The Columbia History of American Television

The Columbia History of American Television
Author: Gary Richard Edgerton
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231121652

Richly researched and engaging, The Columbia History of American Television tracks the growth of TV into a convergent technology, a global industry, a social catalyst, a viable art form, and a complex and dynamic reflection of the American mind and character. Renowned media historian Gary R. Edgerton follows the technological progress and increasing cultural relevance of television from its prehistory (before 1947) to the Network Era (1948-1975) and the Cable Era (1976-1994). He considers the remodeling of television's look and purpose during World War II; the gender, racial, and ethnic components of its early broadcasts and audiences; its transformation of postwar America; and its function in the political life of the country. In conclusion, Edgerton takes a discerning look at our current Digital Era and the new forms of instantaneous communication that continue to change America's social, political, and economic landscape.

Race in American Television [2 volumes]

Race in American Television [2 volumes]
Author: David J. Leonard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 901
Release: 2021-01-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

This two-volume encyclopedia explores representations of people of color in American television. It includes overview essays on early, classic, and contemporary television and the challenges for, developments related to, and participation of minorities on and behind the screen. Covering five decades, this encyclopedia highlights how race has shaped television and how television has shaped society. Offering critical analysis of moments and themes throughout television history, Race in American Television shines a spotlight on key artists of color, prominent shows, and the debates that have defined television since the civil rights movement. This book also examines the ways in which television has been a site for both reproduction of stereotypes and resistance to them, providing a basis for discussion about racial issues in the United States. This set provides a significant resource for students and fans of television alike, not only educating but also empowering readers with the necessary tools to consume and watch the small screen and explore its impact on the evolution of racial and ethnic stereotypes in U.S. culture and beyond. Understanding the history of American television contributes to deeper knowledge and potentially helps us to better apprehend the plethora of diverse shows and programs on Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other platforms today.

Television and American Culture

Television and American Culture
Author: Jason Mittell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2010
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

Television and American Culture: An Overview introduces students to the study of television by looking at American television from a cultural perspective. The book is written for intermediate undergraduate and beginning graduate students for a range of television studies courses. Specifically, Mittell discusses television within the following contexts: the economics of the television industry, television's role within American democracy, the formal attributes of a variety of television genres, television as a site of gender and racial identity formation, television's role in everyday life, and the medium's technological and social impacts. The topical arrangement and comprehensive scope of the book differs from other television textbooks, arguing that we must incorporate a range of economic, political, aesthetic, and sociological perspectives to fully comprehend the medium of television.

Science on American Television

Science on American Television
Author: Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2013
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0226921999

This volume narrates the history of science on television, from the 1940s to the turn of the 21st-century, to demonstrate how disagreements between scientists and television executives inhibited the medium's potential to engage in meaningful science education.

Quality TV

Quality TV
Author: Janet McCabe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2007-09-26
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0857715992

In his seminal book "Television's Second Golden Age", Robert Thompson described quality TV as 'best defined by what it is not': 'it is not "regular" TV'. Audacious maybe, but his statement renewed debate on the meaning of this highly contentious term. Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field of contemporary television to debate what we currently mean by quality TV. They go deep into contemporary American television fictions, from "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing", to "CSI" and "Lost" - innovative, sometimes controversial, always compelling dramas, which one scholar has described as 'now better than the movies!' But how do we understand the emergence of these kinds of fiction? Are they genuinely new? What does quality TV have to tell us about the state of today's television market? And is this a new Golden Age of quality TV? Original, often polemic, each chapter proposes new ways of thinking about and defining quality TV. There is a foreword from Robert Thompson, and heated dialogue between British and US television critics. Also included - and a great coup - are interviews with W. Snuffy Walden (scored "The West Wing" among others) and with David Chase ("The Sopranos" creator). "Quality TV" provides throughout groundbreaking and innovative theoretical and critical approaches to studying television and for understanding the current - and future - TV landscape.

The American Television Industry

The American Television Industry
Author: Michael Curtin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1844575756

The American Television Industry offers a concise and accessible introduction to TV production, programming, advertising, and distribution in the United States. The authors outline how programs are made and marketed, and furthermore provide an insightful overview of key players, practices, and future trends.

The Antihero in American Television

The Antihero in American Television
Author: Margrethe Bruun Vaage
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2015-10-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1317503171

The antihero prevails in recent American drama television series. Characters such as mobster kingpin Tony Soprano (The Sopranos), meth cook and gangster-in-the-making Walter White (Breaking Bad) and serial killer Dexter Morgan (Dexter) are not morally good, so how do these television series make us engage in these morally bad main characters? And what does this tell us about our moral psychological make-up, and more specifically, about the moral psychology of fiction? Vaage argues that the fictional status of these series deactivates rational, deliberate moral evaluation, making the spectator rely on moral emotions and intuitions that are relatively easy to manipulate with narrative strategies. Nevertheless, she also argues that these series regularly encourage reactivation of deliberate, moral evaluation. In so doing, these fictional series can teach us something about ourselves as moral beings—what our moral intuitions and emotions are, and how these might differ from deliberate, moral evaluation.

TV (The Book)

TV (The Book)
Author: Alan Sepinwall
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2016-06-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1455588202

Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible? For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down to this: What's the greatest TV show ever? That debate reaches an epic conclusion in TV (THE BOOK). Sepinwall and Seitz have identified and ranked the 100 greatest scripted shows in American TV history. Using a complex, obsessively all-encompassing scoring system, they've created a Pantheon of top TV shows, each accompanied by essays delving into what made these shows great. From vintage classics like The Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy to modern masterpieces like Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, from huge hits like All in the Family and ER to short-lived favorites like Firefly and Freaks and Geeks, TV (THE BOOK) will bring the triumphs of the small screen together in one amazing compendium. Sepinwall and Seitz's argument has ended. Now it's time for yours to begin!

The Evolution of American Television

The Evolution of American Television
Author: George Comstock
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated
Total Pages: 320
Release: 1989-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

American television has undergone many changes during the last decade -- a continually declining network share of audience, even while the audience for television as a whole increased; an escalation in network competition; and the increasing popularity of cable television and videocassette recorders. What have these changes meant for our most powerful mass medium? In The Evolution of American Television George Comstock goes beyond his seminal work Television in America to explore the vast changes in television in recent years. Comstock examines television as not simply entertainment nor information, but an institution that is some of both at all times, and an enormous influence on American lives.

Watching TV

Watching TV
Author: Harry Castleman
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010-08-12
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780815632207

Castleman and Podrazik present a sweeping season-by-season survey, capturing the essence of television from its inception to the present. The authors have dug through mounds of obscure facts, offbeat anecdotes, and the complicated network strategies that have made television a multibillion-dollar industry. By presenting every prime-time schedule, season by season, from the fall of 1944, Watching TV provides a fascinating history of how the personalities, popular shows, and coverage of key events have evolved during the past six decades. Full of facts, firsts, insights, and exploits, as well as rare and memorable photographs, Watching TV is the standard history of American television. This expanded edition includes thorough coverage up to the 2009–10 television season.