Television: Critical Methods and Applications

Television introduces students to the processes through which television tells stories, presents news, and sells products to its viewers. This accessible and student-friendly text explains how television constructs meaning and encourages readers to incorporate critical thinking into their TV viewing. Television contains hundreds of illustrations from current and classic TV programs, and a companion Web site (www.TVcrit.com) supplements the text with color frame grabs and illustrative video clips. New for this second edition is a chapter discussing television commercials and updated examples from recent television programs.

This text examines how videography, acting, lighting, set design, editing, and sound work together to produce the meanings that viewers take away from their television experience, while also providing critical and historical contexts to explain how critical methods have been applied to the medium. Television is intended for courses in television critical studies, and is also suitable for media and screen studies.