“The invention, or the quaint piece of furniture, wandered into our lives in the 1940s, as a primitive plaything, a clever if awkward addition to the household. It was expensive, unreliable and a bit of an invalid.” —Television, A Biography In just a few years, what used to be an immobile piece of living room furniture, which one had to sit in front of at appointed times in order to watch sponsored programming on a finite number of channels, morphed into a glowing cloud of screens with access to a near-endless supply of content available when and how viewers want it. With this phenomenon now a common cultural theme, a writer of David Thomson’s stature delivering a critical history, or “biography” of the six-decade television era, will be a significant event which could not be more timely. With Television, the critic and film historian who wrote what Sight and Sound's readers called “the most important film book of the last 50 years” has finally turned his unique powers of observation to the medium that has swallowed film whole. Over twenty-two thematically organized chapters, Thomson brings his provocatively insightful and unique voice to the life of what was television. David Thomson surveying a Boschian landscape, illuminated by that singular glow—always “on”—and peopled by everyone from Donna Reed to Dennis Potter, will be the first complete history of the defining medium of our time.
"Isn't Downton Abbey better when you watch it with a friend? This book is every Anglophile's companion guide to the best British television to watch right now.
As the title implies, the business of television rather than its programming is the focus of this historical dictionary. Its entries briefly relate the histories of production companies, networks, cable...
But today's television is very different from the TV our grandparents knew. Using a product that kids are familiar with, Television, this book introduces kids to the concept of innovation and its impact on their everyday life.
This book presents a comprehensive overview of the development of television technology, the growth of the broadcast and cable industries, the evolution of television programming, and the impact of television...
Television entertainment rules supreme, one of the world's most important disseminators of information, ideas, and amusement. More than a parade of little figures in a box, it is deeply embedded...
Examining the broadcasting traditions of the UK and USA, 'The Television History Book' make connections between events and tendencies that both unite and differentiate these national broadcasting traditions.
In America, As Seen on TV, Clara E. Rodríguez surveys international college students and foreign nationals working or living in the US to examine the impact of American television on their views of the US and on their expectations of life ...
This book challenges the notion that housework functions primarily as a mechanism through which female characters are marginalized, devalued, invisible, or passive, instead proposing a reading that brings to the fore the strength, often ...
Tribal Television: Viewing Native People in Sitcoms
For models of hope, this volume acknowledges the civic discourse that has thrived in the margins of public broadcasting--in the independent community and in the homespun programming of the public access movement.