The Forgotten Network PDF Download

Author: David Marc
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812202716
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In Demographic Vistas, David Marc shows how we can take television seriously within the humanist tradition while enjoying it on its own terms. To deal with the barrage of messages from television's chaotic history, Marc adapts tools of theatrical and literary criticism to focus on key personalities and genres in ways that reward serious students and casual viewers alike. This updated edition includes a new foreword by Horace Newcomb and a new introduction by the author that discusses the ways in which the nature of television criticism has changed since the book's original publication in 1984. A new final chapter explores the paradox of the diminishing importance of over-the-air broadcasting during the period of television's greatest expansion, which has been brought about by complex technologies such as cable, videocassette recorders, and online services.

Author: David Weinstein
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9781592134991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
"The heart of David Weinstein's book examines DuMont's programs and personalities, including Dennis James, Captain Video, Morey Amsterdam, Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners, Ernie Kovacs, and Rocky King, Detective. Weinstein uses rare kinescopes, archival photographs, exclusive interviews, trade journal articles, and corporate documents to tell the story of a "forgotten network" that helped invent the very business of network television."--Jacket.

Author: Jeffrey S. Miller
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816632411
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Between Emma Peel and tire Ministry of Silly Walks British television had a significant impact on American popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s. In Something Completely Different, Jeffrey Miller offers the first comprehensive study of British programming on American television, discussing why the American networks imported such series as The Avengers and Monty Python's Flying Circus; how American audiences received these uniquely British shows; and how the shows' success reshaped American television. Miller's lively analysis covers three genres: spy shows, costume dramas, and sketch comedies. In addition to his close readings of the series themselves, Miller considers the networks' packaging of the programs for American viewers and the influences that led to their acceptance, including the American television industry's search for new advertising revenue and the creation of PBS.

Author: Marcel Hénaff
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816633883
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Moving from classical Greece to the present, Public Space and Democracy provides both historical accounts and a comparative analytical framework for understanding public space both as a place and as a product of various media, from speech to the Internet. These essays make a powerful case for thinking of modern technological developments not as the end of public space, but as an opportunity for reframing the idea of the public and of the public space as the locus of power.

Author: David Marc
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812215601
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
"Quite simply, a tour de force--a wonderful synthesis of history and criticism."--Daniel Czitrom, author of Media and the American Mind "A cooly sophisticated analysis . . . of American televsion."--American Studies International In Demographic Vistas, David Marc shows how we can take television seriously within the humanist tradition while enjoying it on its own terms. To deal with the barrage of messages from television's chaotic history, Marc adapts tools of theatrical and literary criticism to focus on key personalities and genres in ways that reward serious students and casual viewers alike. This updated edition includes a new foreword by Horace Newcomb and a new introduction by the author that discusses the ways in which the nature of television criticism has changed since the book's original publication in 1984. A new final chapter explores the paradox of the diminishing importance of over-the-air broadcasting during the period of television's greatest expansion, which has been brought about by complex technologies such as cable, videocassette recorders, and online services. From reviews of the first edition-- "Demographic Vistas analyzes television in the tradition of a Gilbert Seldes or Michael Arlen. Exhibiting fluency in television history, theories of culture, and American literature, the book offers a thoughtful, idiosyncratic interpretation of television's life so far in American culture."--Critical Studies in Mass Communication "Marc does a good job of drawing links between the American literary tradition and television themes, which illustrate that television texts are not isolated from the critical mainstream of American creative efforts. . . . These links illustrate that television texts offer themselves to much the same analytical forms as any other literary endeavor."--Southern Speech Communication Journal David Marc is Adjunct Professor, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, and Visiting Professor, School of Theater, Film and Television, University of California, Los Angeles.

Author: Anthony Harkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198033431
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
In this pioneering work of cultural history, historian Anthony Harkins argues that the hillbilly-in his various guises of "briar hopper," "brush ape," "ridge runner," and "white trash"-has been viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the modern order and as a keeper of traditional values of family, home, and physical production, and thus symbolic of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life. "Hillbilly" signifies both rugged individualism and stubborn backwardness, strong family and kin networks but also inbreeding and bloody feuds. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American popular culture, from D. W. Griffith to hillbilly music to the Internet, Harkins illustrates how the image of the hillbilly has consistently served as both a marker of social derision and regional pride. He traces the corresponding changes in representations of the hillbilly from late-nineteenth century America, through the great Depression, the mass migrations of Southern Appalachians in the 1940s and 1950s, the War on Poverty in the mid 1960s, and to the present day. Harkins also argues that images of hillbillies have played a critical role in the construction of whiteness and modernity in twentieth century America. Richly illustrated with dozens of photographs, drawings, and film and television stills, this unique book stands as a testament to the enduring place of the hillbilly in the American imagination. Hillbilly received an Honorable Mention, John G. Cawelti Book Award of the American Culture Association.

Author: Robert Allen
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807898872
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
Since its original publication in 1987, Channels of Discourse has provided the most comprehensive consideration of commercial television, drawing on insights provided by the major strands of contemporary criticism: semiotics, narrative theory, reception theory, genre theory, ideological analysis, psychoanalysis, feminist criticism, and British cultural studies. The second edition features a new introduction by Robert Allen that includes a discussion of the political economy of commercial television. Two new essays have been added--one an assessment of postmodernism and television, the other an analysis of convergence and divergence among the essays--and the original essays have been substantially revised and updated with an international audience in mind. Sixty-one new television stills illustrate the text. Each essay lays out the general tenets of its particular approach, discusses television as an object of analysis within that critical framework, and provides extended examples of the types of analysis produced by that critical approach. Case studies range from Rescue 911 and Twin Peaks to soap operas, music videos, game shows, talk shows, and commericals. Channels of Discourse, Reassembled suggests new ways of understanding relationships among television programs, between viewing pleasure and narrative structure, and between the world in front of the television set and that represented on the screen. The collection also addresses the qualities of popular television that traditional aesthetics and quantitative media research have failed to treat satisfactorily, including its seriality, mass production, and extraordinary popularity. The contributors are Robert C. Allen, Jim Collins, Jane Feuer, John Fiske, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, James Hay, E. Ann Kaplan, Sarah Kozloff, Ellen Seiter, and Mimi White.

