Television Studies: Television Studies

by Gary C. Burns, Robert Thompson

Overview

Burbans and Thompson help to remedy the lack of a forum for current research on television by bringing together, in this volume, some of the best recent research in television studies. This work will begin to fill the gap in literature on television studies as a discipline. In compiling these 13 papers, the editors maintain a balance of timely interest and lasting relevance. The contributors study the texts of current TV dramatic and comic series, such as Dallas and Cheers, as well as current trends in nonfiction TV, such as network and local news coverage. Each analysis of a specific television text is complimented with rigorous theoretical argumentation. Students and scholars of communications and television criticism will find Television Studies valuable reading.

The book begins with a two-chapter debate primarily seeking a definition of ‘television studies.' The debate includes a critical examination of the capitalist institutions that dominate television as an industry. Further chapters discuss dramatic television series; an examination of the development of the lengthy serial text of Dallas, and structural analysis of the pilot episode of Cheers. The book contains five essays on nonfiction television, including an insiders view of the production and promotion of local TV news and an analysis of CBS and ABC's TV news coverage of South Africa over a two week period in 1987. In a final essay, conventional wisdom about ‘the audience' is refuted.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275927455
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/27/1989
Series:	Media and Society Series
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.62(d)
Lexile:	1430L (what's this?)

About the Author

GARY BURNS is Assistant Professor of Communications Studies at Northern Illinois University.

ROBERT J. THOMPSON is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at State University of New York at Cortland.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Political Economy vs. Cultural Studies
Television, Cultural Studies, and the "Blind Spot" Debate in Critical Communications Research
Popular Television and Commercial Culture: Beyond Political Economy
Critical Studies of Dramatic Series
"Dallas" Refigured
Flatulent Conceptions: The Young Ones, Inoculation, and Emisis
Collective Blindness and American Television
"He's Everything You're Not . . . ": A Semiological Analysis of Cheers
And Justice for All: The Messages Behind "Real" Courtroom Dramas
Critical Studies of Nonfiction Television
The Ratings "Sweeps" and How They Make News
The Graphication and Personification of Television News
Representations of Race in Network News Coverage of South Africa
Propaganda Techniques in Documentary Film and Television: AIM vs PBS
TV's World of Sports: Presenting and Playing the Game
Audience as Text
Invisible Fictions: Television Audiences, Paedocracy, Pleasure
Selected Bibliography
Index