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Preface | |
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Acknowledgments | |
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Introduction | |
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Orientation | |
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The Work of the Critic | |
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Introduction | |
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The Ends of Criticism | |
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Journalistic Television Criticism | |
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The Critical Stance | |
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Criticism and Culture | |
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Narrative and Contextual Reality | |
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Critical Categories and Critical Choices | |
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The Business of Television | |
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The Familiar and the Unfamiliar in Television | |
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Critical Orientation | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Demystifying the Business of Television | |
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Introduction | |
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The Role of Advertising, Ratings, and Schedules | |
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Advertising | |
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Ratings | |
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Categories of Ratings | |
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Demographics | |
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Public Television and Ratings | |
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Ratings and the Cost of Advertising | |
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The Sweeps | |
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Why Television Shows Get Renewed or Canceled | |
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Ratings in the Summer | |
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The Strategies of Television Advertising | |
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Product Promotion Within Television Programs | |
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Product Placement | |
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Scheduling and Advertising | |
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Noncommercial Channels | |
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The Production of a Television Show | |
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Production Houses | |
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Pilots and the "Pitch" | |
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The Production Team | |
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The Producer | |
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Writers | |
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The Writer's Treatment | |
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Directors | |
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Casting | |
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Putting a Show Into Production | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Formal Aspects of Television | |
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Television Style | |
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Introduction | |
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Length of Shot and Framing | |
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Multi-Camera Production | |
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Reaction Shots | |
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Lighting | |
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Production on Film Versus Digital Video | |
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Style, Reception, and Digital Video Practices | |
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Modes of Presentation | |
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Television Sound and Editing | |
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Production Styles | |
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Art Direction | |
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The Split Screen | |
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Directors | |
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Actors | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Television, the Nation's Storyteller | |
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Introduction | |
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Storytelling and the Human Condition | |
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The Nature of Narrative | |
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Narrative Theories | |
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Aristotle's Narrative Theory | |
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Propp's Narrative Theory | |
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Barthes's Narrative Theory | |
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Narrative Structure | |
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Intertextuality | |
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Characters | |
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Archetypes | |
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Myth | |
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Close Analysis of Narrative Structure | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Television Genres | |
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Introduction | |
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Television Genre, Production, and Scheduling | |
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The Rules for Classifying Genres | |
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Genre and Television Criticism | |
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Comedy | |
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Situation Comedy | |
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Animated Situation Comedy | |
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Variety Comedy | |
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Talk Shows | |
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Nighttime Talk Shows | |
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Daytime Talk Shows | |
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Information Talk Shows | |
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News | |
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National and World News | |
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Local News | |
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News-Talk | |
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24-Hour News | |
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Magazine Shows | |
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News-Talk-Entertainment | |
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Investigative or Public Affairs | |
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Celebrity News | |
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Drama | |
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Crime Shows (Detective, Police, FBI, and Forensic Science) | |
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Workplace Drama | |
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Family Drama | |
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Hybrid Drama | |
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Teleplays and Telefilms | |
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Docudrama | |
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Soap Opera | |
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Science Fiction | |
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Reality Shows | |
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Sports | |
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Children's Television | |
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Game Shows | |
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Other Genres | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Theoretical Approaches to Television Criticism | |
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Rhetoric and Culture | |
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Introduction | |
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Rhetoric | |
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Classical Rhetoric | |
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Rhetoric Through the Ages | |
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Intentionality | |
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The Symbolic Nature of Rhetoric | |
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The Rhetoric of Kenneth Burke | |
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Television Rhetoric | |
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Rhetoric and Values | |
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Cultural Studies | |
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British Cultural Studies | |
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Power, Ideology, and Hegemony | |
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Hall's Encoding/Decoding Model | |
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The Codes of Television Production | |
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Decoding and Pleasure | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings in Rhetoric | |
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Suggested Readings in Cultural Studies | |
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Representation and Its Audience | |
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Introduction | |
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What Is Representation? | |
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Television Representation | |
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Interpreting Representation | |
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Reception of Televisual Images | |
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Symbols | |
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The Illusion of Reality | |
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The Need for Images | |
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Representation of the "Other" | |
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Advice for Television Critics | |
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Representation and Collective Memory | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Postmodernism | |
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Introduction | |
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Postmodernism Defined | |
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Postmodern Television | |
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MTV | |
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MTV Reinvented | |
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MTV's Influences | |
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Postmodern Theories | |
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Summary | |
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Exercises | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Critical Applications | |
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Guidelines for Television Criticism | |
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Introduction | |
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Critical Orientation | |
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Story and Genre | |
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Organization | |
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Opening Segment | |
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The Structure of the Program | |
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Demographics | |
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Context | |
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The Look of the Program and Its Codes | |
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Analysis | |
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Judgment | |
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Writing Television Criticism | |
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Summary | |
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Sample Criticism of a Television Program: Parenthood | |
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Introduction | |
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Thesis | |
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Purpose | |
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Description of Parenthood | |
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Production Information | |
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Description of the Episode | |
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Questions for Analysis | |
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Analysis and Interpretation | |
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Story, Substance, and Context | |
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Representation | |
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Demographics and Viewer Involvement | |
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Summary | |
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Glossary | |
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References | |
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Index | |
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About the Author | |