In its exploration of some of the most influential, popular, or critically acclaimed television dramas since the year 2000, this book documents how modern television dramas reflect our society through their complex narratives about prevailing economic, political, security, and social issues. Television dramas have changed since the turn of the 21st century-for the good, many would say, as a result of changes in technology, the rise of cable networks, and increased creative freedom. This book approaches the new golden age of television dramas by examining the programs that define the first 15 years of the new century through their complex narratives, high production value, star power, popularity, and enthusiastic fan culture. After an introduction that sets the stage for the book's content, thematic sections present concise chapters that explore key connections between television dramas and elements of 21st-century culture. The authors explore Downton Abbey as a distraction from contemporary class struggles, patriarchy and the past in Game of Thrones and Mad Men, and portrayals of the "dark hero protagonist" in The Sopranos, Dexter, and Breaking Bad, as a few examples of the book's coverage. With its multidisciplinary perspectives on a variety of themes-terrorism, race/class/gender, family dynamics, and sociopolitical and socioeconomic topics- this book will be relevant across the social sciences and cultural and media studies courses. Identifies and explores connections between critically acclaimed television dramas and real life in the 21st century Documents the qualities of television drama series since the turn of the 21st century in the latest era in television that some refer to as the "third golden age of television" Offers accessible analysis of popular and current television dramas relevant to educators and students in the fields of media studies, television, and popular culture as well as anyone who enjoys modern television drama

For the last 25 years, Sunday nights at 8pm on C-SPAN has been appointment television for many Americans. During that time, host Brian Lamb has invited people to his Capitol Hill studio for hour-long conversations about contemporary society and history. In today's soundbite culture that hour remains one of television's last vestiges of in-depth, civil conversation.
First came C-SPAN's "Booknotes" in 1989, which by the time it ended in December 2004, was the longest-running author-interview program in American broadcast history. Many of the most notable nonfiction authors of its era were featured over the course of 800 episodes, and the conversations became a defining hour for the network and for nonfiction writers.
In January 2005, C-SPAN embarked on a new chapter with the launch of Q and A. Again one hour of uninterrupted conversation but the focus was expanded to include documentary film makers, entrepreneurs, social workers, political leaders and just about anyone with a story to tell.
To mark this anniversary Lamb and his team at C-SPAN have assembled "Sundays at Eight," a collection of the best unpublished interviews and stories from the last 25 years. Featured in this collection are historians like David McCullough, Ron Chernow and Robert Caro, reporters including April Witt, John Burns and Michael Weisskopf, and numerous others, including Christopher Hitchens, Brit Hume and Kenneth Feinberg.
In a March 2001 "Booknotes" interview "60 Minutes" creator Don Hewitt described the show's success this way: "All you have to do is tell me a story." This collection attests to the success of that principle, which has guided Lamb for decades. And his guests have not disappointed, from the dramatic escape of a lifelong resident of a North Korean prison camp, to the heavy price paid by one successful West Virginia businessman when he won $314 million in the lottery, or the heroic stories of recovery from the most horrific injuries in modern-day warfare. Told in the series' signature conversational manner, these stories come to life again on the page. "Sundays at Eight" is not merely a token for fans of C-SPAN's interview programs, but a collection of significant stories that have helped us understand the world for a quarter-century.

This book offers comparative studies of the production, content, distribution and reception of film and television drama in Europe. The collection brings together scholars from the humanities and social sciences to focus on how new developments are shaped by national and European policies and practices, and on the role of film and television in our everyday lives. The chapters explore key trends in transnational European film and television fiction, addressing issues of co-production and collaboration, and of how cultural products circulate across national borders. The chapters investigate how watching film and television from neighbouring countries can be regarded as a special kind of cultural encounter with the possibility of facilitating reflections on national differences within Europe and negotiations of what characterizes a national or a European identity respectively.

There have been famous chefs for centuries. But it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that the modern celebrity chef business really began to flourish, thanks largely to media advances like television which allowed ever greater numbers of people to tune in.

