Television: Critical Methods and Applications - Softcover

Butler, Jeremy G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805842098 ISBN 13: 9780805842098

Publisher: Routledge, 2001

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

"This is, quite simply, the best book out there for teaching introductory TV courses. The text is well-conceived and engaging, and Butler does a superb job of illustrating the formal and aesthetic structures of television in a clear and readable manner."

--Tara McPherson, Associate Professor, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

"Written with clarity and wit, Television surveys a range of ways of analyzing a medium which young people, although they consume it voraciously, seldom scrutinize. It can help make students more sensitive and critical consumers of the major mass medium of our time."

--David Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor of Film Studies, Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin–Madison

"Television is a terrific book with wide student appeal. Butler explains critically sophisticated ideas in clear, accessible language, with concrete examples that bring those ideas to life. The book's substance, structure and 'user-friendly' design make it the best all-around book for teaching students how to think about television."

--Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, Professor, University of Oregon

Synopsis

Television presents students with an understanding of how television constructs meaning and encourages them to incorporate critical thinking into their TV viewing. It provides essential critical and historical context, lucidly explaining how different critical methods have been applied to the medium (e.g., genre study, ideological criticism, cultural studies) and how televisions style has evolved over the decades. Utilizing hundreds of illustrations from TV programs, this book introduces students to the varied ways in which TV goes about telling stories, presenting news, and selling products. In clear and lively prose, it shows how cinematography and videography, acting, lighting, set design, editing, and sound all come together to produce the meanings that we take away from our television experience. For students, teachers, and general readers alike, Television delivers a critical toolkit for analyzing this ubiquitous medium.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805842098
• ISBN 13: 9780805842098
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 408