Description
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