"Food Media" charts the growth of this enormous entertainment industry, and also how, under the threat of the obesity 'epidemic', some of its stars have taken on new authority as social activists, while others continue to provide delicious distractions from a world of potentially unsafe food. The narrative that joins these chapters moves from private to public consumption, and from celebrating food fantasies to fueling anxieties about food realities, with the questionable role of interference in people's everyday food choices gaining ground along the way.

Covering celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and Rachael Ray, and popular trends like foodies, food porn and fetishism, "Food Media" describes how the intersections between celebrity culture and food media have come to influence how many people think about feeding themselves and their families - and how often that task is complicated when it need not be.

This book explores television's current fascination with the Edwardian era. By exploring popular period dramas such as Downton Abbey , it examines how the early twentieth century is represented on our screens, and what these shows tell us about class, gender and politics, both past and present.

British youth television is the first book to concentrate on the high profile genre of 'yoof television'. Concentrating on such controversial programmes as The Word, Snub TV and Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, the author demonstrates how the the contemporary youth audience - the so-called Generation X - were addressed by these shows' blend of 'cynicism and enchantment'. Providing both an overview and a series of detailed programme analyses the book concentrates on a well known but little written about genre from a fresh and accessible perspective.

British Television Animation 1997-2010 charts a moment in TV history where UK comic animation graduated from the margins as part of a post-Simpsons broadcast landscape. Shows like Monkey Dust, Modern Toss and Stressed Eric not only reflected the times but they ushered in an era of ambition and belief in British adult animation.

This is a comprehensive guide to the black experience both on film and behind the camera. More than 6,000 entries documenting global film activity from 1919 to 1990 offer historical perspective on the black image in film, bibliographical material on filmmakers and individual artists, and exciting information on newly emerging talent throughout the world. Drawing on a wide variety of resource materials, the study furnishes extensive coverage of developments in filmmaking in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean, followed by a thorough examination of the African-American film experience. Two appendixes provide supplementary data on reference works, and names and addresses of notable film resource centers. Four indexes keyed by artist, title, subject, and author complete the work, which proves to be a valuable reference work for scholars and historians in the field of blacks in film.

Since 1952, when Eisenhower's media consultants decided they could warm up the General's personality and overcome selective exposure by using short spots on television, advertising has played a major role in American presidential campaigns. By the late 1990s, candidates and their political parties spend hundreds of millions on TV ads. Political spots have become the dominant form of communication between voters and candidates.

Kaid and Johnston report the results of a systematic and thorough analysis of virtually all of the political commercials used in general election campaigns from 1952 through the 1996 presidential contest. Important to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with political communications, mass communications, and presidential elections.

Science fiction series have remained a staple of American television from its inception: classic programs such as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Star Trek, along with recent and current series including Babylon 5 and Stargate SG-1, have been some of the most enduring and influential of all television shows. In this chronological survey, author M. Keith Booker examines this phenomenon and provides in-depth studies of the most important of these series. Science Fiction Television traces the development of the genre as a distinct cultural phenomenon within the context of broader developments in American culture as a whole. In the process, it offers a unique and informative guide for television fans and science fiction fans alike, one whose coverage is unprecedented in its scope and breadth. A must-read for anyone interested in its subject or in American popular culture, Science Fiction Television is a perceptive and entertaining history of one of television's most lasting forms of entertainment.

Since 1948 when television began its rapid--almost exponential--growth, America has literally focused on TV, but the average viewer has been unaware of the key behind-the-scenes role of the TV director. In Take One, Jack Kuney shows what the director does in his equipment-filled twilight zone--the TV control room. The author identifies the crucial aesthetic contribution of the director who in selecting shots determines not only what millions of viewers will see but also how closely they will see them and in what sequence. More important, Kuney's interviews affirm that generally the director's talent, aesthetic judgements, and instincts set the tone of the program and determine a show's impact on its audience. The volume consists of a series of ten interviews, collected over a period of four years, with directors of television programs, each a specialist in a different field, who show a diversity that ranges from New York to Hollywood, the Metropolitan Opera to the Super Bowl. Their insights explain that various types of programs dictate the degree of the director's involvement: the director's role changes with the nature of the program, be it concert, game show, news, discussion, documentary, special event, drama, panel show, or the Miss America Pageant. In each interview the author's commentary acts as a guide and summation to the observations of the director. Dealing with the unique aesthetics of contemporary television, Take One is the most up-to-date work in the field and will be important and useful reading for students of production, and aspiring directors in the field.

