Television Criticism

by Victoria O'Donnell

• ISBN13: 9781412991056
• ISBN10: 1412991056
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-09
• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc

Summary

Television Criticism presents a four-part original treatment of television criticism with a foundational approach to the nature of criticism. Readers gain an understanding of the business of television, production background in creating television style, and are presented with in-depth chapters on storytelling, narrative theories and television genres.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Orientation	p. 7
The Work of the Critic	p. 9
Introduction	p. 9
The Ends of Criticism	p. 9
Journalistic Television Criticism	p. 10
The Critical Stance	p. 11
Criticism and Culture	p. 13
Narrative and Contextual Reality	p. 14
Critical Categories and Critical Choices	p. 17
The Business of Television	p. 18
The Familiar and the Unfamiliar in Television	p. 19
Critical Orientation	p. 19
Summary	p. 20
Exercises	p. 21
Suggested Readings	p. 22
Demystifying the Business of Television	p. 23
Introduction	p. 23
The Role of Advertising, Ratings, and Schedules	p. 24
Advertising	p. 24
Ratings	p. 24
Categories of Ratings	p. 27
Demographics	p. 27
Public Television and Ratings	p. 28
Ratings and the Cost of Advertising	p. 28
The Sweeps	p. 29
Why Television Shows Get Renewed or Canceled	p. 30
Ratings in the Summer	p. 31
The Strategies of Television Advertising	p. 31
Product Promotion Within Television Programs	p. 33
Product Placement	p. 34
Scheduling and Advertising	p. 35
Noncommercial Channels	p. 36
The Production of a Television Show	p. 36
Production Houses	p. 36
Pilots and the "Pitch"	p. 37
The Production Team	p. 38
The Producer	p. 38
Writers	p. 39
The Writer's Treatment	p. 41
Directors	p. 42
Casting	p. 43
Putting a Show Into Production	p. 43
Summary	p. 45
Exercises	p. 46
Suggested Readings	p. 47
Formal Aspects of Television	p. 49
Television Style	p. 51
Introduction	p. 51
Length of Shot and Framing	p. 51
Multi-Camera Production	p. 53
Reaction Shots	p. 53
Lighting	p. 54
Production on Film Versus Digital Video	p. 55
Style, Reception, and Digital Video Practices	p. 56
Modes of Presentation	p. 58
Television Sound and Editing	p. 59
Production Styles	p. 60
Art Direction	p. 60
The Split Screen	p. 63
Directors	p. 63
Actors	p. 64
Summary	p. 64
Exercises	p. 65
Suggested Readings	p. 66
Television, the Nation's Storyteller	p. 67
Introduction	p. 67
Storytelling and the Human Condition	p. 69
The Nature of Narrative	p. 71
Narrative Theories	p. 72
Aristotle's Narrative Theory	p. 72
Propp's Narrative Theory	p. 73
Barthes's Narrative Theory	p. 73
Narrative Structure	p. 75
Intertextuality	p. 76
Characters	p. 77
Archetypes	p. 79
Myth	p. 81
Close Analysis of Narrative Structure	p. 86
Summary	p. 86
Exercises	p. 87
Suggested Readings	p. 88
Television Genres	p. 89
Introduction	p. 89
Television Genre, Production, and Scheduling	p. 90
The Rules for Classifying Genres	p. 90
Genre and Television Criticism	p. 92
Comedy	p. 93
Situation Comedy	p. 93
Animated Situation Comedy	p. 102
Variety Comedy	p. 103
Talk Shows	p. 103
Nighttime Talk Shows	p. 103
Daytime Talk Shows	p. 104
Information Talk Shows	p. 104
News	p. 105
National and World News	p. 105
Local News	p. 106
News-Talk	p. 107
24-Hour News	p. 107
Magazine Shows	p. 108
News-Talk-Entertainment	p. 108
Investigative or Public Affairs	p. 108
Celebrity News	p. 109
Drama	p. 109
Crime Shows (Detective, Police, FBI, and Forensic Science)	p. 110
Workplace Drama	p. 111
Family Drama	p. 111
Hybrid Drama	p. 112
Teleplays and Telefilms	p. 112
Docudrama	p. 113
Soap Opera	p. 113
Science Fiction	p. 115
Reality Shows	p. 115
Sports	p. 117
Children's Television	p. 117
Game Shows	p. 118
Other Genres	p. 119
Summary	p. 119
Exercises	p. 120
Suggested Readings	p. 121
Theoretical Approaches to Television Criticism	p. 123
Rhetoric and Culture	p. 125
Introduction	p. 125
Rhetoric	p. 126
Classical Rhetoric	p. 127
Rhetoric Through the Ages	p. 128
Intentionality	p. 129
The Symbolic Nature of Rhetoric	p. 129
The Rhetoric of Kenneth Burke	p. 130
Television Rhetoric	p. 132
Rhetoric and Values	p. 133
Cultural Studies	p. 135
British Cultural Studies	p. 137
Power, Ideology, and Hegemony	p. 138
Hall's Encoding/Decoding Model	p. 139
The Codes of Television Production	p. 141
Decoding and Pleasure	p. 143
Summary	p. 144
Exercises	p. 145
Suggested Readings in Rhetoric	p. 146
Suggested Readings in Cultural Studies	p. 147
Representation and Its Audience	p. 149
Introduction	p. 149
What Is Representation?	p. 150
Television Representation	p. 150
Interpreting Representation	p. 151
Reception of Televisual Images	p. 152
Symbols	p. 153
The Illusion of Reality	p. 153
The Need for Images	p. 154
Representation of the "Other"	p. 155
Advice for Television Critics	p. 158
Representation and Collective Memory	p. 160
Summary	p. 161
Exercises	p. 162
Suggested Readings	p. 163
Postmodernism	p. 165
Introduction	p. 165
Postmodernism Defined	p. 166
Postmodern Television	p. 168
MTV	p. 170
MTV Reinvented	p. 172
MTV's Influences	p. 173
Postmodern Theories	p. 173
Summary	p. 176
Exercises	p. 177
Suggested Readings	p. 178
Critical Applications	p. 179
Guidelines for Television Criticism	p. 181
Introduction	p. 181
Critical Orientation	p. 182
Story and Genre	p. 182
Organization	p. 184
Opening Segment	p. 184
The Structure of the Program	p. 188
Demographics	p. 188
Context	p. 189
The Look of the Program and Its Codes	p. 190
Analysis	p. 192
Judgment	p. 194
Writing Television Criticism	p. 194
Summary	p. 195
Sample Criticism of a Television Program: Parenthood	p. 197
Introduction	p. 197
Thesis	p. 197
Purpose	p. 198
Description of Parenthood	p. 198
Production Information	p. 200
Description of the Episode	p. 201
Questions for Analysis	p. 203
Analysis and Interpretation	p. 204
Story, Substance, and Context	p. 204
Representation	p. 208
Demographics and Viewer Involvement	p. 209
Summary	p. 210
Glossary	p. 211
References	p. 217
Index	p. 227
About the Author	p. 239
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