How to Watch TV News

Author: Neil Postman
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0143113771
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A scathing and prescient look at television news' now updated for the new tech-savvy generation Television news : genuine information or entertainment fodder? Fifteen years ago, Neil Postman, a pioneer in media education and author of the bestselling Amusing Ourselves to Death, and Steve Powers, an award-winning broadcast journalist, concluded that anyone who relies exclusively on their television for accurate world news is making a big mistake. A cash cow laden with money from advertisers, so-called news shows glut viewers with celebrity coverage at the cost of things they really should know. Today, this message is still appallingly true but the problems have multiplied, along with the power of the Internet and the abundance of cable channels. A must-read for anyone concerned with the way media is manipulating our worldview, this newly revised edition addresses the evolving technology and devolving quality of America's television news programming.

How to Watch TV News

Author: Neil Postman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143113771
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

That's the Way It Is

Author: Charles L. Ponce de Leon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022642152X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
Ever since Newton Minow taught us sophisticates to bemoan the descent of television into a vast wasteland, the dyspeptic chorus of jeremiahs who insist that television news in particular has gone from gold to dross gets noisier and noisier. Charles Ponce de Leon says here, in effect, that this is misleading, if not simply fatuous. He argues in this well-paced, lively, readable book that TV news has changed in response to broader changes in the TV industry and American culture. It is pointless to bewail its decline. "That s the Way It Is "gives us the very first history of American television news, spanning more than six decades, from Camel News Caravan to Countdown with Keith Oberman and The Daily Show. Starting in the latter 1940s, television news featured a succession of broadcasters who became household names, even presences: Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Peter Jennings, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and, with cable expansion, people like Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, and Bill O Reilly. But behind the scenes, the parallel story is just as interesting, involving executives, producers, and journalists who were responsible for the field s most important innovations. Included with mainstream network news programs is an engaging treatment of news magazines like "60 Minutes" and "20/20, " as well as morning news shows like "Today" and "Good Morning America." Ponce de Leon gives ample attention to the establishment of cable networks (CNN, and the later competitors, Fox News and MSNBC), mixing in colorful anecdotes about the likes of Roger Ailes and Roone Arledge. Frothy features and other kinds of entertainment have been part and parcel of TV news from the start; viewer preferences have always played a role in the evolution of programming, although the disintegration of a national culture since the 1970s means that most of us no longer follow the news as a civic obligation. Throughout, Ponce de Leon places his history in a broader cultural context, emphasizing tensions between the public service mission of TV news and the quest for profitability and broad appeal."

How to Watch Television, Second Edition

Author: Ethan Thompson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479898813
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
A new edition that brings the ways we watch and think about television up to the present 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, Second Edition brings together forty original essays—more than half of which are new to this edition—from today’s leading scholars on television culture, who write about the programs they care (and think) the most about. Each essay focuses on a single television show, demonstrating one way to read the program and, through it, our media culture. From fashioning blackness in Empire to representation in Orange is the New Black and from the role of the reboot in Gilmore Girls to the function of changing political atmospheres in Roseanne, these 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, streaming, and cable. Addressing shows from TV’s earliest days to contemporary online transformations of the medium, How to Watch Television, Second Edition is designed to engender classroom discussion among television critics of all backgrounds. To access additional essays from the first edition, visit the "links" tab at nyupress.org/9781479898817/how-to-watch-television-second-edition/.

Action Theory and Communication Research

Author: Karsten Renckstorf
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110197383
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 387

Book Description
The action theoretical approach has already proved its value as a framework for communication research, most especially in the study of media audiences and media use. It has deep roots in Weberian sociology, symbolic interactionism and phenomenology and it has been a robust survivor of the various storms that have beset the practice of the social sciences since the collapse of structuralist and social system paradigms. The social action approach privileges the perspective of the acting individual but offers guidelines for connecting the subjective orientation with networks of social interaction and for treating 'behaviour' as a social process. Research within this framework takes account of the wider social context and calls for a careful combination of empirical observation and interpretation, with a corresponding diversity of methodologies. The appeal of the approach stems also from its flexibility, wide range of applications and sensitivity to cultural and social meanings. The contributions assembled in this book, despite their diversity, can all be placed within the framework of social action theory. Some are reports of empirical inquiries, others reflections on theory but each one sheds some light on the significance of media use in everyday experience and contributes to an understanding of communication in society.

