Creating Television brings television and its creators to life, presenting fascinating in-depth interviews with the creators of American TV. Having interviewed more than 100 television professionals over the course of his 15 years of research, Professor Robert Kubey presents here the 40 conversations that provide the most illuminating insights about the industry and the people working in it. These interviews bring television's creators to life, revealing their backgrounds, work, and thoughts about the audience and the television programs they create. Each interview tells a compelling tale of an individual's struggles and successes within a complex collaborative and highly commercial medium, offering readers rare insights on the human component in television's development. Featured in this volume are actors, agents, writers, directors, producers, and executives, representing television's earliest days through to the present day. Spanning shows from I Love Lucy and The Tonight Show through to Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and The Sopranos, these creators share the stories of how they gained entry to the industry and built their careers, offering readers a rare opportunity to meet, up close, the people involved in creating many of the most famous and successful programs in the medium's history, and linking the creators' personal histories to the television programs they create. With its unique insights on the people responsible for making television, this volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers in television history, sociology of culture, human creativity, television production, media studies, and mass media ethics. It will also be a popular reader for undergraduate and graduate students in courses addressing television, mass culture, media and society, American Studies, creativity, television history, and media ethics.
Creating Televisionpresents fascinating, personal, in-depth interviews with 40 leading television creators from television's earliest days through to the present day, and in so doing, television and its creators come to life on the page.
Employing a unique research methodology that enables people to report on their normal activities as they occur, the authors examine how people actually use and experience television -- and how television viewing both contributes to and detracts from the quality of everyday life. Studied within the natural context of everyday living, and drawing comparisons between television viewing and a variety of other daily activities and leisure pursuits, this unusual book explores whether television is a boon or a detriment to family life; how people feel and think before, during, and after television viewing; what causes television habits to develop; and what causes heavy viewing -- and what heavy viewing causes -- in the short and long term. Television and the Quality of Life also compares the viewing experience cross-nationally using samples from the United States, Italy, Canada, and Germany -- and then interprets the findings within a broad theoretical and historical framework that considers how information use and daily activity contribute to individual, familial, societal, and cultural development.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, education about and through the media has become a worldwide phenomenon, and is playing an increasingly important role in educational reform. The theory and practice of media education have profited greatly from recent and intensive development and application of new information and telecommunications technologies. Consequently, the importance of media and information literacy is taking on an even greater urgency. With this in mind, the contributors to this volume survey what has taken place over the last decade in different parts of the world, examine the current state of theoretical, conceptual, and research development, and consider where media education is going and where it ought to go. With two-thirds of its 22 contributions coming from outside the United States, Media Literacy in the Information Age is a genuine international effort, with many leading media and information educators in the world taking part. The work converts the notion of globalism from a slogan into a working hypothesis. The concerns in this volume are with literacy not just in computer technology, but as a broad concern of the educational process.
Creating Television brings television and its creators to life, presenting fascinating in-depth interviews with the creators of American TV. Having interviewed more than 100 television professionals over the course of his 15 years of research, Professor Robert Kubey presents here the 40 conversations that provide the most illuminating insights about the industry and the people working in it. These interviews bring television's creators to life, revealing their backgrounds, work, and thoughts about the audience and the television programs they create. Each interview tells a compelling tale of an individual's struggles and successes within a complex collaborative and highly commercial medium, offering readers rare insights on the human component in television's development. Featured in this volume are actors, agents, writers, directors, producers, and executives, representing television's earliest days through to the present day. Spanning shows from I Love Lucy and The Tonight Show through to Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and The Sopranos, these creators share the stories of how they gained entry to the industry and built their careers, offering readers a rare opportunity to meet, up close, the people involved in creating many of the most famous and successful programs in the medium's history, and linking the creators' personal histories to the television programs they create. With its unique insights on the people responsible for making television, this volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers in television history, sociology of culture, human creativity, television production, media studies, and mass media ethics. It will also be a popular reader for undergraduate and graduate students in courses addressing television, mass culture, media and society, American Studies, creativity, television history, and media ethics.
