Television Criticism

Victoria O’Donnell is Professor Emerita and former director of the University Honors Program and Professor of Communication at Montana State University–Bozeman. She also taught a seminar in television criticism for the School of Film and Photography at Montana State University. Previously she was the chair of the Department of Speech Communication at Oregon State University and chair of the Department of Communication and Public Address at the University of North Texas. In 1988 she taught for the American Institute of Foreign Studies at the University of London. She received her PhD from the Pennsylvania State University. She has published articles and chapters in a wide range of journals and books on topics concerning persuasion, the social effects of media, women in film and television, British politics, Nazi propaganda, collective memory, cultural studies theory, and science fiction films of the 1950s. She is also the author (with June Kable) of Persuasion: An Interactive-Dependency Approach, Propaganda and Persuasion (with Garth Jowett), Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion: New and Classic Essays (co-edited with Garth Jowett), Television Criticism, and Speech Communication. She made a film, Women, War, and Work: Shaping Space for Productivity in the Shipyards During World War II, for PBS through KUSM Public Television at Montana State University. She has also written television scripts for environmental films and has done voice-overs for several PBS films. She served on editorial boards of several journals. The recipient of numerous research grants, honors, and teaching awards, including being awarded the Honor Professorship at North Texas State University and the Montana State University Alumni Association and Bozeman Chamber of Commerce Award of Excellence, she has been a Danforth Foundation Associate and a Summer Scholar of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has taught in Germany and has been a visiting lecturer at universities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Wales. She has also served as a private consultant to the U.S. government, a state senator, the tobacco litigation plaintiffs, and many American corporations. She is an active volunteer with Intermountain Therapy Animals, taking her Golden Retriever, Gabriel, to the elementary schools where the children read to the dog in the R.E.A.D. program. She writes children’s stories about Gabriel. She is currently writing a novel about Ireland.  

PART I: ORIENTATION
Chapter 1: The Work of the Critic
Introduction
The Ends of Criticism
Journalistic Television Criticism
The Critical Stance
Criticism and Culture
Narrative and Contextual Reality
Critical Categories and Critical Choices
The Familiar and the Unfamiliar in Television
Critical Orientation
Chapter 2: Demystifying the Business of Television
Introduction
The Impact of the Internet and the Role of Advertising, Schedules, and Ratings
The Strategies of Television Advertising
Product Promotion Within Television Programs
Product Placement
Scheduling and Advertising
The Production of a Television Show
The Production Team
PART II: FORMAL ASPECTS OF TELEVISION
Chapter 3: Production Techniques and Television Style
Introduction
Length of Shot and Framing
Multi-Camera Production
Reaction Shots
Lighting
Production on Film Versus Digital Video
Style, Reception, and Digital Video Practices
Camera Choice Follows Function
Television Sound and Editing
Production Styles
Art Direction
The Split Screen
Directors
Actors
Chapter 4: Television, the Nation’s Storyteller
Introduction
Storytelling and the Human Condition
The Nature of Narrative
Narrative Theories
Narrative Structure
Intertextuality
Characters
Archetypes
Myth
Chapter 5: Television Genres
Introduction
Television Genre, Production, and Scheduling
The Rules for Classifying Genres
Genre and Television Criticism
Comedy
Talk Shows
News
Magazine Shows
Drama
Soap Opera
Science Fiction
Reality Shows
Sports
Children’s Television
Game Shows
Other Genres
PART III: THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO TELEVISION CRITICISM
Chapter 6: Rhetoric and Culture
Introduction
Rhetoric
Cultural Studies
Chapter 7: Representation and Its Audience
Introduction
What Is Representation?
Television Representation
Interpreting Representation
Reception of Televisual Images
Symbols
The Illusion of Reality
The Need for Images
Representation of the “Other”
Advice for Television Critics
Representation and Collective Memory
Chapter 8: Postmodernism
Introduction
Postmodernism Defined
Postmodern Television
The Influence of MTV
Postmodern Theories
PART IV: CRITICAL APPLICATIONS
Chapter 9: Guidelines for Television Criticism
Introduction
Critical Orientation
Story and Genre
Organization
Demographics
Context
The Look of the Program and Its Codes
Analysis
Judgment
Writing Television Criticism
Chapter 10: Sample Criticism of a Television Program: The Big Bang Theory—Season 8, Episode 824, “The Commitment Determination”
Introduction
Thesis
Purpose
Description of The Big Bang Theory
Production Information
Description of the Episode
Questions for Analysis
Analysis and Interpretation