Burns and Thompson help to remedy the lack of a forum for current research on television by bringing together, in this volume, some of the best recent research in television studies. This work will begin to fill the gap in literature on television studies as a discipline. In compiling these 13 papers, the editors maintain a balance of timely interest and lasting relevance. The contributors study the texts of current TV dramatic and comic series, such as Dallas and Cheers, as well as current trends in nonfiction TV, such as network and local news coverage. Each analysis of a specific television text is complimented with rigorous theoretical argumentation. Students and scholars of communications and television criticism will find Television Studies valuable reading. The book begins with a two-chapter debate primarily seeking a definition of `television studies.' The debate includes a critical examination of the capitalist institutions that dominate television as an industry. Further chapters discuss dramatic television series; an examination of the development of the lengthy serial text of Dallas, and structural analysis of the pilot episode of Cheers. The book contains five essays on nonfiction television, including an insiders view of the production and promotion of local TV news and an analysis of CBS and ABC's TV news coverage of South Africa over a two week period in 1987. In a final essay, conventional wisdom about `the audience' is refuted.

Part of Praeger's Media and Society Series, this contributed volume is the only collection of essays on television authorship. It includes work of some of the most prominent scholars in television studies. Rather than assigning one author to individual television texts, the contributors probe the relationship between the various authors at work within the institutional, cultural, and economic settings that characterize the television industry. This book analyzes and defines the unique methods of television authorship and suggests numerous candidates for authorial accountability allowing the medium to enter the realm of contemporary criticism. The first part of the volume provides a case study in four chapters on authorship issues surrounding Frank's Place, the short lived but compelling situation comedy. This is followed by three chapters focusing on issues of authorship in international television. The book then probes the studio's role as author, including esays on Warner Brothers, Desilu, and Screen Gems. Finally the contributors examine individual TV authors and cover such topics as point of view in music video, television production as collective action, and unconventional television.