The Best of Television: The Inaugural Flow Critics’ Poll
by: Jason Mittell / Middlebury College
And the winner is…
Category: Volume 04
Wasn’t That Show Cancelled? – The Increasing DVD Phenomenon
by: Nichola Dobson / Independent Scholar
The expectation seems to be emerging that at the end of any series, or season, the show will be distributed and sold on DVD.
Reality TV Is Undemocratic
by: Mark Andrejevic / University of Iowa
In its broadest sense, the term “democratic” is invoked to indicate that the public has been given a choice of some sort, or even more generally that it has been provided with the opportunity to “participate.” Are the limited forms of engagement that Reality TV provides truly “democratic”?
Television and the Practice of “Criticism”
by: John Corner / University of Liverpool
How contemplating criticism for television calls into question the very nature of criticism itself.
Rethinking Meaning Making: Watching Serial TV on DVD
by: Amanda Lotz / University of Michigan
The rapid rise of TV on DVD prompts us to rethink and reexamine television audiences.
lonelygirl15: The Pleasures and Perils of Participation
by: Michael Z. Newman / University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
The Internet has been the site of a zillion hoaxes, so what is so special about lonelygirl15?
24: Jumping the Shark Every Minute
by: David Lavery / Middle Tennesse State University
24, a show that experiments radically with the nature and form of televisuality, has taken “shark-jumping” to a new level.
Hate, Dislike, Disgust, Distemper, and Distaste
by: Jonathan Gray / Fordham University
Television viewers often define themselves just as strongly by what they dislike as by what they like. Can television studies attempt to account for taste?
“Israeli Idol” Goes to War: The Globalization of Television Studies
by: Sharon Shahaf / University of Texas at Austin
Kohav Nolad, Israel’s version of “Idol,” illustrates the dialectic between local and global trends in TV as the program transforms itself in a time of war.
“Back Where I Started From”: California in Some Recent Television Series
by: Mary Desjardins / Dartmouth College
A meditation on the continued use of California as a narrative landscape of budding potentialities and stifling eventualities through revived melodramas like The O.C. and Veronica Mars, and reality programs such as The Real Housewives of Orange County and Laguna Beach.
The New Soaps? Laguna Beach, The Hills, and the Gendered Politics of Reality “Drama”
by: Elana Levine / University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
How genres collide on MTV’s prime-time.
Recap Nation: Repetition and the TV Program as Commodity
by: Moya Luckett / New York University
The internet has seen an explosion in the number of programs offering recaps of television programs. How are these recaps serving to extend and repeat television’s texts, and what does their popularity say about viewers’ relationship with recaps?