Victoria O′Donnell 
Television Criticism [EPUB ebook] 

Television Criticism, Third Edition by Victoria O’Donnell provides a foundational approach to the nature of television criticism. Rhetorical studies, cultural studies, representation, narrative theories, and postmodernism are established for greater understanding and appreciation of the critical perspectives on television. Illustrated with contemporary examples, this updated
Third Edition includes a new, extensive sample critical analysis of The Big Bang Theory and reflects recent changes in the ways television is viewed across multiple devices and the impact of the Internet on television.

İçerik tablosu

PART I: ORIENTATION

Chapter 1: The Work of the Critic

Introduction

The Ends of Criticism

Journalistic Television Criticism

The Critical Stance

Criticism and Culture

Narrative and Contextual Reality

Critical Categories and Critical Choices

The Familiar and the Unfamiliar in Television

Critical Orientation

Chapter 2: Demystifying the Business of Television

Introduction

The Impact of the Internet and the Role of Advertising, Schedules, and Ratings

The Strategies of Television Advertising

Product Promotion Within Television Programs

Product Placement

Scheduling and Advertising

The Production of a Television Show

The Production Team

PART II: FORMAL ASPECTS OF TELEVISION

Chapter 3: Production Techniques and Television Style

Introduction

Length of Shot and Framing

Multi-Camera Production

Reaction Shots

Lighting

Production on Film Versus Digital Video

Style, Reception, and Digital Video Practices

Camera Choice Follows Function

Television Sound and Editing

Production Styles

Art Direction

The Split Screen

Directors

Actors

Chapter 4: Television, the Nation’s Storyteller

Introduction

Storytelling and the Human Condition

The Nature of Narrative

Narrative Theories

Narrative Structure

Intertextuality

Characters

Archetypes

Myth

Chapter 5: Television Genres

Introduction

Television Genre, Production, and Scheduling

The Rules for Classifying Genres

Genre and Television Criticism

Comedy

Talk Shows

News

Magazine Shows

Drama

Soap Opera

Science Fiction

Reality Shows

Sports

Children’s Television

Game Shows

Other Genres

PART III: THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO TELEVISION CRITICISM

Chapter 6: Rhetoric and Culture

Introduction

Rhetoric

Cultural Studies

Chapter 7: Representation and Its Audience

Introduction

What Is Representation?

Television Representation

Interpreting Representation

Reception of Televisual Images

Symbols

The Illusion of Reality

The Need for Images

Representation of the “Other”

Advice for Television Critics

Representation and Collective Memory

Chapter 8: Postmodernism

Introduction

Postmodernism Defined

Postmodern Television

The Influence of MTV

Postmodern Theories

PART IV: CRITICAL APPLICATIONS

Chapter 9: Guidelines for Television Criticism

Introduction

Critical Orientation

Story and Genre

Organization

Demographics

Context

The Look of the Program and Its Codes

Analysis

Judgment

Writing Television Criticism

Chapter 10: Sample Criticism of a Television Program: The Big Bang Theory—Season 8, Episode 824, “The Commitment Determination”

Introduction

Thesis

Purpose

Description of The Big Bang Theory

Production Information

Description of the Episode

Questions for Analysis

Analysis and Interpretation

Yazar hakkında

Victoria O’Donnell is Professor Emerita and former director of the University Honors Program and Professor of Communication at Montana State University–Bozeman. She also taught a seminar in television criticism for the School of Film and Photography at Montana State University. Previously she was the chair of the Department of Speech Communication at Oregon State University and chair of the Department of Communication and Public Address at the University of North Texas. In 1988 she taught for the American Institute of Foreign Studies at the University of London. She received her Ph D from the Pennsylvania State University. She has published articles and chapters in a wide range of journals and books on topics concerning persuasion, the social effects of media, women in film and television, British politics, Nazi propaganda, collective memory, cultural studies theory, and science fiction films of the 1950s. She is also the author (with June Kable) of Persuasion: An Interactive-Dependency Approach, Propaganda and Persuasion (with Garth Jowett), Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion: New and Classic Essays (co-edited with Garth Jowett), Television Criticism, and Speech Communication. She made a film, Women, War, and Work: Shaping Space for Productivity in the Shipyards During World War II, for PBS through KUSM Public Television at Montana State University. She has also written television scripts for environmental films and has done voice-overs for several PBS films. She served on editorial boards of several journals. The recipient of numerous research grants, honors, and teaching awards, including being awarded the Honor Professorship at North Texas State University and the Montana State University Alumni Association and Bozeman Chamber of Commerce Award of Excellence, she has been a Danforth Foundation Associate and a Summer Scholar of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has taught in Germany and has been a visiting lecturer at universities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Wales. She has also served as a private consultant to the U.S. government, a state senator, the tobacco litigation plaintiffs, and many American corporations. She is an active volunteer with Intermountain Therapy Animals, taking her Golden Retriever, Gabriel, to the elementary schools where the children read to the dog in the R.E.A.D. program. She writes children’s stories about Gabriel. She is currently writing a novel about Ireland.