History & Criticism

A Companion to Television is a magisterial collection of 31 original essays that charter the field of television studies over the past century Explores a diverse range of topics and theories that have led to television's current incarnation, and predict...

Miami Vice captures the glitter and glamour embodied by Crockett and Tubbs and offers students an anatomy of a ground-breaking work in the police procedural genre. Explores Miami Vice 's combination of disparate influences (MTV, film noir, soap opera,...

Television is one of the most important socializing forces in contemporary culture. This book is a cultural history of prime-time television in America during the 1990s. * Examines changes that took place in programming, such as the rapid adoption of...

Combining an exciting methodology alongside high-interest case studies, Television in Transition offers students of television a guide to a medium that has weathered the challenges of first-run syndication, a multi-channel universe, netlets, major media...

Television is one of the most important socializing forces in contemporary culture. This book is a cultural history of prime-time television in America during the 1990s. * Examines changes that took place in programming, such as the rapid adoption of...

Television in the Multichannel Age is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to the history of multichannel television in all its forms - from cable to direct-to-home satellite and beyond. Chapter by chapter, the book traces the evolution of cable...

Defining 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...

Defining 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 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. This engaging volume, written by one of television's best known scholars, offers a new take...

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...

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...

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...