Arts / Mass Media / Television / History & Criticism

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

by Neil Postman & Andrew Postman

Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman's groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in...

The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy

by Bill Carter

The New York Times bestselling author of The Late Shift delivers "a boisterous, two-timing, high-stakes drama about the business of comedy" (The Associated Press).

No one is more uniquely suited to document...

Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV

by Warren Littlefield

Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, ER, Cheers, Law & Order, Will & Grace…Here is the funny, splashy, irresistible insiders’ account of the greatest era in television history -- told by the actors, writers, directors,...

Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems

by Rod Carveth, James B. South & William Irwin

A look at the philosophical underpinnings of the hit TV show, Mad Men

With its swirling cigarette smoke, martini lunches, skinny ties, and tight pencil skirts, Mad Men is unquestionably one of the most stylish,...

Live From New York: An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live

by Tom Shales

WHEN A YOUNG WRITER named Lorne Michaels talked NBC executives into taking a chance on a new weekend late-night comedy series, nobody really knew what to expect-not even Michaels. But Saturday Night Live, launched...

SH-BOOM!

by Clay Cole

There was a small sliver of time between Be-Bop and Hip-Hop, when a new generation of teenagers created rock 'n' roll. Clay Cole was one of those teenagers he was the host of his own Saturday night, pop music...

The Tube Has Spoken

by Julie Taddeo

Featuring ordinary people, celebrities, game shows, hidden cameras, everyday situations, and humorous or dramatic situations, reality TV is one of the fastest growing and important popular culture trends of...

Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour"

by David Bianculli

An unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the rise and fall of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour -- the provocative, politically charged program that shocked the censors, outraged the White House, and forever...

You're Lucky You're Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom

by Phil Rosenthal

The creator and executive producer of Everybody Loves Raymond, on how to make a sitcom classic and keep laughing This laugh-out-loud memoir takes readers backstage and inside the writers’ room of one of...

Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek, and Other Adventures inTV Writing

by Jeffrey Stepakoff

Now in paperback, the riveting behind-the-scenes look at how television shows are really created, from a successful writer-producer

When Jeffrey Stepakoff was graduating with an MFA in playwriting, he imagined...

Season Finale

by Susanne Daniels & Cynthia Littleton

In the mid-1990s, two major Hollywood studios, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, each launched their own broadcast television network with the hope of becoming the fifth major player in an industry long dominated...

Reading Mystery Science Theater 3000: Critical Approaches

by Shelley S. Rees

First broadcast in the not too distant past on a television station in Minnesota, Mystery Science Theater 3000 soon grew out of its humble beginnings and found a new home on cable television. This simple show...

Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic

by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

When writer-producers James L. Brooks and Allan Burns dreamed up an edgy show about a divorced woman with a career, the CBS executives they pitched replied: “American audiences won’t tolerate divorce in...

The A to Z of African-American Television

by Kathleen Fearn-Banks

From Amos 'n' Andy to The Jeffersons to Family Matters, this work covers it all. There are entries on all different genres and performers. Additionally, information can be found on general issues, ranging from...

Global Media: The Television Revolution in Asia

by James D. White

This book is about the processes of globalization, demonstrated through a comparative study of three television case histories in Asia. Also illustrated are different approaches to providing television services...

Justice Provocateur: Jane Tennison and Policing in Prime Suspect

by Gray Cavender & Nancy C. Jurik

Justice Provocateur focuses on Prime Suspect, a popular British television film series starring Oscar and Emmy award-winning actress Helen Mirren as fictional London policewoman Jane Tennison. Gray Cavender...

The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who Change

by Alan Sepinwall

ONE OF NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CRITIC MICHIKO KAKUTANI’S 10 FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

ONE OF HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’S 12 BEST HOLLYWOOD-RELATED BOOKS OF THE YEAR

In The Revolution Was Televised, celebrated TV critic...

The O.C.: A Critical Understanding

by Lori B. Bindig & Andrea M. Bergstrom

The O.C.: A Critical Understanding, by Lori Bindig and Andrea M. Bergstrom, is a feminist cultural studies analysis of the hit television series The O.C. (2003-2007). The show is examined in terms of five ideological...

Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time

by Howard Kurtz

America is awash in talk. Loud talk, angry talk, conspiratorial talk that has changed the nature of journalism and politics, producing a high-decibel revolution in the way we communicate. In this fascinating,...

Locating Television Today

by Anna Cristina Pertierra & Graeme Turner

Locating Television: Zones of Consumption takes an important next step for television studies: it acknowledges the growing diversity of the international experience of television today in order to address the...