How To Watch Television

by Ethan Thompson (Editor), Jason Mittell (Editor), Laurie Ouellette (Contributor)

We all have opinions about the television shows we watch, but television criticism is about much more than simply evaluating the merits of a particular show and deeming it 'good' or 'bad.' Rather, criticism uses the close examination of a television program to explore that program's cultural significance, creative strategies, and its place in a broader social context.

How to Watch Television brings together forty original essays from today's leading scholars on television culture, writing about the programs they care (and think) the most about. Each essay focuses on a particular television show, demonstrating one way to read the program and, through it, our media culture. The essays model how to practice media criticism in accessible language, providing critical insights through analysis--suggesting a way of looking at TV that students and interested viewers might emulate. The contributors discuss a wide range of television programs past and present, covering many formats and genres, spanning fiction and non-fiction, broadcast and cable, providing a broad representation of the programs that are likely to be covered in a media studies course. While the book primarily focuses on American television, important programs with international origins and transnational circulation are also covered.

Addressing television series from the medium's earliest days to contemporary online transformations of television, How to Watch Television is designed to engender classroom discussion among television critics of all backgrounds.

Ethan Thompson is Associate Professor at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. He is the author of Parody and Taste in Postwar American Television Culture, and co-editor of Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era.

Jason Mittell is Associate Professor of Film & Media Culture and American Studies at Middlebury College. He is the author of Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture, Television and American Culture, and Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling (New York University Press, forthcoming).

"There’s quite simply no book out there that can match this in scope and quality. The contributors are a 'Who’s Who' of contemporary television studies, and the prose is engaging and highly readable. If you’re looking for models of how to think about television from a range of perspectives, you need look no further."
-Greg M. Smith, author of Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBeal

Genres: Nonfiction, Tv

432 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2013

Reviews

[Juliana Abaúnza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este es un libro de ensayos sobre diferentes series que analizan aspectos distintos de cada una; de algunas se analizan estilos narrativos y estéticos, de otras se revisa la representación de identidades y políticas, con otras aprovechan para hablar de estructuras y prácticas industriales, y con otras hablan de prácticas como en cuáles medios, con qué tecnologías y de qué formas las vemos. Son ensayos fáciles de leer, nada pesados, que creo que cualquiera (así no trabaje en la industria del entretenimiento) podría disfrutar.

Mis ensayos favoritos fueron el de 'Homicide: Life on the Streets' y el realismo, el de 'Phineas & Ferb', el de 'Jersey Shore' y el ironic viewing, el de 'Battlestar Gallactica' y los fans, pero sobre todo el mejor fue el de 'America’s Next Top Model' y los modelos neoliberales de trabajo.

Cierro con una frase de la introducción de este libro me gustó mucho: “Criticism is not the same as evaluation. You don’t have to like (or dislike) a particular television program to think and write critically about it, and our goal is not to issue a thumb up or down. However, evaluative reactions to a text can be a useful way to get started thinking critically about television, as you attempt to figure out what you are reacting to (or against)”.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting articles on diff TV shows

[Nick Turner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Readable academic survey of U.S. television. Parochial survey of predominantly English-speaking ethnically white television produced by North American corporations. Few recent series. A range of academic articles taking diverse approaches from fannish admiration to critical analysis. I suppose we should applaud this collection for taking a popular medium seriously and making criticism accessible outside the university.

An insight I've picked up (obvious in retrospect) is that some "infinite duration" series have many filler episodes, similar to how love triangle drama fills up the pages of certain novels. Now I wonder if I should watch another 20 episodes of Unforgotten with 1-2 minutes of season plot arc per episode (as beautiful as they are, some filler episodes have 0 minutes of plot arc), or just read a series recap and watch the last two episodes, saving 17 hours.

I don't care for the presentation of the work. The jokey title could work but the introduction raises possibilities which are not realised in the collection - leading to disappointed expectations. I don't object in principle to a specific selection of articles, I just don't think the presentation fits the selection.