Author: Jim Cullen
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583673784
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 526

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Book Description
"Cullen's strength comes from his understanding of how the different strands of American society intertwine in imaginative, unpredictable ways ... The shape and vitality of pop culture's next era will depend, at least in part, on commentators like Cullen." —Washington Post Book World "A thoroughly engaging look at American culture ... Cullen's articulate prose is spiced with wicked wit and he loves a good story ... Demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of complex cultural forces." —Publishers Weekly "Reflecting both the strengths and weaknesses of an unusually dynamic area of historical scholarship, The Art of Democracy is one of the best surveys of the history of American popular culture." —Journal of American History "An exceptionally well-written and engrossing introduction to the nonelitist art forms of American popular culture ... Highly recommended." —Library Journal, starred review "Should be kept on hand to restore our faith in the things that matter to us." —American Studies Popular culture has been a powerful force in the United States, resonating within the society as a whole and at the same time connecting disparate and even hostile constituencies. The novels of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the theater and minstrel shows of the mid-19th century, movies and the introduction of television and computers in the 20th century are the building blocks that Jim Cullen uses to show how unique and vibrant cultural forms overcame initial resistance and enabled historically marginalized groups to gain access to the fruits of society and recognition from the mainstream. This updated edition contains a new preface and final chapter which traces the history of contemporary computing from its World War II origins as a military tool to its widespread use in the late 20th century as a tool for the masses. Cullen shows how the computer is reshaping popular culture, and how that culture retains its capacity to surprise and disturb. The highly acclaimed first edition of The Art of Democracy won the 1996 Ray and Pat Brown Award for "Best Book," presented by the Popular Culture Association.

Author: Richard Howells
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509518819
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
This is a book about how to read visual images: from fine art to photography, film, television and new media. It explores how meaning is communicated by the wide variety of texts that inhabit our increasingly visual world. But, rather than simply providing set meanings to individual images, Visual Culture teaches readers how to interpret visual texts with their own eyes. While the first part of the book takes readers through differing theoretical approaches to visual analysis, the second part shifts to a medium-based analysis, connected by an underlying theme about the complex relationship between visual culture and reality. Howells and Negreiros draw together seemingly diverse methodologies, while ultimately arguing for a polysemic approach to visual analysis. The third edition of this popular book contains over fifty illustrations, for the first time in colour. Included in the revised text is a new section on images of power, fear and seduction, a new segment on video games, as well as fresh material on taste and judgement. This timely edition also offers a glossary and suggestions for further reading. Written in a clear, lively and engaging style, Visual Culture continues to be an ideal introduction for students taking courses in visual culture and communications in a range of disciplines, including media and cultural studies, sociology, and art and design.

Author: Sam Staggs
Publisher: Kensington
ISBN: 149671959X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
For decades, the Gabor dynasty was the epitome of glamour and fairy tale success. But as biographer, film historian, and Gabor family friend Sam Staggs reveals, behind the headlines is a true story more dramatic, fabulous, and surprising than their self-styled legend would have you believe . . . In 1945, after barely escaping Hitler’s invasion of Hungary followed by “liberation” of the country by the Red Army, three members of the Gabor family—Jolie, her ex-husband Vilmos, and their daughter Magda—arrived in New York City. In Hollywood, their other daughters, Zsa Zsa and Eva, had worked feverishly throughout the war years to secure their rescue from the Nazis’ plan to exterminate the Jews. Stepping off the boat, Jolie, the iron-willed matriarch, already had a golden future mapped out for her sharp-witted, cosmopolitan beauties. Over the next six decades, with twenty-three husbands between them (suave All About Eve star George Sanders would wed both Zsa Zsa and Magda), scores of lovers, and roller-coaster rides in film, television, theater, and business, the elegant yet gloriously bawdy, addictively watchable Gabors carved a niche in the entertainment industry that made them world-famous pop-culture icons. But beneath the artifice of Dior and diamonds was another side to the story they never revealed: the whole truth. This first verifiable history of the Gabors casts a startling new light on these extraordinary women. Finding Zsa Zsa reveals the tumultuous and often unforgiven battles between mother and daughter, sister and sister, wife and husband; Eva’s “bearded” romance with Merv Griffin that allowed them both to seek same-sex lovers; Zsa Zsa's involuntary confinement in a mental hospital; her life-long struggle with bipolar disorder; and her last—unconsummated—marriage to the manipulating faux prince Frederic von Anhalt. Here too is the untold story of Zsa Zsa’s daughter, Francesca Hilton, a gifted photographer who eschewed the Gabor lifestyle and paid a sad price for her independence. The story of family patriarch Vilmos Gabor, who returned to Hungary only to be trapped behind the Iron Curtain, reads like a Cold War spy thriller. Culled from new interviews with family, colleagues, and confidantes, and the unpublished memoirs of the author's friend Francesca Hilton, Finding Zsa Zsa finally introduces fans to the Gabor family they never knew, including many never-before-seen photos. It’s a riveting, outrageously funny, bittersweet, and affectionately honest read of four women who were vulnerable, tough, charitable, endlessly fascinating, and always glamorous to a fault.