Why TV is Not Our Fault

Why TV is Not Our Fault PDF Author: Eileen R. Meehan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742524866
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
For more than five decades, we've been told by pundits, commentators, advertisers, scholars, and politicians that television is both a window on the world and a mirror reflecting our culture. We've been led to believe that it shows us the world's events through news programs and, through entertainment programs, reflects the preferences, values, beliefs, and understandings shared by most Americans. We're told that if you don't like what you see on TV, don't blame the industry, blame yourself. This book dispels the myth that the television industry is just giving viewers the programming they want to see and, thus, we as viewers are "responsible" for the existence of shows like Fear Factor and yet another Survivor. In fact, Eileen Meehan explains, viewers exert no demand in the market for ratings, advertising slots, program production, or telecasting. She also counters the idea that TV programs reflect our culture directly. Introducing us to the political economy of television, Meehan covers programming, corporate strategies, advertising, the misnomer of "competition" among networks, and organizations that seek more industry accountability. She tells us why TV isn't our fault--and who's really to blame.

Why TV is Not Our Fault

Why TV is Not Our Fault PDF Author: Eileen R. Meehan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742524866
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book Here

Book Description
For more than five decades, we've been told by pundits, commentators, advertisers, scholars, and politicians that television is both a window on the world and a mirror reflecting our culture. We've been led to believe that it shows us the world's events through news programs and, through entertainment programs, reflects the preferences, values, beliefs, and understandings shared by most Americans. We're told that if you don't like what you see on TV, don't blame the industry, blame yourself. This book dispels the myth that the television industry is just giving viewers the programming they want to see and, thus, we as viewers are "responsible" for the existence of shows like Fear Factor and yet another Survivor. In fact, Eileen Meehan explains, viewers exert no demand in the market for ratings, advertising slots, program production, or telecasting. She also counters the idea that TV programs reflect our culture directly. Introducing us to the political economy of television, Meehan covers programming, corporate strategies, advertising, the misnomer of "competition" among networks, and organizations that seek more industry accountability. She tells us why TV isn't our fault--and who's really to blame.

Creating the Viewer

Creating the Viewer PDF Author: Justin Wyatt
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477329064
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
A study of the largely hidden world of primary media market research and the different methods used to understand how the viewer is pictured in the industry. The first book on the intersection between market research and media, Creating the Viewer takes a critical look at media companies’ studies of television viewers, the assumptions behind these studies, and the images of the viewer that are constructed through them. Justin Wyatt examines various types of market research, including talent testing, pilot testing, series maintenance, brand studies, and new show “ideation,” providing examples from a range of programming including news, sitcoms, reality shows, and dramas. He looks at brand studies for networks such as E!, and examines how the brands of individuals such as showrunner Ryan Murphy can be tested. Both an analytical and practical work, the bookincludes sample questionnaires and paths for study moderators and research analysts to follow. Drawn from over fifteen years of experience in research departments at various media companies, Creating the Viewer looks toward the future of media viewership, discussing how the concept of the viewer has changed in the age of streaming, how services such as Netflix view market research, and how viewers themselves can shift the industry through their media choices, behaviors, and activities.

A Companion to Television

A Companion to Television PDF Author: Janet Wasko
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119269431
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
The latest edition of the acclaimed volume on television studies, featuring new original essays from leading scholars in the field Although the digital age has radically altered the media and communications landscape worldwide, television continues to play a significant part of our lives. From its earliest beginnings through to the present day, television and its influence has been the subject of extensive study, critique, and analysis. A Companion to Television brings together contributions from prominent international scholars comprising a wide range of perspectives on the medium. Original essays define television in its current state, explore why it is still relevant, survey the ways in which television has been studied, discuss how television has changed, and consider what television might look like in the future. Now in its second edition, this compendium includes fresh chapters that cover technological changes affecting television, contemporary approaches to understanding television audiences, new programming trends and developments, and more. Addressing nine key areas of television studies, such as industry, genres, programs, and audiences, the Companion offers readers a balanced, well-rounded, integrative approach to scholarship in the field. This volume: Provides overviews of extensive original research from leading scholars and theorists Examines television’s development and significance in various regions of the world Includes national and regional outlines of television around the world Features theoretical overviews of various critical approaches to television studies Explores historical, economic, institutional, political, and cultural issues studied by media scholars Presenting diverse perspectives on topics ranging from television advertising to satirical representations of the industry, A Companion to Television, Second Edition is an invaluable resource for those in undergraduate courses in television studies, as well as in general media studies and communications.

Television Criticism

Television Criticism PDF Author: Victoria O′Donnell
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1483377695
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Television Criticism, Third Edition by Victoria O’Donnell provides a foundational approach to the nature of television criticism. Rhetorical studies, cultural studies, representation, narrative theories, and postmodernism are established for greater understanding and appreciation of the critical perspectives on television. Illustrated with contemporary examples, this updated Third Edition includes a new, extensive sample critical analysis of The Big Bang Theory and reflects recent changes in the ways television is viewed across multiple devices and the impact of the Internet on television.

