A Companion to Television

Janet Wasko is Professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Oregon. Her many books include Hollywood in the Information Age: Beyond the Silver Screen (1994), Consuming Audiences? Production and Reception in Media Research (1999), Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy (2001), and How Hollywood Works (2003).

List of Figures viii


Notes on Contributors ix


Introduction 1
Janet Wasko


Part I Theoretical Overviews


1 The Development of Television Studies 15
Horace Newcomb


2 Critical Perspectives on Television from the Frankfurt School to Postmodernism 29
Doug Kellner


Part II Television/History


3 Television and History 51
Paddy Scannell


4 Our TV Heritage: Television, the Archive, and the Reasons for Preservation 67
Lynn Spigel


Part III Television/Aesthetics and Production


5 Television as a Moving Aesthetic: In Search of the Ultimate Aesthetic – The Self 103
Julianne H. Newton


6 Locating the Televisual in Golden Age Television 126
Caren Deming


7 Television Production: Who Makes American TV? 142
Jane M. Shattuc


Part IV Television/The State and Policy


8 Who Rules TV? States, Markets, and the Public Interest 157
Sylvia Harvey


9 Public Broadcasting and Democratic Culture: Consumers, Citizens, and Communards 174
Graham Murdock


10 Culture, Services, Knowledge: Television between Policy Regimes 199
Stuart Cunningham


Part V Television/Commerce


11 Television Advertising as Textual and Economic Systems 217
Matthew P. McAllister


12 Watching Television: A Political Economic Approach 238
Eileen R. Meehan


13 Keeping “Abreast” of MTV and Viacom: The Growing Power of a Media Conglomerate 256
Jack Banks


14 The Trade in Television News 270
Andrew Calabrese


Part VI Television/Programming, Content, and Genre


15 Configurations of the New Television Landscape 291
Albert Moran


16 The Study of Soap Opera 308
Christine Geraghty


17 The Shifting Terrain of American Talk Shows 324
Jane M. Shattuc


18 Television and Sports 337
Michael R. Real


19 “Where the Past Comes Alive”: Television, History, and Collective Memory 361
Gary R. Edgerton


20 “How Will You Make it on Your Own?”: Television and Feminism Since 1970 379
Bonnie J. Dow


21 Television and Race 395
Sasha Torres


Part VII Television/The Public and Audiences


22 Television, Public Spheres, and Civic Cultures 411
Peter Dahlgren


23 Television and Public Opinion 433
Justin Lewis


24 Reality TV: Performance, Authenticity, and Television Audiences 449
Annette Hill


25 A Special Audience? Children and Television 468
David Buckingham


Part VIII Television/Alternative Challenges


26 Local Community Channels: Alternatives to Corporate Media Dominance 489
DeeDee Halleck


Part IX International Television/Case Studies


27 Latin American Commercial Television: “Primitive Capitalism” 503
John Sinclair


28 Television in China: History, Political Economy, and Ideology 521
Yuezhi Zhao and Zhenzhi Guo


29 Japanese Television: Early Development and Research 540
Shunya Yoshimi


30 Change and Transformation in South African Television 558
Ruth Teer–Tomaselli


31 Television in the Arab East 580
Nabil H. Dajani


Index 602