An Introduction to Television Studies

by Jonathan Bignell

In this comprehensive textbook, newly updated for its second edition, Jonathan Bignell provides students with a framework for understanding the key concepts and main approaches to Television Studies, including audience research, television history and broadcasting policy, and the analytical study of individual programmes.Features for the second edition glossary of key termskey terms defined in marginssuggestions for further reading at the end of each chapteractivities for use in class or as assignmentsnew and updated case studies discussing advertisements such as the Guinness 'Surfer' ad, approaches to news reporting, television scheduling, and programmes such as Big Brother and Wife Swap.Individual chapters studying television, television histories, television cultures, television texts and narratives, television and genre, television production, postmodern television, television realities, television representation, television you can't see, shaping audiences, television in everyday life.

Genres: Tv

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 19, 2007

Reviews

[Andrew Corsini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was more heavy-going and depressing than I remembered -- or had been expecting -- with the pages seemingly divided between The War on Terror, 9/11 and -- worst of all -- reality TV. There's even a chart informing us the viewing figures for 9/11 across seven networks. What Bignell is interested in -- really interested in -- is how television as a mass-market entertainment medium intersects with what at first seems like ice-cold unmarketable global news; in fact, it all becomes absorbed in the same stream.