Television And Common Knowledge

Television and Common Knowledge considers how television is and can be a vehicle for well-informed citizenship in a fragmented modern society. Grouped into thematic sections, contributors first examine how common knowledge is assumed and produced across the huge social, cultural and geographical gulfs that characterise modern society, and investigate the role of television as the primary medium for the production and dissemination of knowledge. Later contributions concentrate on specific tv genres such as news, documentary, political discussions, and popular science programmes, considering the changing ways in which they attempt to inform audiences, and how they are actually made meaningful by viewers.

Television and Common Knowledge considers how television is and can be a vehicle for well-informed citizenship in a fragmented modern society. Grouped into thematic sections, contributors first examine how common knowledge is assumed and produced across the huge social, cultural and geographical gulfs that characterise modern society, and investigate the role of television as the primary medium for the production and dissemination of knowledge. Later contributions concentrate on specific tv genres such as news, documentary, political discussions, and popular science programmes, considering the changing ways in which they attempt to inform audiences, and how they are actually made meaningful by viewers.

The Poetics of the Common Knowledge focuses on Descartes, Hegel, Freud, and the information theorists, on the one hand, and the poets of the American avant-garde, on the other. This book is a call literally for a new poetry, a new making that manifests the possibility for sense-making in a postmodern condition without universals or absolutes. In such a poetry, fragmentation bespeaks not brokenness but the richness of the world apprehended without the habits of recognition.

`Most cultural analysis focuses on the spectacular and the unusual. Frances Bonner has done us a great service by insisting on - and demonstrating - the importance of everyday TV. Ordinary Television breaks genuinely new ground′ - Toby Miller, New York University In this book, Frances Bonner provides a distinctive angle on a key area of research and teaching across media and cultural studies - the content of television and the relations between television genres and audiences. Hitherto most books on television have focused on drama, or news and current affairs. In other words, they tend to ignore ′ordinary′ television - lifestyle programmes and ′reality TV′, just the sort of programmes which increasing dominate the schedules. In Ordinary Television, Frances Bonner makes a distinctive argument for regarding these disparate shows as a whole. By examining a substantial range of these programmes, Frances Bonner uncovers their shared characteristics, especially through a consideration of the dominant and disguised discources which pervade them. In addition, the comparative nature of her study enables the author to launch a powerful critique of conventional theories in relation to the globalization of television. This book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in television and the media in general.

This book examines television culture in Russia under the government of Vladimir Putin. In recent years, the growing influx into Russian television of globally mediated genres and formats has coincided with a decline in media freedom and a ratcheting up of government control over the content style of television programmes. All three national channels (First, Russia, NTV) have fallen victim to Putin’s power-obsessed regime. Journalists critical of his Chechnya policy have been subject to harassment and arrest; programmes courting political controversy, such as Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech (Svoboda slova) have been taken off the air; coverage of national holidays like Victory Day has witnessed a return of Soviet-style bombast; and reporting on crises, such as the Beslan tragedy, is severely curtailed. The book demonstrates how broadcasters have been enlisted in support of a transparent effort to install a latter-day version of imperial pride in Russian military achievements at the centre of a national identity project over which, from the depths of the Kremlin, Putin’s government exerts a form of remote control. However, central to the book's argument is the notion that because of the changes wrought upon Russian society after 1985, a blanket return to the totalitarianism of the Soviet media has, notwithstanding the tenor of much western reporting on the issue, not occurred. Despite the fact that television is nominally under state control, that control remains remote and less than wholly effective, as amply demonstrated in the audience research conducted for the book, and in analysis of contradictions at the textual level. Overall, this book provides a fascinating account of the role of television under President Putin, and will be of interest to all those wishing to understand contemporary Russian society.

For more than five decades, we've been told by pundits, commentators, advertisers, scholars, and politicians that television is both a window on the world and a mirror reflecting our culture. We've been led to believe that it shows us the world's events through news programs and, through entertainment programs, reflects the preferences, values, beliefs, and understandings shared by most Americans. We're told that if you don't like what you see on TV, don't blame the industry, blame yourself. This book dispels the myth that the television industry is just giving viewers the programming they want to see and, thus, we as viewers are "responsible" for the existence of shows like Fear Factor and yet another Survivor. In fact, Eileen Meehan explains, viewers exert no demand in the market for ratings, advertising slots, program production, or telecasting. She also counters the idea that TV programs reflect our culture directly. Introducing us to the political economy of television, Meehan covers programming, corporate strategies, advertising, the misnomer of "competition" among networks, and organizations that seek more industry accountability. She tells us why TV isn't our fault--and who's really to blame.

'An Introduction to Television Studies' is a comprehensive introduction to the field. It provides resources for thinking about key aspects and introduces institutional, textual, cultural, economic, production and audience-centred ways of looking at television.

Addressing the wide range of programmes and formats from news, to documentary, to popular factual genres, Annette Hill’s new book examines the ways viewers navigate their way through a busy, noisy and constantly changing factual television environment. Restyling Factual TV addresses the wide range of programmes that fall within the category of 'factuality', from politics, to natural history, to reality entertainment. Based on research with audiences of factual TV, primarily in Sweden and the UK, but with reference to other countries such as the US, this book tackles issues such as legitimacy, ethics and value in contemporary news and current affairs, documentary and reality programming. Drawing on the ethics of truth-telling and notions of quality, this wide-ranging, authoritative book expands the debate on popular factual entertainment and will be a welcome addition to the current literature.