Teen Television: Essays on Programming and Fandom

by Sharon Marie Ross, Louisa Ellen Stein

Overview

This essay collection explores the phenomenon of "teen TV" in the United States, analyzing the meanings and manifestations of this category of programming from a variety of perspectives. Part One views teen television through an industrial perspective, examining how networks such as WB, UPN, The CW, and The N have created a unique economic framework based on demographic niches and teen-focused narrowcasting.

Part Two focuses on popular teen programs from a cultural context, evaluating how such programs reflect and at times stretch the envelope of the cultural contexts in which they are created. Finally, Part Three explores the cultures of reception (including the realms of teen consumerism, fan discourse, and unofficial production) through which teens and consumers of teen media have become authors of the teenage experience in their own right.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786435890
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	04/05/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	259
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sharon Marie Ross is an assistant professor in the television department at Columbia College, Chicago. She has written extensively about television, and is currently the associate editor for the Journal of International Digital Media Arts Association. She lives in Chicago. Louisa Ellen Stein is an assistant professor of film and media culture at Middlebury College in Vermont. She has written previously on contemporary media culture, including film, television, the Internet and videogames.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface     
Introduction: Watching Teen TV     

Part I—The Industrial Context of Teen TV      27
1. TV Teen Club: Teen TV as Safe Harbor
Jeff Martin     
2. Teen Television and the WB Television Network
Valerie Wee      43
3. Defining Teen Culture: The N Network
Sharon Marie Ross      61
4. Rocking Prime Time: Gender, the WB, and Teen Culture
Ben Aslinger      78

Part II—Teens on TV     
5. “Normal is the watchword”: Exiling Cultural Anxieties and Redefining Desire from the Margins
Caralyn Bolte     
6. Riding the Third Wave: The Multiple Feminisms of Gilmore Girls
Francesca Gamber      114
7. “That girl of yours—she’s pretty hardboiled, huh?”: Detecting Feminism in Veronica Mars
Andrea Braithwaite     
8. The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Fan: Consumption and Queer Inspiration in Six Feet Under
Barbara Brickman      150
9. “They stole me”: The O.C., Masculinity, and the Strategies of Teen
Sue Turnbull      170

Part III—Cultures of Reception     
10. Fashion Sleuths and Aerie Girls: Veronica Mars’
Forums and Network Strategies of Fan Address
Jennifer Gillan      185
11. The Adventures of a Repressed Farm Boy and the Billionaire Who Loves Him: Queer Spectatorship in Smallville Fandom
Melanie E.S. Kohnen      207
12. Pushing at the Margins: Teenage Angst in Teen TV and Audience Response
Louisa Ellen Stein      224

Contributors     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

fascinating...amazing...required reading for anyone in the film and/or television industry...fascinating and interesting”—Canyon News.

From the Publisher

fascinating...amazing...required reading for anyone in the film and/or television industry...fascinating and interesting

Canyon News