Weekly World News

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44

Book Description
Rooted in the creative success of over 30 years of supermarket tabloid publishing, the Weekly World News has been the world's only reliable news source since 1979. The online hub www.weeklyworldnews.com is a leading entertainment news site.

TV News 3.0

Author: Zafar Siddiqi
Publisher: Blue Magpie Books
ISBN: 1912937069
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
The future of television news is now. Are you ready for it? Television news - which has played a crucial role in the world’s most momentous events, from wars and royal weddings to mankind’s first steps on the Moon - is in the midst of a digital-fuelled revolution. In its early years, TV news was monopolised by large corporations and state broadcasters, who controlled what went on air and when. Then technological advances in the 1980s enabled billionaires like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch to muscle in and beam 24-hour news channels across the world via cable and satellite. Today, we are living through a third, turbulent iteration: streaming over the internet is radically changing how television is produced, watched and delivered. It has so dramatically lowered the costs of entry into what was once the exclusive domain of governments, multinationals and tycoons that almost anyone can now set up their own global news channel. But in such a fragmented world, awash with “fake news”, who and what can we trust? In this stimulating and authoritative study, Zafar Siddiqi - who has launched and run four news channels across three continents - discusses the profound implications of this new era. Aimed at entrepreneurs, media students, industry insiders and anyone interested in TV news and its effect on humankind, it serves as a step-by-step guide for launching a news channel in the digital age. They say that revolutions do not come with a manual. This one does.

How To Watch Television

Author: Ethan Thompson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814763987
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
Examines social and cultural phenomena through the lens of different television shows 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.

Communication Research Measures

Author: Rebecca B. Rubin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000149382
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Book Description
The development of communication as a discipline has resulted in an explosion of scales tapping various aspects of interpersonal, mass, organizational, and instructional communication. This sourcebook brings together scales that measure a variety of important communication constructs. The scales presented are drawn from areas of interpersonal, mass, organizational, and instructional communication--areas in which the use of formal, quantitative scales is particularly well developed. Communication Research Measures reflects the recent important emphasis on developing and improving the measurement base of the communication discipline. It results in an equal amount of labor saved on the part of the scholars, students, and practitioners who find this book useful, and it contributes in a significant way to research efforts. Originally published by Guilford Press in 1994, now available from Routledge.

True Story

Author: Danielle J. Lindemann, PhD
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720967
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Book Description
Named a Best Nonfiction Book of 2022 by Esquire A sociological study of reality TV that explores its rise as a culture-dominating medium—and what the genre reveals about our attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality What do we see when we watch reality television? In True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, the sociologist and TV-lover Danielle J. Lindemann takes a long, hard look in the “funhouse mirror” of this genre. From the first episodes of The Real World to countless rose ceremonies to the White House, reality TV has not just remade our entertainment and cultural landscape (which it undeniably has). Reality TV, Lindemann argues, uniquely reflects our everyday experiences and social topography back to us. Applying scholarly research—including studies of inequality, culture, and deviance—to specific shows, Lindemann layers sharp insights with social theory, humor, pop cultural references, and anecdotes from her own life to show us who we really are. By taking reality TV seriously, True Story argues, we can better understand key institutions (like families, schools, and prisons) and broad social constructs (such as gender, race, class, and sexuality). From The Bachelor to Real Housewives to COPS and more (so much more!), reality programming unveils the major circuits of power that organize our lives—and the extent to which our own realities are, in fact, socially constructed. Whether we’re watching conniving Survivor contestants or three-year-old beauty queens, these “guilty pleasures” underscore how conservative our society remains, and how steadfastly we cling to our notions about who or what counts as legitimate or “real.” At once an entertaining chronicle of reality TV obsession and a pioneering work of sociology, True Story holds up a mirror to our society: the reflection may not always be pretty—but we can’t look away.