That's the Way It Is
That's the Way It Is

Author: Charles L. Ponce de Leon

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-09-09

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 022642152X

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Ever since Newton Minow taught us sophisticates to bemoan the descent of television into a vast wasteland, the dyspeptic chorus of jeremiahs who insist that television news in particular has gone from gold to dross gets noisier and noisier. Charles Ponce de Leon says here, in effect, that this is misleading, if not simply fatuous. He argues in this well-paced, lively, readable book that TV news has changed in response to broader changes in the TV industry and American culture. It is pointless to bewail its decline. "That s the Way It Is "gives us the very first history of American television news, spanning more than six decades, from Camel News Caravan to Countdown with Keith Oberman and The Daily Show. Starting in the latter 1940s, television news featured a succession of broadcasters who became household names, even presences: Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Peter Jennings, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, and, with cable expansion, people like Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, and Bill O Reilly. But behind the scenes, the parallel story is just as interesting, involving executives, producers, and journalists who were responsible for the field s most important innovations. Included with mainstream network news programs is an engaging treatment of news magazines like "60 Minutes" and "20/20, " as well as morning news shows like "Today" and "Good Morning America." Ponce de Leon gives ample attention to the establishment of cable networks (CNN, and the later competitors, Fox News and MSNBC), mixing in colorful anecdotes about the likes of Roger Ailes and Roone Arledge. Frothy features and other kinds of entertainment have been part and parcel of TV news from the start; viewer preferences have always played a role in the evolution of programming, although the disintegration of a national culture since the 1970s means that most of us no longer follow the news as a civic obligation. Throughout, Ponce de Leon places his history in a broader cultural context, emphasizing tensions between the public service mission of TV news and the quest for profitability and broad appeal."

News That Matters
News That Matters

Author: Shanto Iyengar

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-10-15

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 0226388603

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Almost twenty-five years ago, Shanto Iyengar and Donald R. Kinder first documented a series of sophisticated and innovative experiments that unobtrusively altered the order and emphasis of news stories in selected television broadcasts. Their resulting book News That Matters, now hailed as a classic by scholars of political science and public opinion alike, is here updated for the twenty-first century, with a new preface and epilogue by the authors. Backed by careful analysis of public opinion surveys, the authors show how, despite changing American politics, those issues that receive extended coverage in the national news become more important to viewers, while those that are ignored lose credibility. Moreover, those issues that are prominent in the news stream continue to loom more heavily as criteria for evaluating the president and for choosing between political candidates. “News That Matters does matter, because it demonstrates conclusively that television newscasts powerfully affect opinion. . . . All that follows, whether it supports, modifies, or challenges their conclusions, will have to begin here.”—The Public Interest

The Origins of Television News in America
The Origins of Television News in America

Author: Mike Conway

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 9781433106026

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This is the first in-depth look at the development of the television newscast, the most popular source of news for over forty-five years.During the 1940s, most journalists ignored or dismissed television, leaving the challenge to a small group of people working above New York City's Grand Central Terminal. Without the pressures of ratings, sponsors, company oversight, or many viewers, the group refused to recreate newspapers, radio, or newsreels on the new medium. They experimented, argued, tested, and eventually settled on a format to exploit television's strengths. This book documents that process, challenging common myths - including the importance of a popular anchor, and television's inability to communicate non-visual stories - and crediting those whose work was critical in the formation of television as a news format, and illustrating the pressures and professional roadblocks facing those who dare question journalistic traditions of any era. -- Publisher.

The Columbia History of American Television
The Columbia History of American Television

Author: Gary Richard Edgerton

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0231121652

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Richly researched and engaging, The Columbia History of American Television tracks the growth of TV into a convergent technology, a global industry, a social catalyst, a viable art form, and a complex and dynamic reflection of the American mind and character. Renowned media historian Gary R. Edgerton follows the technological progress and increasing cultural relevance of television from its prehistory (before 1947) to the Network Era (1948-1975) and the Cable Era (1976-1994). He considers the remodeling of television's look and purpose during World War II; the gender, racial, and ethnic components of its early broadcasts and audiences; its transformation of postwar America; and its function in the political life of the country. In conclusion, Edgerton takes a discerning look at our current Digital Era and the new forms of instantaneous communication that continue to change America's social, political, and economic landscape.

