To understand American popular culture, we need to come to grips with the enormous role that television has played in shaping that culture over the past sixty years. In this timely and provocative book, Jason Mittell provides students with a uniquely thorough look at the medium of television. Exploring television at once as a technological medium, an economic system, a facet of democracy, and a part of everyday life, this landmark text uses numerous sidebars and case studies to demonstrate the past, immediate, and far reaching effects of American culture on television and television's influence on American culture. Arranged topically, the book provides a broad historical overview of television while also honing in on such finer points as the formal attributes of its various genres and its role in gender and racial identity formation. Replete with examples, this pedagogically rich text includes many end of chapter case studies and narratives with suggestions for further reading and, appropriately, viewing. Illustrations and photographs primarily DVD grabs contextualize historical footage and older television programs that may not be familiar to younger students. A multi disciplinary approach to American television, Television and American Culture is ideal for an array of intermediate undergraduate and beginning graduate level courses, including: * Television Criticism * Television &amp; American Culture * Television &amp; Society * Introduction to Media Studies * American Popular Culture * Radio &amp; TV * History of Mass Communication * Broadcasting &amp; Broadcast Programming

Television and American Culture

Humor & Entertainment

Mittell, Jason

Television

Oxford University Press

Genre and Television proposes a new understanding of television genres as cultural categories, offering a set of in-depth historical and critical examinations to explore five key aspects of television genre: history, industry, audience, text, and genre mixing. Drawing on well-known television programs from Dragnet to The Simpsons, this book provides a new model of genre historiography and illustrates how genres are at work within nearly every facet of television-from policy decisions to production techniques to audience practices. Ultimately, the book argues that through analyzing how television genre operates as a cultural practice, we can better comprehend how television actively shapes our social world.

Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture

Movies

Routledge

Genre and Television proposes a new understanding of television genres as cultural categories, offering a set of in-depth historical and critical examinations to explore five key aspects of television genre: history, industry, audience, text, and genre mixing. Drawing on well-known television programs from Dragnet to The Simpsons, this book provides a new model of genre historiography and illustrates how genres are at work within nearly every facet of television-from policy decisions to production techniques to audience practices. Ultimately, the book argues that through analyzing how television genre operates as a cultural practice, we can better comprehend how television actively shapes our social world.

Genre and Television

Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling

Over the past two decades, new technologies, changing viewer practices, and the proliferation of genres and channels has transformed American television. One of the most notable impacts of these shifts is the emergence of highly complex and elaborate forms of serial narrative, resulting in a robust period of formal experimentation and risky programming rarely seen in a medium that is typically viewed as formulaic and convention bound. Complex TV offers a sustained analysis of the poetics of television narrative, focusing on how storytelling has changed in recent years and how viewers make sense of these innovations. Through close analyses of key programs, including The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Veronica Mars, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Mad Men the book traces the emergence of this narrative mode, focusing on issues such as viewer comprehension, transmedia storytelling, serial authorship, character change, and cultural evaluation. Developing a television-specific set of narrative theories, Complex TV argues that television is the most vital and important storytelling medium of our time. » Browse a gallery of supplemental video clips on the Complex TV website.

NYU Press

Over the past two decades, new technologies, changing viewer practices, and the proliferation of genres and channels has transformed American television. One of the most notable impacts of these shifts is the emergence of highly complex and elaborate forms of serial narrative, resulting in a robust period of formal experimentation and risky programming rarely seen in a medium that is typically viewed as formulaic and convention bound.    Complex TV offers a sustained analysis of the poetics of television narrative, focusing on how storytelling has changed in recent years and how viewers make sense of these innovations. Through close analyses of key programs, including The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Veronica Mars, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Mad Men the book traces the emergence of this narrative mode, focusing on issues such as viewer comprehension, transmedia storytelling, serial authorship, character change, and cultural evaluation. Developing a television-specific set of narrative theories, Complex TV argues that television is the most vital and important storytelling medium of our time.

How To Watch Television

Thompson, Ethan

New York University Press

Narrative Theory and Adaptation. (Film Theory in Practice)

Narrative Theory and Adaptation offers a concise introduction to narrative theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Spike Jonze's critically acclaimed 2002 film Adaptation. 
Understanding narrative theory is crucial to make sense of the award-winning film Adaptation. The book explicates, in clear prose for beginners, four key facets important to the narrative theory of film: the distinction between practical vs. critical theory, the role of adaptation, the process of narrative comprehension, and notions of authorship. It then works to unlock Adaptation using these four keys in succession, considering how the film demands a theoretical understanding of the storytelling process. In using this unusual case study of a film, the author makes the case for the importance of narrative theory as a general perspective for filmmakers, critics, and viewers alike.

Bloomsbury Academic

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mittell, Jason. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mittell, Jason

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mittell, Jason. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Television and American Culture

Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture

Genre and Television

Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling

Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling

Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture

How To Watch Television

Narrative Theory and Adaptation. (Film Theory in Practice)

Narrative Theory and Adaptation. (Film Theory in Practice)