"The Television Studies Reader" brings together key writings in the growing field of television studies, providing an invaluable overview of the development of the field, and addressing issues of industry, genre, audiences, production and ownership, and representation.
The "Reader" charts the ways in which television and television studies are being redefined to include new and "alternative" forms and technologies such as cable television, direct satellite/digital broadcasting, home video, video art, video/digital applications on the internet, interactive TV, video surveillance, and converging media. It explores the recent boom in reality TV and includes discussions of television programs and practices from around the world. The "Reader" comprises 44 foundational and cutting-edge articles from an international cast of contributors, situating the study of television in relation both to its global reach and to the many and varied local contexts of its production and reception, and laying out a wide array of approaches to the study of the changing phenomenon of television around the world. The essays are organized in seven themed sections: * Institutions of Television * Spaces of Television * Modes of Television * Making Television * Social Representation on Television * Watching Television * Transforming Television Key features include a comprehensive bibliography and a list of further reading.

- A concise and engaging textbook for students offering an original perspective on a concept that is a site of much industry and scholarly debate. - Combining work on both political media and entertainment, with an emphasis on social media, this is ideal for a range of undergraduate courses, particularly those exploring media audiences, media industries, social media and society and political engagement. - Each chapter includes a brief introduction, a conclusion with key points, sub headings, and a broad range of international case studies that show how the points of the chapter can work in practice for media engagement analysis.

- A concise and engaging textbook for students offering an original perspective on a concept that is a site of much industry and scholarly debate. - Combining work on both political media and entertainment, with an emphasis on social media, this is ideal for a range of undergraduate courses, particularly those exploring media audiences, media industries, social media and society and political engagement. - Each chapter includes a brief introduction, a conclusion with key points, sub headings, and a broad range of international case studies that show how the points of the chapter can work in practice for media engagement analysis.

The paranormal has gone mainstream.Beliefs are on the rise, with almost half of the British population, and two thirds of Americans, claiming to believe in extra sensory perceptions and hauntings. Psychic magazines like Spirit and Destiny, television shows such as Fringe, Ghost Whisperer and Most Haunted, ghost-cams and e-poltergeists, bestselling books on mind, body and spirit, and magicians like Derren Brown have moved from the outer limits to the centre of popular culture, turning paranormal beliefs and scepticism into revenue streams. Paranormal Media offers a unique, timely exploration of the extraordinary, unexplained and supernatural in popular culture, looking in unusual places in order to understand this phenomenon. Early spirit forms such as magic lantern shows or the spirit photograph are re-imagined as a search for extraordinary experiences in reality TV, ghost tourism, and live shows. Through a popular cultural ethnography, and critical analysis in social and cultural theory, this ground-breaking book by Annette Hill presents an original and rigorous examination of people's experiences of spirits and magic. In popular culture, people are players in an orchestral movement about what happens to us when we die. In a very real sense the audience is the show. This book is the story of audiences and their participation in a show about matters of life and death. Paranormal Media will be a highly interesting read for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics, on a wide range of television, media, cultural studies, and sociology courses.

The paranormal has gone mainstream.Beliefs are on the rise, with almost half of the British population, and two thirds of Americans, claiming to believe in extra sensory perceptions and hauntings. Psychic magazines like Spirit and Destiny, television shows such as Fringe, Ghost Whisperer and Most Haunted, ghost-cams and e-poltergeists, bestselling books on mind, body and spirit, and magicians like Derren Brown have moved from the outer limits to the centre of popular culture, turning paranormal beliefs and scepticism into revenue streams. Paranormal Media offers a unique, timely exploration of the extraordinary, unexplained and supernatural in popular culture, looking in unusual places in order to understand this phenomenon. Early spirit forms such as magic lantern shows or the spirit photograph are re-imagined as a search for extraordinary experiences in reality TV, ghost tourism, and live shows. Through a popular cultural ethnography, and critical analysis in social and cultural theory, this ground-breaking book by Annette Hill presents an original and rigorous examination of people's experiences of spirits and magic. In popular culture, people are players in an orchestral movement about what happens to us when we die. In a very real sense the audience is the show. This book is the story of audiences and their participation in a show about matters of life and death. Paranormal Media will be a highly interesting read for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics, on a wide range of television, media, cultural studies, and sociology courses.

Reality TV restores a crucial, and often absent, element to the critical debate about reality television: the voices of people who watch reality programmes.

