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. Rodriguez 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.

The rapid development of the TV series in the twenty-first century has resulted in an emergence of new aesthetic, cultural, and social trends. The development has influenced both the mainstream of popular culture and reception practices of audiences across nations and platforms. This book observes how the means employed in key contemporary TV series texts and a specific thematic variety have promoted new reception styles and redefined conventional interpretive practices. The authors analyze a variety of series released since 2000 to discuss historical (dis)continuities of genres and conventions, and observe how interpretive competences promoted by the rhetoric of contemporary TV series result from, and are polemical with, the conventions of visual and verbal cultures of preceding decades.

George R.R. Martin's acclaimed seven-book fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire is unique for its strong and multi-faceted female protagonists, from teen queen Daenerys, scheming Queen Cersei, child avenger Arya, knight Brienne, Red Witch Melisandre, and many more. The Game of Thrones universe challenges, exploits, yet also changes how we think of women and gender, not only in fantasy, but in Western culture in general. Divided into three sections addressing questions of adaptation from novel to television, female characters, and politics and female audience engagement within the GoT universe, the interdisciplinary and international lineup of contributors analyze gender in relation to female characters and topics such as genre, sex, violence, adaptation, as well as fan reviews. The genre of fantasy was once considered a primarily male territory with male heroes. Women of Ice and Fire shows how the GoT universe challenges, exploits, and reimagines gender and why it holds strong appeal to female readers, audiences, and online participants.

In the years immediately following World War II, NBC's legendary David Sarnoff and his cross-town equal, CBS's William S. Paley, decided that American television would be identified with quality live drama surrounded by news, light entertainment (in the form of variety and quiz shows), and family-oriented series generally spun off from radio. That initial vision eroded over the years and decades, but the dramatic part of this equation endured well into the 1960s, when, with NBC's Project 120 (which commissioned movies expressly for television in 120-minute doses), the genres known as Movies Made for Television and the miniseries emerged. Today, as Angels in America, Band of Brothers, Into the West, and Lackawanna Blues continue to draw huge cable audiences, the television movie and anthology drama is now in a unique position to represent, in a simple and direct way, the various states of the television industry itself over the past 60 years. This volume covers all of the important landmarks in the genre, from Kraft Television Theater to Roots to Rome, and provides a parallel history of the relevant events in television and American culture that helped to ensure the popularity and viability of this genre over time. Until the early 1980s-when Cable began fragmenting the television audience-the three major networks had the airwaves mainly to themselves; but with Cable now on the scene, dramatic productions began falling victim to the bottom line. But just when it seemed that Cable was finally going to succeed in killing off such programming forever, it has itself come to play the savior to the genre; and now pay cable channels like HBO and Showtime (not subject to the same FCC restrictions as the original networks) thrive on such dramas as Angels in America, Band of Brothers, Into the West, and Lackawanna Blues. After making its several transitions across channels and decades and formats, the television movie is now in a unique position to represent, in a simple and direct way, the various states of the television industry itself over the past 60 years.

Two-time Peabody Award-winning writer and producer Ira Rosen reveals the intimate, untold stories of his decades at America's most iconic news show. It's a 60 Minutesstory on 60 Minutes itself. When producer Ira Rosen walked into the 60 Minutes offices in June 1980, he knew he was about to enter television history. His career catapulted him to the heights of TV journalism, breaking some of the most important stories in TV news. But behind the scenes was a war room of clashing producers, anchors, and the most formidable 60 Minutes figure: legendary correspondent Mike Wallace. Based on decades of access and experience, Ira Rosen takes readers behind closed doors to offer an incisive look at the show that invented TV investigative journalism. With surprising humor, charm, and an eye for colorful detail, Rosen delivers an authoritative account of the unforgettable personalities that battled for prestige, credit, and the desire to scoop everyone else in the game. As one of Mike Wallace's top producers, Rosen reveals the interview secrets that made Wallace's work legendary, and the flaring temper that made him infamous. Later, as senior producer of ABC News Primetime Live and 20/20, Rosen exposes the competitive environment among famous colleagues like Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, and the power plays between correspondents Chris Wallace, Anderson Cooper, and Chris Cuomo. A master class in how TV news is made, Rosen shows readers how 60 Minutes puts together a story when sources are explosive, unreliable, and even dangerous. From unearthing shocking revelations from inside the Trump White House, to an outrageous proposition from Ghislaine Maxwell, to interviewing gangsters Joe Bonanno and John Gotti, Jr., Ira Rosen was behind the scenes of some of 60 Minutes' most sensational stories. Highly entertaining, dishy, and unforgettable, Ticking Clock is a never-before-told account of the most successful news show in American history.

Branded Women in U.S. Television examines how The Real Housewives of New York City, Martha Stewart, and other female entrepreneurs create branded televised versions of the iconic U.S. housewife. Using their television presence to establish and promote their own product lines, including jewelry, cookware, clothing, and skincare, they become the primary physical representations of these brands. While their businesses are serious and seriously lucrative, especially reality television enables a certain representational flexibility that allows participants to create campy and sometimes tongue-in-cheek personas. Peter Bjelskou explores their innovative branding strategies, specifically the complex relationships between their entrepreneurial endeavors and their physical bodies, attires, tastes, and personal histories. Generally these branded women speak volumes about their contemporaneous political environments, and this book illustrates how they, and many other women in U.S. television history, are indicative of larger societal trends and structures.