Branding Television

Branding Television PDF Author: Catherine Johnson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136618546
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Branding Television examines why and how the UK and US television industries have turned towards branding as a strategy in response to the rise of satellite, cable and digital television, and new media, such as the internet and mobile phone. This is the first book to offer a sustained critical analysis of this new cultural development. Branding Television examines the industrial, regulatory and technological changes since the 1980s in the UK and the USA that have led to the adoption of branding as broadcasters have attempted to manage the behaviour of viewers and the values associated with their channels, services and programmes in a world of increased choice and interactivity. Wide-ranging case studies drawn from commercial, public service, network and cable/satellite television (from NBC and HBO to MTV, and from BBC and Channel 4 to UKTV and Sky) analyse the role of marketing and design in branding channels and corporations, and the development of programmes as brands. Exploring both successful and controversial uses of branding, this book asks what problems there are in creating television brands and whether branding supports or undermines commercial and public service broadcasting. Branding Television extends and complicates our understanding of the changes to television over the past 30 years and of the role of branding in contemporary Western culture. It will be of particular interest to students and researchers in television studies, but also in creative industries and media and cultural studies more generally.

Envisioning Media Power

Envisioning Media Power PDF Author: Brett Christophers
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739133101
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
Envisioning Media Power develops an original geographical perspective on the nature and exercise of power in the international television economy. It uses theories of political economy as the basis for a comparative empirical examination of the UK and New Zealand television markets, while closely considering these markets' respective relationships with the US market and its globally-influential media corporations. In fleshing out this geographical perspective, the book critically addresses the power to produce, reproduce, and extract profit from territorialized media markets. To understand such powers, the book examines processes of creation and dissemination of industry knowledge, structures of industry governance, and the locational characteristics of television's operational economy. Through its rigorous and creative combination of conceptual insights with empirical substance, Envisioning Media Power both illuminates the fabric of television's international space economy, and ultimately offers a unique theoretic argument - suggesting that power, knowledge and geography are inseparable not only from one another, but from the process of accumulation of media capital.

American History through American Sports

American History through American Sports PDF Author: Bob Batchelor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313379890
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 1037

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Book Description
Filled with insightful analysis and compelling arguments, this book considers the influence of sports on popular culture and spotlights the fascinating ways in which sports culture and American culture intersect. This collection blends historical and popular culture perspectives in its analysis of the development of sports and sports figures throughout American history. American History through American Sports: From Colonial Lacrosse to Extreme Sports is unique in that it focuses on how each sport has transformed and influenced society at large, demonstrating how sports and popular culture are intrinsically entwined and the ways they both reflect larger societal transformations. The essays in the book are wide-ranging, covering topics of interest for sports fans who enjoy the NFL and NASCAR as well as those who like tennis and watching the Olympics. Many topics feature information about specific sports icons and favorite heroes. Additionally, many of the topics' treatments prompt engagement by purposely challenging the reader to either agree or disagree with the author's analysis.

Television Studies: The Basics

Television Studies: The Basics PDF Author: Toby Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136988866
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Television Studies: The Basics is a lively introduction to the study of a powerful medium. It examines the major theories and debates surrounding production and reception over the years and considers both the role and future of television. Topics covered include: broadcasting history and technology institutions and ownership genre and content audiences Complete with global case studies, questions for discussion, and suggestions for further reading, this is an invaluable and engaging resource for those interested in how to study television.

HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis

HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis PDF Author: Dominique Gendrin
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498545610
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, outsiders will have two versions of the Katrina experience. One version will be the images they recall from news coverage of the aftermath. The other will be the intimate portrayal of the determination of New Orleans residents to rebuild and recover their lives. HBO’s Treme offers outsiders an inside look into why New Orleanians refused to abandon a place that many questioned should not be rebuilt after the levees failed. This critically acclaimed series expanded the boundaries of television making in its format, plot, casting, use of music, and realism-in-fictionalized-TV. However, Treme is not just a story for the outside gaze on New Orleans. It was a very local, collaborative experience where the show’s creators sought to enlist the city in a commemorative project. Treme allowed many in the city who worked as principals, extras, and who tuned in as avid viewers to heal from the devastation of the disaster as they experimented with art, imitating life, imitating art. This book examines the impact of HBOs Treme not just as television making, but in the sense in which television provides a window to our worlds. The book pulls together scholarship in media, communications, gender, area studies, political economy, critical studies, African American studies and music to explain why Treme was not just about television.

Selling the American People

Selling the American People PDF Author: Lee Mcguigan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262374234
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
How marketers learned to dream of optimization and speak in the idiom of management science well before the widespread use of the Internet. Algorithms, data extraction, digital marketers monetizing "eyeballs": these all seem like such recent features of our lives. And yet, Lee McGuigan tells us in this eye-opening book, digital advertising was well underway before the widespread use of the Internet. Explaining how marketers have brandished the tools of automation and management science to exploit new profit opportunities, Selling the American People traces data-driven surveillance all the way back to the 1950s, when the computerization of the advertising business began to blend science, technology, and calculative cultures in an ideology of optimization. With that ideology came adtech, a major infrastructure of digital capitalism. To help make sense of today's attention merchants and choice architects, McGuigan explores a few key questions: How did technical experts working at the intersection of data processing and management sciences come to command the center of gravity in the advertising and media industries? How did their ambition to remake marketing through mathematical optimization shape and reflect developments in digital technology? In short, where did adtech come from, and how did data-driven marketing come to mediate the daily encounters of people, products, and public spheres? His answers show how the advertising industry's efforts to bend information technologies toward its dream of efficiency and rational management helped to make "surveillance capitalism" one of the defining experiences of public life.