Celebrate the greatest television show of all time with this definitive tribute to The Wire. Twenty years after the debut of The Wire, HBO's landmark crime drama remains one of the most celebrated and beloved television shows of all time. Now, this deluxe coffee table book tells the story of a historic production, through candid, never before-seen photography from the HBO archives. The visual story of The Wire is narrated by all-new interviews with creator David Simon, and key cast and crew members, including Dominic West, Wendell Pierce, Sonja Sohn, Lance Reddick, Michael B. Jordan, and Idris Elba. Unmatched in its depth, this prestige volume is the ultimate retrospective of the greatest television show of all time.

One of the most acclaimed and popular television series of all time, Breaking Bad left an indelible imprint on the imaginations of viewers around the world. Walter White's transformation from high school chemistry teacher to meth kingpin has inspired thousands of artists to creatively reinterpret the show's stark, stylish visuals and unforgettable characters. 99.1% Pure: The Breaking Bad Artbook brings together an electrifying collection of art from around the globe, personally curated by show creator Vince Gilligan and the Breaking Bad team. Featuring a dazzling array of styles, this one of-a-kind book is the ultimate tribute to the series and its seismic impact on popular culture.

As American security became increasingly dependent on technology to shape the consciousness of its populace and to defend them, science fiction shows like The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and The X-Files both promoted the regime's gendered logic and raised significant questions about that logic and its gendered roles. By charting the interaction between political developments in the security state and the evolution of feminist ideology in the culture from the end of WWII to the present, Wildermuth shows how these shows reflected and helped catalyze an evolving feminist consciousness in American culture and explores where they may yet take us in the future.

This work presents more than 400 A-Z entries on the individuals, programs, media innovations, and broad topics that tell the story of women's involvement both in front of and behind the television camera. From thought-provoking trends to entertaining trivia, this delightfully illustrated A-Z encyclopedia covers it all: Gracie Allen, Ally McBeal, Asian women, black sitcoms, cable TV, the Emmys, tabloid and talk shows, older women on television, Penny Marshall, Our Miss Brooks, Jane Pauley, soap operas, Jamie Tarses, That Girl, Oprah Winfrey, and more. Although limited to the role of women in and on television, Women and American Television is notable for unearthing the more obscure personalities and programs not covered by other television encyclopedias. Includes cross references, bibliography, helpful appendixes, and a subject index. A-Z entries range from Gracie Allen and Ally McBeal to talk shows and soap operas Includes cross references, a bibliography, helpful appendixes, and a subject index Delightfully illustrated

This work looks at the gendered nature of the US video gaming industry. Although there were attempts to incorporate women into development roles and market towards them as players, the creation of video games and the industry began in a world strongly gendered male. The early 1980s saw a blip of hope that the counter-cultural industry focused on fun would begin to include women, but after the video game industry crash, this free-wheeling freedom of the industry ended along with the beginnings of the inclusion of women. Many of the threads that began in the early years continued or have parallels with the modern video game industry. The industry continues to struggle with gender relations in the workplace and with the strongly gendered male demographic that the industry perceives as its main market.

Bringing together the voices of scholars from Europe and North America with those of key contest stakeholders, Performing the 'New' Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest argues that this popular music competition is a symbolic contact zone between European cultures: an arena for European identification in which both national solidarity and participation in a European identity are confirmed, and a site where cultural struggles over the meanings, frontiers and limits of Europe are enacted. This exciting collection explores the ways in which European artists perform, disavow, and contest their racial, national, and sexual identities in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), and asks difficult questions about European inclusions and exclusions the contest reflects. It suggests the ESC as an ever-evolving network of peoples and places transcending both historical and geographical boundaries of Europe that brings into being new understandings of the relationship between culture, space, and identities.