in memories across the life cycle. Beautifully written with passion, this is feminist television scholarship at its best!” -- Lynn Spigel, author of * TV Snapshots: An Archive of Everyday Life *"An emotionally moving page–turner, this book had this reviewer finishing it in a single sitting–a claim one does not generally apply to academic texts. . . . With sharp textual analysis and even sharper autobiographical writing, the author draws on theoretical work from film and television studies, disability studies, feminist studies, queer studies, autoethnography, and life writing. Scholars across all these areas of study will find much to absorb in this text, which deserves a place alongside the classics of television studies. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." -- S. Pepper * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. To (Not) Grow Up with Television 31 2. Bedtime Stories 49 3. TV Dinners 77 4. Homecomings and Goings 107 5. Epilogue: (Un)pause 139 Notes147 Bibliography 163 Index 175
£70.55
Duke University Press TV Snapshots
Book SynopsisLynn Spigel explores historical snapshots of people posing in front of their television sets in the 1950s through the early 1970s, showing how TV snapshots were a popular photographic practice through which people visualized their lives in an increasingly mediated culture.Trade Review“In this brilliant book Lynn Spigel examines TV snapshots as an activity, hobby art, expressive medium, and a thing people did with television, convincingly arguing for the importance of thinking about how photography and television work together. She reorients television studies away from programs and questions of spectatorship toward an exploration of the home as a ‘theater of everyday life,’ offering a diverse picture of how people use television, what the medium means, and where and how people live. I love this book and can’t wait to teach it.” -- Pamela Robertson Wojcik, author of * The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film and Popular Culture, 1945 to 1975 *"Spigel uses midcentury photographs of people posing next to television sets to construct a fascinating study of Americana. . . . A vital addition to media studies and popular culture collections." -- Claire Sewell * Library Journal *"Spigel indicates that she worked on the book during the years when the center of gravity of television shifted from broadcast to digital streaming. Her archive of snapshots documents a phase of the medium's development shrinking into the rearview mirror. But they are also artifacts embodying something now much more familiar. The compact camera and the TV set correspond to two phases in the circulation of imagery: production and consumption respectively. In these snapshots, the image cycle is limited: flow, not a flood. The screen remains part of domestic space—and not yet, as it's becoming now, a home of sorts in its own right." -- Scott McLemee * Inside Higher Ed *"Spigel has yet again shown herself to be a signal historian of the family, helping us make sense of the ways we actually were, in the flickering light of the pressure to be otherwise." -- Hannah Zeavin * New York Review of Books *“Spigel dives deep into histories of race, sexuality, family and domesticity, architecture, and more, as they are called up by these snapshots. The result is a rich, wide-ranging historical account of cultural, social, and familial practices surrounding both television and photography that extrapolate what are often considered to be the dominant uses of these two media.” -- Bruno Guaraná * Film Quarterly *"Displaying a sophisticated mastery of media studies, photographic history, and contemporary art theory, Spigel shifts seamlessly through a wide span of intellectual underpinnings. . . . At times whimsical and frequently revealing gender and class relationships, this work is engaging and thoughtful. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." -- D. McClure * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Companion Technologies 1 1. TV Portraits: Picturing Families and Household Things 25 2. TV Performers: A Theater of Everyday Life 72 3. TV Dress-Up: Fashion Poses and Everyday Glamour 121 4. TV Pinups: Sex and the Single TV 175 5. TV Memories: Snapshots in Digital Times 222 Conclusion: Hard Stop 255 Notes 263 Bibliography 289 Index 307
£80.10
Duke University Press Uncomfortable Television
Book SynopsisFrom The Wire to Intervention to Girls, postmillennial American television has dazzled audiences with novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics. Yet this television is also more perverse: it bombards audiences with misogynistic and racialized violence, graphic sex, substance abuse, unlikeable protagonists, and the extraordinary exploitation of ordinary people. In Uncomfortable Television, Hunter Hargraves examines how television makes its audiences find pleasure through feeling disturbed. He shows that this turn to discomfort realigns collective definitions of family and pleasure with the values of neoliberal culture. In viscerally violent dramas, cringeworthy ironic comedies, and trashy reality programs alike, televisual unease trains audiences to survive under late capitalism, which demands that individuals accept a certain amount of discomfort, dread, and irritation into their everyday lives. By highlighting how discomfort has been central to the reorTrade Review"Uncomfortable Television is an interesting work that raises many compelling questions about the relationship between televisual content and our own processing of reality and invites further discussion on affect theory and how affect potentially shapes most of our behavior. It is an insightful read for academics, political theorists, and students of many strands of humanities . . . ." -- Ana Yorke * Popmatters *"Hargraves's book sits at the intersection of scholarship focusing on neoliberalism, affect, and popular culture and synthesizes these conversations in fruitful ways. . . . Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." -- S. Pepper * Choice *“Uncomfortable Television provides television, performance, and American studies scholars and graduate students with an interesting and insightful look into how televisual affect is mobilized. … [A] compelling illustration of the complex constellation of components that provide a framework for the affective and ideological functions of television.” -- Courtlyn Pippert * European Journal for American Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Television Scripts 1 1. The Irritated Spectator: Affective Representation in (Post)millennial Comedy 27 2. The Addicted Spectator: TV Junkies in Need of an Intervention 57 3. The Aborted Spectator: Affective Economies of Perversion in Televisual Remix 89 4. The Spectator Plagued by White Guilt: On the Appropriative Intermediality of Quality TV 121 5. The Woke Spectator: Misrecognizing Discomfort in the Era of “Peak TV” 162 Notes 197 Bibliography 219 Index 239
£19.94
Duke University Press Push the Button
Book SynopsisElizabeth Rodwell follows the conflict between mass media conglomerates and independent media creators as they worked to redefine what interactivity meant for Japan's television industry.Trade Review“Across a polymorphous array of new media engagements, Elizabeth Rodwell questions how and with what affects/effects television is being recrafted in Japan following the ‘crisis’ of news dissemination during 3.11. Attentively ethnographic and analytically astute, Push the Button explores the implications—political, social, and technological—of inviting viewers to interact so intimately with their televisual machines.” -- Anne Allison, author of * Being Dead Otherwise *“Based on solid fieldwork with excellent theoretical analysis, Push the Button provides a fascinating ethnographic overview of interactive television in Japan and offers striking new insights into media in the early twenty-first century. This wonderful book speaks to experts and newcomers alike—a real gem!” -- Ian Condry, author of * The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan’s Media Success Story *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Pushing Buttons 1 1. The Interactive Consumer-Viewer: The Social TV Promotion Collective, Ratings, and Advertising 25 2. Interactivity and Gatekeeping: The Compass and the Limits of Conservative Corporate Culture 46 3. Cultures of Independent Journalism: The Free Press Association of Japan, Independent Web Journal, and GoHoo 64 4. The New Interactive Television 89 5. Teaching Citizen Journalism: Media Activism and Our Planet-TV 108 Conclusion 129 Notes 143 Bibliography 163 Index 179
£74.70
