Television
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 June 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 June 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0108
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 June 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 June 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0108
Introduction
Television began with experimentation a century ago in many countries, though chiefly Britain and the United States. During the 1930s those experimental systems improved dramatically, enabling the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to begin the world’s first scheduled television service in 1936—the United States followed with an improved system five years later. World War II froze television in place with almost no broadcast activity for its duration. After 1945, broadcast television expanded to become the most important news and entertainment medium around the world. Starting about 1970, a variety of alternate ways to distribute television (cable, satellite, and digital) have further extended its reach. TV service is, in fact, ubiquitous save in a very few isolated areas (e.g., North Korea). As defined here, “television” generally means broadcast or satellite/cable-delivered video signals, though thanks to the post-1990 creation of countless home and mobile viewing devices, the viewing audience has splintered. “Networks” include the traditional broadcast ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC—and hundreds of newer (since 1980) cable networks as well. Several factors underlie the citations in this bibliography. First and foremost, the English-language literature on most aspects of television is both huge and constantly growing. Thousands of books have been published, many devoted to a single program or star. The choices included here are the best and most recent examples (but a small portion) of the whole. Second, TV’s literature falls into two broad categories: Popular writing for a general audience, and serious titles by and for researchers. This essay emphasizes the latter. Third, books on television are often lumped with those on film, usually devoting more space to cinema than video. This listing avoids most such sources. And, increasingly, writing about television is becoming more specialized. The emphasis here is on recent work, with a relatively small number of important older titles noted as well. Save where noted, most of the citations concern American television.
Overviews
There are hundreds of television networks (most delivered by satellite transmission) and thousands of local stations and cable systems in the United States. Industries that serve some or all of these are almost numberless. Thus, tens of thousands of people work in the “television industry” which used to be limited to broadcasting, but is now far larger and more diversified, thanks to technical change and growing digitalization. Books attempting to broadly describe the modern television business including its content and impact are few in number—the subject seems far too large and varied for a one-volume approach. Still, the few noted here provide useful “first stop” sources for basic information. Curtin and Shattuc 2009, Lotz 2014, and Mittell 2009 are all useful starting points for concise overviews of a fast-changing scene. Though much older, Brown 1982 remains useful for background and some analysis. Newcomb 2004 is an encyclopedia that offers hundreds of often quite thorough essays, chiefly on people and programs.
Brown, Les. 1982. Les Brown’s encyclopedia of television. New York: Zoetrope.
Updated and retitled from its original 1977 appearance, this old title remains a useful resource for early TV people, companies, and organizations and issues. Brown was a longtime reporter on the television industry for the New York Times, and his deep insight is reflected on every page.
Curtin, Michael, and Jane Shattuc. 2009. The American television industry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Surveys key players, audiences and advertising, programming, broadcast and cable networks, and changing industry economics.
Lotz, Amanda D. 2014. The television will be revolutionized. 2d ed. New York: New York Univ. Press.
Explores television in the 21st century to demonstrate how the industry is moving beyond broadcast and cable transmission and the impact of such a transition.
Mittell, Jason. 2009. Television and American culture. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Broad survey including a brief history, how the industry operates, program trends and their impact, and changing technological options.
Newcomb, Horace, ed. 2004. Encyclopedia of television. 2d ed. 4 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.
This cornucopia of (largely American) television provides hundreds of often lengthy entries on people and programs with some mention of institutional and policy issues. Some two hundred entries are new to this edition and many more were updated. Most offer sources of further reading.
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Article
- Accounting Communication
- Acculturation Processes and Communication
- Action Assembly Theory
- Action-Implicative Discourse Analysis
- Activist Media
- Adherence and Communication
- Adolescence and the Media
- Advertisements, Televised Political
- Advertising
- Advertising, Children and
- Advertising, International
- Advocacy Journalism
- Agenda Setting
- Annenberg, Walter H.
- Apologies and Accounts
- Applied Communication Research Methods
- Argumentation
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advertising
- Attitude-Behavior Consistency
- Audience Fragmentation
- Audience Studies
- Authoritarian Societies, Journalism in
- Bakhtin, Mikhail
- Bandwagon Effect
- Baudrillard, Jean
- Blockchain and Communication
- Blogs
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Brand Equity
- British and Irish Magazine, History of the
- Broadcasting, Public Service
- Capture, Media
- Castells, Manuel
- Celebrity and Public Persona
- Censorship
- Civic Duty
- Civil Rights Movement and the Media, The
- CNN
- Co-Cultural Theory and Communication
- Codes and Cultural Discourse Analysis
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Collective Memory, Communication and
- Comedic News
- Communication Apprehension
- Communication Campaigns
- Communication, Definitions and Concepts of
- Communication History
- Communication Law
- Communication Management
- Communication Networks
- Communication, Philosophy of