This reference work defines more than 1,200 terms and concepts that have been found useful in past research and theory on the nonprofit sector. The entries reflect the importance of associations, citizen participation, philanthropy, voluntary action, nonprofit management, volunteer administration, leisure, and political activities of nonprofits. They also reflect a concern for the wider range of useful general concepts in theory and research that bear on the nonprofit sector and its manifestations in the United States and elsewhere. This dictionary supplies some of the necessary foundational work on the road toward a general theory of the nonprofit sector.
Let me place on your radar screen an issue that for most people goes by unnoticed. Every day it is there for all of us to see and hear ? if we can just notice it for that first time. This is the rising use of media, the use of media in abusive, penetrating ways. Our freedom to choose whether or not we consume that media is taken away from us.
The popularity of American television programs and feature films in the international marketplace is widely recognized but scarcely understood. Existing studies have not sufficiently explained the global power of the American media nor its actual effects. In this volume, Scott Robert Olson tackles the issue head on, establishing his thesis that the United States' competitive advantage in the creation and global distribution of popular taste is due to a unique mix of cultural conditions that are conducive to the creation of "transparent" texts--narratives whose inherent polysemy encourage diverse populations to read them as though they are indigenous. Olson posits that these narratives have meaning to so many different cultures because they allow viewers in those cultures to project their own values, archetypes, and tropes into the movie or television program in a way that texts imported from other cultures do not, thus enabling the import to function as though it were an indigenous product. As an innovative volume combining postcolonial and postmodern theory with global management strategic theory, Hollywood Planet is one of the first studies that attempts to account theoretically for numerous recent ethnographic studies that suggest different interpretations of television programs and film by a variety of international audiences. Relevant to studies in media theory and other areas of the communication discipline, as well as anthropology, sociology, and related fields, Hollywood Planet contains a powerful and original argument to explain the dominance of American media in the global entertainment market.
Discover how easy it can be to drop those unwanted pounds by flipping the switch that revs up metabolism to maximize fat burning all day long Could losing weight really be as simple as flipping a switch? Absolutely, says Dr. Robert Cooper, one of America's leading weight-loss researchers. The trouble with most popular diet-and-exercise programs is that they boot up the metabolic thermostat, or Meta-Stat (an area in the brain that regulates metabolism), for only short spurts. The rest of the time the body is in fat-storing mode. But if our Meta-Stat stays on 24 hours a day, we burn fat constantly—and build energy as well. In Flip the Switch, Lose the Weight, Dr. Cooper reveals scientifically proven strategies that enable us to turn on our Meta-Stat and maintain optimum metabolism all day long. This groundbreaking book: • provides an easy 20-minute exercise plan that gently works the body differently on successive days for maximum fat-burning, energy-generating effect • allows you to customize your weight-loss program based on your goals and lifestyle preferences • provides an exclusive "Success Map" for you to chart your progress • includes complete meal plans and more than 100 recipes, all designed to fuel the Meta-Stat for maximum fat burning
This book provides academic reformers with a blueprint for tackling the upheaval facing media education. It calls for a new professionalism that rejects the status quo, reflects the mission and diversity of individual programs, and demands a redefinition of both traditional media studies and the liberal arts.
Once we bowled in leagues, usually after work -- but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified in this brilliant volume, Bowling Alone, which The Economist hailed as "a prodigious achievement." Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures -- whether they be PTA, church, or political parties -- have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe. Like defining works from the past, such as The Lonely Crowd and The Affluent Society, and like the works of C. Wright Mills and Betty Friedan, Putnam's Bowling Alone has identified a central crisis at the heart of our society and suggests what we can do.
Long considered a classic in its field, this thoroughly updated sixth edition presents new material on gerontology. Atchley examines ageing from both an individual and societal perspective and emphasizes ageing as a social process.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, education about and through the media has become a worldwide phenomenon, and is playing an increasingly important role in educational reform. The theory and practice of media education have profited greatly from recent and intensive development and application of new information and telecommunications technologies. Consequently, the importance of media and information literacy is taking on an even greater urgency. With this in mind, the contributors to this volume survey what has taken place over the last decade in different parts of the world, examine the current state of theoretical, conceptual, and research development, and consider where media education is going and where it ought to go. With two-thirds of its 22 contributions coming from outside the United States, Media Literacy around the World is a genuine international effort, with many leading media and information educators in the world taking part. The work converts the notion of globalism from a slogan into a working hypothesis. The concerns in this volume are with literacy not just in computer technology, but as a broad concern of the educational process.
