The Critical Viewing Of Television

Representing a significant survey and evaluation of major media literacy projects in the U.S. and selected countries throughout the world, this book covers all aspects of critical viewing skills. It provides comprehensive, theoretical and historical background about the field, the criteria for its evaluation, and various structured programs including the CVS projects and programs sponsored by school districts, individuals, non-governmental national organizations, and private companies. The book can serve as a guide for curriculum planners as well as teachers in the classroom and adult workshops -- and also parents and individual adult viewers -- in applying the best match of theories, practices, readings, and specific exercises to monitor and enhance television's role.

Designed to increase adults' understanding of television and to develop their critical viewing skills, this text explores persuasion and presentation techniques, the programming policy of television stations, and potential effects of violence, sex, and commercials on the viewer. Also presents critical awareness exercises. The book does not advocate turning off the set, but, rather, encourages self-control.

First published in 1976, Television: The Critical View set the foundation for the serious study of television, becoming the gold standard of anthologies in the field. With this seventh edition, editor Horace Newcomb has moved the book from one merely intended to legitimize the critical inquiryof television to a text that reflects how complex critical approaches to television have become today. Comprised of virtually all new selections that deal with both classic and contemporary programming, the seventh edition adds new material on television history, the reception context of television, and international programming such as Chinese soap operas and Brazilian telenovelas. Television: The Critical View remains a well established and critically acclaimed text essential for courses in critical studies, communication studies, cultural studies, media history, television criticism, television history, and broadcasting.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A course of study designed to improve understanding of how television works and the effect it has on society.

This original and engaging book investigates American television viewing habits as a distinct cultural form. Based on an empirical study of the day-to-day use of television by working people, it develops a unique theoretical approach integrating cultural sociology, post modernism and the literature of media effects to explore the way in which people give meaning to their viewing practices. While recognising the power of television, it also emphasises the importance of the social and political factors which affect the lives of individual viewers, showing how the interaction between the two can result in a disengagement with corporately produced culture at the same time as an appropriation of the images themselves into people's lives.