From Animal Hospital to Big Brother, Annette Hill argues that much can be learned from listening to audience discussion about this popular and rapidly changing television genre. Viewers' responses to reality TV can provide invaluable information to enhance our understanding of both the reality genre and contemporary television audiences.

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative audience research to understand how viewers categorise the reality genre, and how they judge the performance of ordinary people and the representation of authenticity within different types of reality programmes.

* Do audiences think reality TV is real?
* Can people learn from watching reality TV?
* How critical are viewers of reality TV?

Reality TV argues that audiences are engaged in a critical examination of the development of popular factual television. The book examines how audiences can learn from watching reality programmes, and how viewers think and talk about the ethics of reality TV.

Reality TV restores a crucial, and often absent, element to the critical debate about reality television: the voices of people who watch reality programmes.

From Animal Hospital to Big Brother, Annette Hill argues that much can be learned from listening to audience discussion about this popular and rapidly changing television genre. Viewers' responses to reality TV can provide invaluable information to enhance our understanding of both the reality genre and contemporary television audiences.

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative audience research to understand how viewers categorise the reality genre, and how they judge the performance of ordinary people and the representation of authenticity within different types of reality programmes.

* Do audiences think reality TV is real?
* Can people learn from watching reality TV?
* How critical are viewers of reality TV?

Reality TV argues that audiences are engaged in a critical examination of the development of popular factual television. The book examines how audiences can learn from watching reality programmes, and how viewers think and talk about the ethics of reality TV.

The Television Studies Reader brings together key writings in the expanding field of television studies, providing an overview of the discipline and addressing issues of industry, genre, audiences, production and ownership, and representation.

The Reader charts the ways in which television and television studies are being redefined by new and 'alternative' ways of producing, broadcasting and watching TV, such as cable, satellite and digital broadcasting, home video, internet broadcasting, and interactive TV, as well as exploring the recent boom in genres such as reality TV and docusoaps. It brings together articles from leading international scholars to provide perspectives on television programmes and practices from around the world, acknowledging both television's status as a global medium and the many and varied local contexts of its production and reception. Articles are grouped in seven themed sections, each with an introduction by the editors:

*Institutions of Television
*Spaces of Television
*Modes of Television
*Making Television
*Social Representation on Television
*Watching Television
*Transforming Television

TV Living presents the findings of the BFI Audience Tracking Study in which 500 participants completed detailed questionnaire-diaries on their lives, their television watching, and the relationship between the two over a five year period.
Gauntlett and Hill use this extensive data to explore some of the most fundamental questions in media and cultural studies, focusing on issues of gender, identity, the impact of new technologies, and life changes. Opening up new areas of debate, the study sheds new light on audiences and their responses to issues such as sex and violence on television. A unique study of contemporary tv audience behaviour and attitudes, TV Living offers a fascinating insight into the complex relationship between mass media and people's lives today.

TV Living presents the findings of the BFI Audience Tracking Study in which 500 participants completed detailed questionnaire-diaries on their lives, their television watching, and the relationship between the two over a five year period.
Gauntlett and Hill use this extensive data to explore some of the most fundamental questions in media and cultural studies, focusing on issues of gender, identity, the impact of new technologies, and life changes. Opening up new areas of debate, the study sheds new light on audiences and their responses to issues such as sex and violence on television. A unique study of contemporary tv audience behaviour and attitudes, TV Living offers a fascinating insight into the complex relationship between mass media and people's lives today.

Addressing the wide range of programmes and formats from news, to documentary, to popular factual genres, Annette Hill 's new book examines the ways viewers navigate their way through a busy, noisy and constantly changing factual television environment.

Restyling Factual TV addresses the wide range of programmes that fall within the category of 'factuality', from politics, to natural history, to reality entertainment.

Based on research with audiences of factual TV, primarily in Sweden and the UK, but with reference to other countries such as the US, this book tackles issues such as legitimacy, ethics and value in contemporary news and current affairs, documentary and reality programming.

Drawing on the ethics of truth-telling and notions of quality, this wide-ranging, authoritative book expands the debate on popular factual entertainment and will be a welcome addition to the current literature.