- Community Attachment
- Community Journalism
- Community Structure Approach
- Computational Journalism
- Computer-Mediated Communication
- Content Analysis
- Corporate Social Responsibility and Communication
- Crisis Communication
- Critical and Cultural Studies
- Critical Race Theory and Communication
- Cross-tools and Cross-media Effects
- Cultivation
- Cultural and Creative Industries
- Cultural Imperialism Theories
- Cultural Mapping
- Cultural Persuadables
- Cultural Pluralism and Communication
- Cyberpolitics
- 3D Media
- Death, Dying, and Communication
- Debates, Televised
- Deliberation
- Developmental Communication
- Diffusion of Innovations
- Digital Divide
- Digital Gender Diversity
- Digital Intimacies
- Digital Literacy
- Diplomacy, Public
- Distributed Work, Comunication and
- Documentary and Communication
- E-democracy/E-participation
- E-Government
- Elaboration Likelihood Model
- Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM)
- Embedded Coverage
- Entertainment
- Entertainment-Education
- Environmental Communication
- Ethnic Media
- Ethnography of Communication
- Experiments
- Families, Multicultural
- Family Communication
- Federal Communications Commission
- Feminist and Queer Game Studies
- Feminist Data Studies
- Feminist Journalism
- Feminist Theory
- Focus Groups
- Food Studies and Communication
- Freedom of the Press
- Friendships, Intercultural
- Gatekeeping
- Gender and the Media
- Global Englishes
- Global Media, History of
- Global Media Organizations
- Glocalization
- Goffman, Erving
- Habermas, Jürgen
- Habituation and Communication
- Health Communication
- Hegemony
- Hermeneutic Communication Studies
- Heuristics
- Homelessness and Communication
- Hook-Up and Dating Apps
- Hostile Media Effect
- Identification with Media Characters
- Identity, Cultural
- Image Repair Theory
- Implicit Measurement
- Impression Management
- Indexing
- Infographics
- Information and Communication Technology for Development
- Information Management
- Information Overload
- Information Processing
- Infotainment
- Innis, Harold
- Instructional Communication
- Integrated Marketing Communications
- Interactivity
- Intercultural Capital
- Intercultural Communication
- Intercultural Communication, Tourism and
- Intercultural Communication, Worldview in
- Intercultural Competence
- Intercultural Conflict Mediation
- Intercultural Dialogue
- Intercultural New Media
- Intergenerational Communication
- Intergroup Communication
- International Communications
- Interpersonal Communication
- Interpersonal LGBTQ Communication
- Interpretation/Reception
- Interpretive Communities
- Journalism
- Journalism, Accuracy in
- Journalism, Alternative
- Journalism and Trauma
- Journalism, Citizen
- Journalism, Citizen, History of
- Journalism Ethics
- Journalism, Interpretive
- Journalism, Peace
- Journalism, Tabloid
- Journalists, Violence against
- Knowledge Gap
- Language Ecology
- Lazarsfeld, Paul
- Leadership and Communication
- LGBTQ+ Family Communication
- LGBTQ+ People and Media Industries
- Mass Communication
- McLuhan, Marshall
- Media Activism
- Media Aesthetics
- Media and Time
- Media Bias
- Media Convergence
- Media Credibility
- Media Dependency
- Media Ecology
- Media Economics
- Media Economics, Theories of
- Media, Educational
- Media Effects
- Media Ethics
- Media Events
- Media Exposure Measurement
- Media, Gays and Lesbians in the
- Media Literacy
- Media Logic and Mediatization
- Media Management
- Media Policy and Governance
- Media Regulation
- Media, Social
- Media Sociology
- Media Streaming
- Media Systems Theory
- Merton, Robert K.
- Message Characteristics and Persuasion
- Misinformation and Political Communication
- Mobile Communication Studies
- Muckraking
- Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Approaches to
- Multinational Organizations, Communication and Culture in
- Murdoch, Rupert
- Narrative
- Narrative Engagement
- Narrative Persuasion
- Net Neutrality
- News, Fake
- News Framing
- News Media Coverage of Women
- NGOs, Communication and
- Online Campaigning
- Open Access
- Organizational Change and Organizational Change Communicat...
- Organizational Communication
- Organizational Communication, Aging and
- Parasocial Theory in Communication
- Participation, Civic/Political
- Participatory Action Research
- Patient-Provider Communication
- Peacebuilding and Communication
- Perceived Realism
- Personalized Communication
- Persuasion and Social Influence
- Persuasion, Resisting
- Photojournalism
- Political Advertising
- Political Communication, Normative Analysis of
- Political Economy
- Political Knowledge
- Political Marketing
- Political Scandals
- Political Socialization
- Polls, Opinion
- Priming
- Privacy
- Product Placement
- Propaganda
- Proxemics
- Public Interest Communication
- Public Opinion
- Public Relations
- Public Sphere
- Queer Intercultural Communication
- Queer Migration and Digital Media
- Race and Communication
- Racism and Communication
- Radio Studies
- Reality Television
- Reasoned Action Frameworks
- Religion and the Media
- Reporting, Investigative
- Rhetoric and Communication
- Rhetoric and Intercultural Communication
- Rhetoric and Social Movements
- Rhetoric, Religious
- Rhetoric, Visual
- Risk Communication
- Rumor and Communication
- Schramm, Wilbur
- Science Communication
- Scripps, E. W.
- Selective Exposure
- Semiotics
- Sense-Making/Sensemaking
- Sesame Street
- Sex in the Media
- Small-Group Communication
- Social Capital
- Social Change
- Social Cognition
- Social Construction
- Social Identity Theory and Communication
- Social Interaction
- Social Movements
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Protest
- Sports Communication
- Stereotypes
- Strategic Communication
- Superdiversity
- Surveillance and Communication
- Symbolic Interactionism in Communication
- Synchrony in Intercultural Communication
- Tabloidization
- Telecommunications History/Policy
- Television
- Television, Cable
- Textual Analysis and Communication
- Third Culture Kids
- Third-Person Effect
- Time Warner
- Transgender Media Studies
- Transmedia Storytelling
- Two-Step Flow
- UNESCO
- United Nations and Communication
- Urban Communication
- Uses and Gratifications
- Video
- Video Deficit
- Video Games and Communication
- Violence in the Media
- Virtual Reality and Communication
- Visual Communication
- Web 2.0
- Web3 and Communication
- Web Archiving
- Webcare
- Whistleblowing
- Whiteness Theory in Intercultural Communication
- WikiLeaks
- Youth and Media
- Zines and Communication