TV Genres – serie

Despite its enduring popularity with both broadcasters and audiences, the quiz show has found itself marginalised in studies of popular television. This book offers a unique introduction to the study of the quiz show, while also revisiting, updating and expanding on existing quiz show scholarship. Ranging across programmes such as Double Your Money, The $64,000 Dollar Question, Twenty-One, The Price is Right, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link to the controversial 'Quiz TV Call' phenomenon, the book explores programmes with a focus on question and answer. Topics covered include the relationship between quiz shows and television genre; the early broadcast history of the quiz show; questions of institutional regulation; quiz show aesthetics; the social significance of 'games'; 'ordinary' people as television performers, and questions of quiz show reception (from interactivity to on-line fandom). Key Features*Represents one of few book-length studies of the quiz show*Offers an accessible introduction to the genre for undergraduate students*Draws upon new archival research in order to contribute to knowledge about the early history of the quiz show*Demonstrates why the quiz show matters to Television Studies*Brings together key approaches in the field with new interventions and areas of study (such as the quiz show in the multi-platform age, and the study of 'ordinary' people as performers).

Is reality TV a coherent genre? This book addresses this question by examining the characteristics, contexts and breadth of reality TV through a history of its programming trends. Paying attention to stylistic connections as well as key concepts, this study breaks reality television down into three main 'generations': the camcorder generation, the competition generation and the celebrity generation. Beginning with a consideration of the applicability of the term 'genre' for this televisual hybrid, the book takes a transnational approach to investigating the forms and formats of reality TV framed by relevant popular and critical discourses. Key Questions* What formal characteristics broadly define reality TV?* Can reality TV be considered a genre when it relies so heavily on mixing together elements of establishes television genres, film practices and even industries unrelated to television, such as pop music and modelling?* How can the genealogy of reality TV programming trends help us to understand the cultural discourses and concepts with which reality TV is associated. e.g. surveillance, performance, voyeurism, celebrity and even reality itself?

Even though sitcom has been a consistent staple of broadcasting the world over, rigorous academic work on it as a genre remains limited. This book examines sitcom as an industry in terms of production, audiences and texts, drawing on a range of examples and case studies in order to examine the genre's characteristics, social position, and pleasures. In highlighting this long-lasting and popular form of television, it offers insights into genre theory and explores how the comic aim of sitcom forms a central characteristic of the genre.Brett Mills takes a global view of sitcom, examining international examples as well as those produced by the more dominant British and American broadcasting industries, in order to explore the relationships between sitcom, nation, and identity. Sitcoms considered include Extras, My Family, Curb Your Enthusiasm, One Foot in the Grave, Peep Show, Summer Heights High, Popetown, and Friends.Key Features*Draws on original research into the television industry, incorporating interviews with sitcom writers, directors and producers*Includes research on audience responses to sitcom, with reference to offence, pleasure, and social change*Offers detailed textual analyses of a range of programmes, drawing on Humour Theory to explore the ways in which jokes and comic moments work*Outlines the future for sitcom, considering new media developments and the changing relationships between broadcasters and audiences.

Dobson and Ward's Animation examines animation as one of the most pervasive categories of television, introducing students - and the undergraduate reader in particular - to central debates about and approaches to studying television animation.

Dobson and Ward's Animation examines animation as one of the most pervasive categories of television, introducing students - and the undergraduate reader in particular - to central debates about and approaches to studying television animation.

The television crime drama has been a constant of the television landscape since it first migrated from film and radio onto the small screen in the 1950s. Since then, from Dixon of Dock Green to The Wire, from Minder to The Sopranos or Cracker to Dexter, the crime drama has continued to attract large audiences even as the depiction of the crime, the perpetrators and the investigators has changed. This book provides an historical analysis of the TV crime series as a genre by paying close attention not only to the nature of TV dramas themselves, but also to the context of production and reception. Rather than simply providing an overview, this book offers a series of case studies to illuminate key issues in the trajectory of the genre. Particular attention will be paid to the transnational career of the television crime drama, including the British and American product, as well as attention to crime drama series produced in other national contexts such as Europe and Australia. In terms of reception, this book includes original research on how the TV crime drama is perceived by audiences within the particular national context of Australia where American, British and European crime dramas vie for attention in the TV schedule alongside the local product. Finally, the future of the TV crime series is canvassed in a discussion of the changing television landscape and the shift to other forms of TV consumption enabled by new digital technologies.

The television crime drama has been a constant of the television landscape since it first migrated from film and radio onto the small screen in the 1950s. Since then, from Dixon of Dock Green to The Wire, from Minder to The Sopranos or Cracker to Dexter, the crime drama has continued to attract large audiences even as the depiction of the crime, the perpetrators and the investigators has changed. This book provides an historical analysis of the TV crime series as a genre by paying close attention not only to the nature of TV dramas themselves, but also to the context of production and reception. Rather than simply providing an overview, this book offers a series of case studies to illuminate key issues in the trajectory of the genre. Particular attention will be paid to the transnational career of the television crime drama, including the British and American product, as well as attention to crime drama series produced in other national contexts such as Europe and Australia. In terms of reception, this book includes original research on how the TV crime drama is perceived by audiences within the particular national context of Australia where American, British and European crime dramas vie for attention in the TV schedule alongside the local product. Finally, the future of the TV crime series is canvassed in a discussion of the changing television landscape and the shift to other forms of TV consumption enabled by new digital technologies.

Period drama is a genre of prestige and pleasure, realism and fantasy, spectacle and intimacy. It is embedded in national pasts but speaks to the present, tracing connections, continuities, and change. It reconstructs and reimagines the spaces and places of the past and considers how lives were shaped by the classed, raced and gendered structures of society. Period drama is invested in the bodily and emotional experience of the past, it delights in the intricacies and textures of clothing, the erotics of the gaze and moments of touch. It is often viewed as a genre of escape, nostalgia and traditionalism. Yet it has the potential to challenge dominant cultural narratives and explore under-represented histories, helping to reshape our understandings of our own histories.  This book maps out the dominant debates surrounding television period drama. Through a series of themed programme case studies it charts the genre’s investments and preoccupations, considering its place within television industries and contemporary culture.