Political Pathologies from The Sopranos to Succession argues that highly praised prestige TV shows reveal the underlying fantasies and contradictions of uppermiddle-class political centrists. Through a psychoanalytic interpretation of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, House of Cards, Dexter, Game of Thrones, and Succession, Robert Samuels uncovers how moderate “liberals” have helped to produce and maintain the libertarian Right. Samuels’ analysis explores the difference between contemporary centrists and the foundations of liberal democracy, exposing the myth of the “liberal media” and considers the consequences of these celebrated series, including the undermining of trust in modern liberal democratic institutions. Political Pathologies from The Sopranos to Succession contributes to a greater understanding of the ways media and political ideology can circulate on a global level through the psychopathology of class consciousness. This book will be of great interest to academics and scholars considering intersections of psychoanalytic studies, television studies, and politics.
Understanding Audiences helps readers to recognize the important role that media plays in their lives and suggests ways in which they may use media constructively. Author Robert H. Wicks considers the relationship between the producers and the receivers of media information, focusing on how messages shape perceptions of social reality. He analyzes how contemporary media--including newspapers, film, television, and the Internet--vie for the attention of the audience members, and evaluates the importance of message structure and content in attracting and maintaining the attention of audiences. Wicks also examines the principles associated with persuasive communication and the ways in which professional communicators frame messages to help audiences construct meaning about the world around them. Among other features, this text: * describes the processes associated with human information processing; * presents an analysis of the principles associated with social learning in children and adults and explores the possibility that media messages may cultivate ideas, attitudes, and criticisms of this perspective; * explains how most media messages are framed to highlight or accentuate specific perspectives of individuals or organizations--challenging the notion of objectivity in media information messages; * considers the effects of media exposure, such as whether the contemporary media environment may be partially responsible for the recent rash of school violence among young people; * analyzes the Internet as an interactive medium and considers whether it has the potential to contribute to social and civic disengagement as it substitutes for human interaction; and * evaluates the principles of the uses and gratifications approach as they apply to the new media environment, including traditional media as well as popular genres like talk shows and developing media systems such as the Internet. Intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students who need to understand the nature of the media and how they interact with these messages, Understanding Audiences promotes the development of media literacy skills and helps readers to understand the processes associated with engaging them in media messages. It also offers them tools to apply toward the shaping of media in a socially constructive way.
The question of what types of children are most influenced by -- or can best benefit from -- television is a recurrent theme in the scientific literature as well as a frequently raised issue for pediatric associations, educators, and parent/citizen groups concerned about the welfare and advancement of young children. To effectively address this question, this book focuses on a wide variety of children with highly divergent cognitive abilities, social skills, and educational capacities -- that is, those labeled as emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, mentally retarded, and intellectually gifted. These children not only possess characteristics that place them at the greatest risk with regard to television's negative impact, but also in a position to most benefit from the purposeful use of the medium at home and in the classroom. Combining literature from the fields of mass communication, developmental psychology, and special education, the authors present a comprehensive analysis of television and its "forgotten audience." Practical implications and applications in the home and school are also extracted from research findings making this volume a valuable resource for students, educators, and researchers in the fields of communication and special education, and for the parents and teachers of exceptional children.
Research suggests that parents & educators of gifted children should consider TV as a potentially positive & negative force in their child's life. This monograph covers: TV viewing habits of high ability children; how high ability children process TV information; the reality perceptions of high ability students; parental mediation of viewing; separate research summaries & prescriptions for parents & teachers; & 32 pages of TV activities specifically designed for home & school use.