This is a state-of-the-art survey of an emerging area of study in media, communication and cultural studies, mobility studies and mobile communications. 'Mobile socialities' demarcates a new area of research that captures people's various and contrary experiences of media in relation to their mobilities and socialities. The chapters in this volume are written by a range of international scholars offering a comprehensive overview and source of inspiration for a diverse range of topics on the contingent practices and finite resources of people and media on the move. The book demonstrates through empirical and theoretical research how mobile socialities is a generative concept for thinking through power, identity and the contexts of media in public and mediated spaces, work and everyday life, addressing a spectrum of mobile socialities and lived politics. The research and various cases make visible previously hidden, or obscured, social practices and allow us to rethink the meanings of mobility, digital media or the home in these examples of people living within the centre and peripheries of society. The Handbook establishes mobile socialities as a new area of academic enquiry, ideal for advanced undergraduate students and scholars across the disciplines of media, communication and cultural studies, anthropology, cultural geography and sociology.

Reality TV is popular entertainment. And yet a common way to start a conversation about it is 'I wouldn't want anyone to know this but...' Why do people love and love to hate reality TV? This book explores reality TV in all its forms - from competitive talent shows to reality soaps - examining a range of programmes from the mundane to those that revel in the spectacle of excess. Annette Hill's research draws on interviews with television producers on the market of reality TV and audience research with over fifteen thousand participants during a fifteen year period. Key themes in the book include the phenomenon of reality TV as a new kind of inter-generic space; the rise of reality entertainment formats and producer intervention; audiences, fans and anti-fans; the spectacle of reality and sports entertainment; and the ways real people and celebrities perform themselves in cross-media content. Reality TV explores how this form of popular entertainment invites audiences to riff on reality, to debate and reject reality claims, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies seeking a broader understanding of how media connects with trends in society and culture.

Media Experiences: Engaging with Drama and Reality Television travels across people and popular culture, exploring the pathways to engagement and the various ways in which we shape and are shaped by the media landscapes in which we move. This exploration includes the voices and bodies, sights and sounds of audiences as they experience entertainment through television drama, reality TV, at live events, and within digital television itself as actors, participants and producers. It is about the people who create the drama, live events and reality entertainment that we experience. This book traverses the relationships between producers and audiences in shared places of a media imagination. Annette Hill's research draws on interviews and observations with over 500 producers and audience members to explore cultures of viewing across different genres, such as Nordic noir crime drama The Bridge, cult conspiracy thriller Utopia, and reality television audiences and participants in global formats MasterChef and Got to Dance. The research highlights how trends such as multi-screening, catch up viewing, amateur media and piracy work alongside counter-trends in retro television viewing where people relish the social ritual of watching live television, or create a social media blackout for immersive viewing. Media Experiences bridges the divide between industry and academia, highlighting how producers and audiences co-create, shape and limit experiences within emerging mediascapes.

Media Experiences: Engaging with Drama and Reality Television travels across people and popular culture, exploring the pathways to engagement and the various ways in which we shape and are shaped by the media landscapes in which we move. This exploration includes the voices and bodies, sights and sounds of audiences as they experience entertainment through television drama, reality TV, at live events, and within digital television itself as actors, participants and producers. It is about the people who create the drama, live events and reality entertainment that we experience. This book traverses the relationships between producers and audiences in shared places of a media imagination. Annette Hill's research draws on interviews and observations with over 500 producers and audience members to explore cultures of viewing across different genres, such as Nordic noir crime drama The Bridge, cult conspiracy thriller Utopia, and reality television audiences and participants in global formats MasterChef and Got to Dance. The research highlights how trends such as multi-screening, catch up viewing, amateur media and piracy work alongside counter-trends in retro television viewing where people relish the social ritual of watching live television, or create a social media blackout for immersive viewing. Media Experiences bridges the divide between industry and academia, highlighting how producers and audiences co-create, shape and limit experiences within emerging mediascapes.

Reality TV is popular entertainment. And yet a common way to start a conversation about it is 'I wouldn't want anyone to know this but...' Why do people love and love to hate reality TV? This book explores reality TV in all its forms - from competitive talent shows to reality soaps - examining a range of programmes from the mundane to those that revel in the spectacle of excess. Annette Hill's research draws on interviews with television producers on the market of reality TV and audience research with over fifteen thousand participants during a fifteen year period. Key themes in the book include the phenomenon of reality TV as a new kind of inter-generic space; the rise of reality entertainment formats and producer intervention; audiences, fans and anti-fans; the spectacle of reality and sports entertainment; and the ways real people and celebrities perform themselves in cross-media content. Reality TV explores how this form of popular entertainment invites audiences to riff on reality, to debate and reject reality claims, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies seeking a broader understanding of how media connects with trends in society and culture.