Overview

Examines social and cultural phenomena through the lens of different television shows We all have opinions about the television shows we watch, but television criticism is about much more than simply evaluating the merits of a particular show and deeming it 'good' or 'bad.' Rather, criticism uses the close examination of a television program to explore that program's cultural significance, creative strategies, and its place in a broader social context. How to Watch Television brings together forty original essays from today's leading scholars on television culture, writing about the programs they care (and think) the most about. Each essay focuses on a particular television show, demonstrating one way to read the program and, through it, our media culture. The essays model how to practice media criticism in accessible language, providing critical insights through analysis—suggesting a way of looking at TV that students and interested viewers might emulate. The contributors discuss a wide range of television programs past and present, covering many formats and genres, spanning fiction and non-fiction, broadcast and cable, providing a broad representation of the programs that are likely to be covered in a media studies course. While the book primarily focuses on American television, important programs with international origins and transnational circulation are also covered. Addressing television series from the medium's earliest days to contemporary online transformations of television, How to Watch Television is designed to engender classroom discussion among television critics of all backgrounds.

Full Product Details

9780814745311

Table of Contents

Reviews

There's quite simply no book out there that can match this in scope and quality. The contributors are a 'Who's Who' of contemporary television studies, and the prose is engaging and highly readable. If you're looking for models of how to think about television from a range of perspectives, you need look no further. -Greg M. Smith,author of Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBeal

""There's quite simply no book out there that can match this in scope and quality. The contributors are a 'Who's Who' of contemporary television studies, and the prose is engaging and highly readable. If you're looking for models of how to think about television from a range of perspectives, you need look no further.""-Greg M. Smith, author of Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBeal [A] damn good collection, featuring 40 different contributions from American scholars, plus Matt Hills from Aberystwyth and Roberta Pearson from Nottingham. Their contributions are organised under five main themes: Aesthetics and Style; TV Representations: Social Identity and Cultural Politics; TV Politics: Democracy, Nation, and the Public Interest; TV Industry: Industrial Practices and Structures; andTV Practices: Medium, Technology, and Everyday Life. As with television schedules, it is easy to flick and pick and read - indeed, the editors in their Introduction actively encourage 'readers to go straight to a particular program or approach that interests them'"". - Geoff Lealand, CSTonline

There's quite simply no book out there that can match this in scope and quality. The contributors are a 'Who's Who' of contemporary television studies, and the prose is engaging and highly readable. If you're looking for models of how to think about television from a range of perspectives, you need look no further. -Greg M. Smith, author of Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBeal [A] damn good collection, featuring 40 different contributions from American scholars, plus Matt Hills from Aberystwyth and Roberta Pearson from Nottingham. Their contributions are organised under five main themes: Aesthetics and Style; TV Representations: Social Identity and Cultural Politics; TV Politics: Democracy, Nation, and the Public Interest; TV Industry: Industrial Practices and Structures; andTV Practices: Medium, Technology, and Everyday Life. As with television schedules, it is easy to flick and pick and read - indeed, the editors in their Introduction actively encourage 'readers to go straight to a particular program or approach that interests them' . - Geoff Lealand, CSTonline

There's quite simply no book out there that can match this in scope and quality. The contributors are a 'Who's Who' of contemporary television studies, and the prose is engaging and highly readable. If you're looking for models of how to think about television from a range of perspectives, you need look no further. -Greg M. Smith, author of Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBeal

Author Information

Ethan Thompson (Editor) Ethan Thompson is Professor of Media Arts at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. He is the author of Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture and co-editor of Television History, the Peabody Archive, and Cultural Memory and Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. He directed the documentary TV Family about a forgotten forerunner to reality television. Jason Mittell (Editor) Jason Mittell is Professor of Film & Media Culture at Middlebury College. His books include Genre & Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture, Television & American Culture, and Complex Television: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, and Narrative Theory and Adaptation. He is project manager for [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, and author of numerous video essays.

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