American Television News: The Media Marketplace and the Public Interest
American Television News: The Media Marketplace and the Public Interest

Author: Steve M. Barkin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-09-16

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 131529091X

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This concise history of the news broadcasting industry will appeal to both students and general readers. Stretching from the "radio days" of the 1920s and 1930s and the early era of television after World War II through to the present, the book shows how commercial interests, regulatory matters, and financial considerations have long shaped the broadcasting business. The network dominance of the 1950s ushered in the new prominence of the "anchorman," a distinctly American development, and gave birth to the "golden age" of TV broadcasting, which featured hard-hitting news and documentaries epitomized by the reports by CBS's Edward R. Murrow. Financial pressures and advertising concerns in the 1960s led the networks to veer away from their commitment to serve the public interest, and "tabloid" television - celebrity, gossip-driven "soft news" - and news "magazines" became increasingly widespread. In the 1980s cable news further transformed broadcasting, igniting intense competition for viewers in the media marketplace. Focusing on both national and local news, this stimulating volume examines the evolution of broadcast journalism. It also considers how new electronic technologies will affect news delivery in the 21st century, and whether television news can still both serve the public interest and maintain an audience.

America, As Seen on TV
America, As Seen on TV

Author: Clara E. Rodríguez

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2018-03-20

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1479818526

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Finalist, 2020 Latino Book Awards, Best Academic Themed Book The surprising effects of American TV on global viewers As a dominant cultural export, American television is often the first exposure to American ideals and the English language for many people throughout the world. Yet, American television is flawed, and, it represents race, class, and gender in ways that many find unfair and unrealistic. What happens, then, when people who grew up on American television decide to come to the United States? What do they expect to find, and what do they actually find? In America, As Seen on TV, Clara E. Rodríguez surveys international college students and foreign nationals working or living in the US to examine the impact of American television on their views of the US and on their expectations of life in the United States. She finds that many were surprised to learn that America is racially and economically diverse, and that it is not the easy-breezy, happy endings culture portrayed in the media, but a work culture. The author also surveys US-millennials about their consumption of US TV and finds that both groups share the sense that American TV does not accurately reflect racial/ethnic relations in the US as they have experienced them. However, the groups differ on how much they think US TV has influenced their views on sex, smoking and drinking. America, As Seen on TV explores the surprising effects of TV on global viewers and the realities they and US millennials actually experience in the US.

Televisuality
Televisuality

Author: John T Caldwell

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2020-08-14

Total Pages: 667

ISBN-13: 1978816227

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Although the "decline" of network television in the face of cable programming was an institutional crisis of television history, John Caldwell's classic volume Televisuality reveals that this decline spawned a flurry of new production initiatives to reassert network authority. Television in the 1980s hyped an extensive array of exhibitionist practices to raise the prime-time marquee above the multi-channel flow. Televisuality demonstrates the cultural logic of stylistic exhibitionism in everything from prestige series (Northern Exposure) and "loss-leader" event-status programming (War and Remembrance) to lower "trash" and "tabloid" forms (Pee-Wee's Playhouse and reality TV). Caldwell shows how "import-auteurs" like Oliver Stone and David Lynch were stylized for prime time as videographics packaged and tamed crisis news coverage. By drawing on production experience and critical and cultural analysis, and by tying technologies to aesthetics and ideology, Televisuality is a powerful call for desegregation of theory and practice in media scholarship and an end to the willful blindness of "high theory."

Television and American Culture
Television and American Culture

Author: Jason Mittell

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13:

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Television and American Culture: An Overview introduces students to the study of television by looking at American television from a cultural perspective. The book is written for intermediate undergraduate and beginning graduate students for a range of television studies courses. Specifically, Mittell discusses television within the following contexts: the economics of the television industry, television's role within American democracy, the formal attributes of a variety of television genres, television as a site of gender and racial identity formation, television's role in everyday life, and the medium's technological and social impacts. The topical arrangement and comprehensive scope of the book differs from other television textbooks, arguing that we must incorporate a range of economic, political, aesthetic, and sociological perspectives to fully comprehend the medium of television.

The American Television Industry
The American Television Industry

Author: Michael Curtin

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1844575756

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The American Television Industry offers a concise and accessible introduction to TV production, programming, advertising, and distribution in the United States. The authors outline how programs are made and marketed, and furthermore provide an insightful overview of key players, practices, and future trends.