This book won the Ohio Professional Writer's, Inc. 2014 Communication Competition Award Now in its second edition, The Televiewing Audience is a user's guide for the only household appliance that doesn't come with one. Watching television seems relatively effortless - it is, after all, a major form of entertainment in the U.S. and overseas - yet this book argues that there is nothing simple about watching television; it is a learned activity which is in a constant state of revision and upgrading. Now more than ever, televiewing requires the generation and application of critical thinking to guide program selection, inform appreciation, generate greater pleasure, and inspire dialogue after consumption. This book is about becoming a more thoughtful and informed consumer, designed to shatter the anonymity of the televiewer, and to create a sense of community, for we rarely think of ourselves as instrumental in the televiewing experience or think of the experience as a shared event. Designed for courses related to broadcasting, media effects, media literacy, and audience studies, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the ways in which television influences the way we think about ourselves and our culture. It places us center-stage in the extremely complicated, competitive, creative, and costly endeavor that is television.
This comprehensive guide to child therapy provides a thorough introduction to the principles and practice of psychotherapy with children and adolescents. It provides balanced coverage of child therapy theory, research, and practice. Adopting an integrated approach, the authors bring both the science of evidence-based practice and the art of therapy into each chapter.
Media Control: News as an Institution of Power and Social Control challenges traditional (and even some radical) perceptions of how the news works. While it's clear that journalists don't operate objectively ? reporters don't just cover news, but they make it ? Media Control goes a step further by arguing that the cultural institution of news approaches and presents everyday information from particular and dominant cultural positions that benefit the power elite. From analysing how the press operate as police agents by conducting surveillance and instituting social order through its coverage of crime and police action to bolstering private business and neoliberal principles by covering the news through notions of boosterism, Media Control presents the news through a cultural lens. Robert E. Gutsche, Jr. introduces or advances readers' applications of critical race theory and cultural studies scholarship to explore cultural meanings within news coverage of police action, the criminal justice system, and embedding into the news democratic values that are later used by the power elite to oppress and repress portions of the citizenry. Media Control helps the reader explicate how the power elite use the press and the veil of the Fourth Estate to further white ideologies and American Imperialism.
Living in a segregated society, white Americans learn about African Americans not through personal relationships but through the images the media show them. The Black Image in the White Mind offers the most comprehensive look at the intricate racial patterns in the mass media and how they shape the ambivalent attitudes of Whites toward Blacks. Using the media, and especially television, as barometers of race relations, Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki explore but then go beyond the treatment of African Americans on network and local news to incisively uncover the messages sent about race by the entertainment industry-from prime-time dramas and sitcoms to commercials and Hollywood movies. While the authors find very little in the media that intentionally promotes racism, they find even less that advances racial harmony. They reveal instead a subtle pattern of images that, while making room for Blacks, implies a racial hierarchy with Whites on top and promotes a sense of difference and conflict. Commercials, for example, feature plenty of Black characters. But unlike Whites, they rarely speak to or touch one another. In prime time, the few Blacks who escape sitcom buffoonery rarely enjoy informal, friendly contact with White colleagues—perhaps reinforcing social distance in real life. Entman and Rojecki interweave such astute observations with candid interviews of White Americans that make clear how these images of racial difference insinuate themselves into Whites' thinking. Despite its disturbing readings of television and film, the book's cogent analyses and proposed policy guidelines offer hope that America's powerful mediated racial separation can be successfully bridged. "Entman and Rojecki look at how television news focuses on black poverty and crime out of proportion to the material reality of black lives, how black 'experts' are only interviewed for 'black-themed' issues and how 'black politics' are distorted in the news, and conclude that, while there are more images of African-Americans on television now than there were years ago, these images often don't reflect a commitment to 'racial comity' or community-building between the races. Thoroughly researched and convincingly argued."—Publishers Weekly "Drawing on their own research and that of a wide array of other scholars, Entman and Rojecki present a great deal of provocative data showing a general tendency to devalue blacks or force them into stock categories."—Ben Yagoda, New Leader Winner of the Frank Luther Mott Award for best book in Mass Communication and the Robert E. Lane Award for best book in political psychology.
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