I'm reading a review copy from the publisher.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the essay on "One Life to Live" which was one of my favorite soap operas. Also appreciated the essays on" Mad Men: and "Parks and Recreation:. It is a good collection of academic work that covers the various aspects of television and its programming. Many books I have read on the topic focus on a particular genre or television series. This includes sports, reality tv and news programs.
Thought provoking.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rich collection that will broaden your critical faculties and your mind. Well worth a read, especially if you love television.

[LPR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slooooooowwwww burn on this one kids. Such are the indulgences afforded us by only loosely connected nonfiction chapters. I read the biggest chunk during March/April/May 2020 when I was conveniently unable to read anything but nonfiction (like this) or romance novels (on e book, blessed). But then hadn't touched it while in school during fall semester and finished it out just for the Closure over the past week.

I didn't read every single page of this book, but I super super enjoyed the chapters I did read. If I didn't have even a passing familiarity with the TV show the chapter was about I usually skipped it [Life on Mars, Onion News Network]. The chapters on shows I'm very familiar with ranged from 'this is pretty obviously baked into the premise but ok' [The Cosby Show, The Amazing Race] to 'woah woah woah woah wait slow down, yes, wow absolutely' [The Dick Van Dyke Show]. (There was also an Extremely close call with the title 'Autotune the news' which I almost skipped because I'm more familiar with the season two title 'Songify the news', so I'd mistakenly marked it as 'never heard of' instead of the accurate designation, which is ofc 'i know every word to hours of this content and quote it almost daily'). The chapters on stuff I was passingly familiar with [M*A*S*H, Mad Men, Gossip Girl, Glee, 24] were all really interesting. For a book where each chapter was written by a different author, there was a pretty solid consistency of quality, even when the approaches to analysis varied a lot.

I would certainly recommend this to other readers. I think it does a really good job of straddling that line of 'accessible to popular readers' and 'still intellectually engaging, not easy reading'. I do prefer Mittell's book Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, but that's because I liked how indepth and theoretical it is. For a casual approach, or for something you can cherry-pick a few chapters out of inbetween other books, How To Watch Television is great. I, predictably, liked the Social Identity/Cultural Politics section the most, but I was surprised how much I liked the more formalist criticism in the other sections on industry, style, and medium/tech. Or I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised considering how much I liked Complex TV... hmm.

[MH · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of forty short (about ten pages long) case studies of different TV shows, this really falls into the trap for a lot of academic writing about popular culture - despite only being about ten years old, it all feels incredibly dated. Many of the essays use broadcast television as the default production model (streaming networks aren't ever mentioned); international programs are only referenced a few times, and then usually to point out how the UK series and US seasons models differ (reading pieces about product placement and comic adaptation that don't mention KDrama at all makes those pieces feel both dated and poorly researched); and a number of pieces just deal superficially with the text, describe figures from television history, or recap familiar cultural conversations about the shows - they're not always bad, but there isn't much scholarly criticism involved. There are some gems, though, that might be useful for modelling this sort of scholarship for undergraduates (which is how the book sells itself), particularly Laurie Ouellette's Marxist reading of America's Next Top Model; Ron Becker's pairing of Glee and House Hunters International with the "It Gets Better" movement; and Jiwon Ahn's look at how anime operates in American culture.

[Blaine Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Making something like television -- or any pop culture -- an academic engagement can be tricky. This selection of essays are mostly hit or miss: while enlightening, they tend to lean towards dry.

[Victoria Bridenbecker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting articles about different television shows from comedy to science fiction.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

How to Watch Television is an academic book composed of 40 essays written by television scholars teaching and researching in this area. Each essay focuses on a single television show and how that show contributed to the history of television including such things as the style of the show, the way it treats political subjects, or how the show was produced. It covers a wide range of shows both past and present. This book is definitely for people interested in media criticism or uber-television nerds as it goes much beyond the kind of television criticism and analysis you find on the internet or in more mainstream books on the subject. I enjoyed reading it, but I both love television and am a nerdy librarian who doesn't mind reading scholarly writing for fun.

[Maggie Hesseling · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the avid lover of television and criticism, this group of essays is a pleasure to read. Academically written, and covering a variety of different issues. Interesting links are made between theory and the various shows: The realism of murder, music, stereotypes, ideology, nostalgia, technology, and much more. These 40 essays are the perfect way to get through the summer, waiting for the fall line-up to come round.