The O.C., A Critical Understanding, by Lori Bindig and Andrea M. Bergstrom, is a feminist cultural studies analysis of FOX’s hit teen television drama The O.C. (2003-2007). Episodes of The O.C. are analyzed as a set of media texts that blur the boundaries between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic content. This analysis utilizes ancillary media such as director commentary in conjunction with content in order to understand how ideological content, in regards to gender, race, class, sexuality, ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!How The Beatles Came To AmericaFamous television Master of Ceremonies, Ed Sullivan first learns I have written a book about him and his show when I hand him a finished manuscript. Naively, I imagine he'll be flattered, but when he reads it, he's furious. I am revealing more about him, more backstage gossip and more details about the inner workings of the show than he wants made public.Fortunately f...

Nearly every night on every major network,"unscripted" (but carefully crafted) "reality" TV shows routinely glorify retrograde stereotypes that most people would assume got left behind 35 years ago.In Reality Bites Back, media critic Jennifer L. Pozner aims a critical, analytical lens at a trend most people dismiss as harmless fluff. She deconstructs reality TV's twisted fairytales to demonstrate that far from being simple "guilty pleasures," these programs are actually gu...

A critical and commercial hit, Revenge has a rabid and rapidly growing fan base. It’s consistently the #1 show in its timeslot and it’s ABCs biggest primetime hit since Lost, the first series in four years to match that show’s success in the coveted 18-49 demographic.A fast-paced and complicated character-driven show with many plot twists and unanswered questions, fans will welcome insight and analysis into Emily Thorne’s master plan in this intelligent but playful companion to the...

"[Bischoff] shines in his behind-the-scenes explorations" of the Emmy and Golden Globe winner in "an earnest, endearing homage to an outstanding actor" ( Kirkus Reviews).James Gandolfini: The Real Life of the Man Who Made Tony Soprano is the first biography of the actor who died, in June 2013 at age 51, widely recognized as one of the best—and most defining—actors of his generation. The book is informed by fresh interviews with Sopranos actors, the...

"A loving and breezy set of essays" on today's most addictive TV shows from "an incisive and hilarious critic" ( Slate).Television is not what it once was. Award-winning author and critic Clive James spent decades covering the medium, and witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming, and in the very manner in which TV is watched.Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysi...

2013 Hugo Award nominee... The sister book to the 2011 Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords... In Chicks Unravel Time, editors Deborah Stanish (Whedonistas) and L.M. Myles bring together a host of award-winning female writers, media professionals and scientists to examine each season of new and classic Doctor Who from their unique perspectives. Diana Gabaldon discusses how Jamie McCrimmon inspired her best-selling Outlander series, and Barbara Hambly (Benjamin January ...

The birth and development of commercial television in Cuba in the 1950s occurred alongside political and social turmoil. In this period of dramatic swings encompassing democracy, a coup, a dictatorship, and a revolution, television functioned as a beacon and promoter of Cuba’s identity as a modern nation. In Broadcasting Modernity, television historian Yeidy M. Rivero shows how television owners, regulatory entities, critics, and the state produced Cuban modernity for television. ...

The complete and groundbreaking "The L Word" is now out on DVD and this book makes the perfect companion, covering the series in its entirety. "Loving The L Word" picks up where Reading "The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television" (I.B. Tauris, 2006) left off. With new, updated chapters by many of the same television writers and scholars who contributed to the first volume, as well as essays by some newcomers, "Loving The L Word" explores the series' quantum contribution to the ongoing evo...

Using extensive interviews, hundreds of transcripts, focus-group discussions with viewers, and his own experiences as an audience member, Joshua Gamson argues that talk shows give much-needed, high-impact public visibility to sexual nonconformists while also exacerbating all sorts of political tensions among those becoming visible. With wit and passion, Freaks Talk Back illuminates the joys, dilemmas, and practicalities of media visibility."This entertaining, accessible, so...

“My name is Joe, and I AM Canadian!” How did a beer ad featuring an unassuming guy in a plaid shirt become a national anthem? This book about Canadian TV examines how affect and consumption work together, producing national practices framed by the television screen. Drawing on the new field of affect theory, Feeling Canadian: Television, Nationalism, and Affect tracks the ways that ideas about the Canadian nation flow from screen to audience and then from body to body.From...

Style matters. Television relies on style—setting, lighting, videography, editing, and so on—to set moods, hail viewers, construct meanings, build narratives, sell products, and shape information. Yet, to date, style has been the most understudied aspect of the medium. In this book, Jeremy G. Butler examines the meanings behind television’s stylstic conventions.Television Style dissects how style signifies and what significance it has had in specific television contexts. U...