History & Criticism

Combining cutting-edge theories of culture and government with programming examples-including Todd TV, Survivor, and American Idol-Better Living through Reality TV moves beyond the established concerns of political economy and cultural studies to...

This 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...

This 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...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave contemporary TV viewers an exhilarating alternative to the tired cultural trope of a hapless, attractive blonde woman victimized by a murderous male villain. With its strong, capable heroine, witty dialogue, and a creator...

In Citizen Spy, Michael Kackman investigates how media depictions of the slick, smart, and resolute spy have been embedded in the American imagination. Looking at secret agents on television and the relationships among networks, producers, government...

Television and the Embodied Viewer appraises the medium's capacity to evoke sensations and bodily feelings in the viewer. Presenting a fresh approach to television studies, the book examines the sensate force of onscreen bodies and illustrates how TV's...

International 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...

One of the most popular shows to come out of Shondaland, Shonda Rhimes's production company, is ABC's political drama Scandal (2012-18)-a series whose tremendous success and marketing savvy led LA Times critic Mary McNamara to hail it as ""the...

One of the most popular shows to come out of Shondaland, Shonda Rhimes's production company, is ABC's political drama Scandal (2012-18)-a series whose tremendous success and marketing savvy led LA Times critic Mary McNamara to hail it as ""the...

First demonstrated in 1928, color television remained little more than a novelty for decades as the industry struggled with the considerable technical, regulatory, commercial, and cultural complications posed by the medium. Only fully adopted by all...

In TV Socialism, Aniko Imre provides an innovative history of television in socialist Europe during and after the Cold War. Rather than uniform propaganda programming, Imre finds rich evidence of hybrid aesthetic and economic practices, including...

"In its original run on HBO, The Sopranos mattered, and it matters still," Dana Polan asserts early in this analysis of the hit show, in which he sets out to clarify the impact and importance of the series in both its cultural and...

This title maps the development of the crime drama on international television. The television crime drama has been a constant of the television landscape since it first migrated from film and radio onto the small screen in the 1950s. Since then, from...

Why are some controversial issues covered in TV soaps and dramas and not others? How are decisions really made 'behind the scenes'? How do programme makers push boundaries without losing viewers? What do audiences take away from their viewing experience?...

This lively and ground-breaking collection brings together work on forms of popular television within the authoritarian regimes of Europe after World War Two. Ten chapters based on new and original research examine approaches to programming and...

Swashbucklers is the first study of one of the most popular and enduring genres in television history - the costume adventure series. It maps the history of swashbuckling television from its origins in the 1950s to the present. It places the various...

Creator of television series such as Shameless, Clocking Off, State of Play, Reckless, Linda Green and Children's Ward, Paul Abbott is a British 'showrunner' and writer whose name and reputation for edgy, intelligent, successful and socio-political...

Written by one of the foremost and widely--respected writers in the field, this volume sheds new light on the forms and premises of the communicative experience. In doing so, it challenges the theoretical positions of marxist and "political economy...

This book is a study of theatre's educational role during the 20th and the first years of the 21st centuries. It examines the variety of ways the theatre's educational potential has been harnessed and theorised, the claims made for its value and the...

Beginning in the 1930s and moving into the post millennium, this book provides a historical analysis of the policies and practices established by the BBC as it attempted to assist white Britons in adjusting to the presence of African-Caribbeans. Among...

Mockumentary is now an established part of the spectrum of television styles, with both deep roots in television history and a key part of innovations in the sitcom genre since the 1990s. Tracing the development of mockumentary series within the broader...

Entertaining television challenges the idea that the BBC in the 1950s was elitist and 'staid', upholding Reithian values in a paternalistic, even patronising way. By focusing on a number of (often controversial) programme case studies - such as the soap...

This book assesses Joss Whedon's contribution to US television and popular culture. Examining everything from his earliest work to his most recent tweets and activist videos, it explores his complex and contradictory roles as both cult outsider and...

"Television in the Antenna Age" is a brief, accessible, and engaging overview of the medium's history and development in the US. Integrating three major concerns - television as an industry, a technology, and an art - the book is a basic primer...

"Television in the Antenna Age" is a brief, accessible, and engaging overview of the medium's history and development in the US. Integrating three major concerns - television as an industry, a technology, and an art - the book is a basic primer...

Long overlooked by scholars and critics, the history and aesthetics of German television have only recently begun to attract serious, sustained attention, and then largely within Germany. This ambitious volume, the first in English on the subject,...

Long overlooked by scholars and critics, the history and aesthetics of German television have only recently begun to attract serious, sustained attention, and then largely within Germany. This ambitious volume, the first in English on the subject,...

Television was one of the forces shaping the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when a blockbuster TV series could reach up to a third of a country's population. This book explores television's impact on social change by comparing three sitcoms...

Advances in audiovisual technology, most notably the advent of the popular usage of digital technology in the last few years, have altered the face of popular television. Thanks to cable, satellite and now digital technology, television broadcasts can...

This book is the first study of the prolific German filmmaker, performance artist, and TV host Christoph Schlingensief (1960-2010) that identifies him as a practitioner of realism in the theater and lays out how theatrical realism can offer an aesthetic...

The importance of contemporary television broadcasting for the shaping and development of national cultures and identities is increasingly evident. Television as the privileged medium for the dissemination of information and for mass entertainment has...

This book offers an interdisciplinary, historically grounded study of Asian cinemas' complex responses to the Cold War conflict. It situates the global ideological rivalry within regional and local political, social, and cultural processes, while...

The importance of contemporary television broadcasting for the shaping and development of national cultures and identities is increasingly evident. Television as the privileged medium for the dissemination of information and for mass entertainment has...

An exciting new strand in The Television Series, the 'Moments in Television' collections celebrate the power and artistry of television, whilst interrogating key critical concepts in television scholarship. Each 'Moments' book is organised around a...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781770410510Author Sarah Clarke StuartFormat PaperbackPage Count 224Imprint ECW Press,CanadaPublisher ECW Press,CanadaWeight(grams) 375g

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781770411791Author Richard RosenbaumFormat PaperbackPage Count 138Imprint ECW Press,CanadaPublisher ECW Press,CanadaWeight(grams) 158g

With iconic imagery and engrossing text, Black TV is the first book of its kind to celebrate the groundbreaking, influential, and often under-appreciated shows centered on Black people and their experiences from the last fifty years.Over the past decade,...

This book makes fascinating connections between the ways in which contemporary television serials cue cognitive operations, solicit emotional responses, and elicit aesthetic appreciationThe discussions in this book will have much to add to debates on the...

A history of prestige television through the rise of the "black-market melodrama." In Second Lives, Michael Szalay defines a new television genre-the black-market melodrama-that has driven the breathtaking ascent of TV as a cultural force...

This timely collection examines representations of medicine and medical practices in international period drama television. A preoccupation with medical plots and settings can be found across a range of important historical series, including Outlander,...