hypotyposis's watchlist [more than 800 articles]

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“Around 1970, utopian talk about cable television as a dramatic ‘new technology’ swept through the policy arena. Analyzing the talk as a discursive practice demonstrates both the value of discourse analysis and some contradictions of the policy process. The talk treated cable as an autonomous technology and consequently obscured political and economic conditions while exaggerating cable’s uniqueness; these characteristics encouraged the reconceptualization of cable in the policy arena in a way that, in combination with other forces, led to the reregulation ...

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<div>Between 1948 and 1955, nearly two-thirds of all American families bought a television set--and a revolution in social life and popular culture was launched. <br><br>In this fascinating book, Lynn Spigel chronicles the enormous impact of television in the formative years of the new medium: how, over the course of a single decade, television became an intimate part of everyday life. What did Americans expect from it? What effects did the new daily ritual of watching television have on children? Was television ...

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Television Culture provides a comprehensive introduction to television studies. Fiske examines both the economic and cultural aspects of television, and investigates it in terms of both theory and text-based criticism. Fiske introduces the main arguments from current British, American, Australian, and French scholarship in a style accessible to the student, providing an integrated study of approaches to the medium. ...

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“The historical ambiguities over what makes U.S. public television public were foregrounded in the 1988 creation of the Independent Television Service. This article analyzes those historical ambiguities in relation to the conception of the public sphere, a social realm separate from economic and state interests. It proposes that public television’s survival depends on its becoming an electronic space within the public sphere.” ...

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In _Production Culture_, John Thornton Caldwell investigates the cultural practices and belief systems of Los Angeles–based film and video production workers: not only those in prestigious positions such as producers and directors but also many “below-the-line” laborers, including gaffers, editors, and camera operators. Caldwell analyzes the narratives and rituals through which workers make sense of their labor and critique the film and TV industry as well as the culture writ large. As a self-reflexive industry, Hollywood constantly exposes itself and its production processes to the public; workers’ ideas about ...

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Long before TV Land, the Game Show Network, and Cartoon Network cornered the market, reruns had been a staple of American television for decades. The economics of broadcasting made recycling programs a standard practice as early as the 1950s, but it was not until the mid 1970s that reruns were singled out as a significant contribution to American culture in general-a window into the American past and TV's "Golden Age." In _Rerun Nation_, Derek Kompare looks at how the long tradition of rerun syndication has come to ...

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Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies anddefined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings togetherleading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters workingin the field of contemporary television to debate what we currently mean byquality TV. They go deep into contemporary American television fictions, from_The Sopranos_ and _The West Wing_, to _CSI_ and _Lost_ -- innovative,sometimes controversial, always compelling dramas, which one scholar hasdescribed as "now better than the movies!" But how do we understand theemergence ...

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Cable television is arguably the dominant mass media technology in the U.S. today. _Blue Skies_ traces its history in detail, depicting the important events and people that shaped its development, from the pre-cursors of cable TV in the 1920s and 1930s to the first community antenna systems in the 1950s, from the creation of the national satellite-distributed cable networks in the 1970s to the current incarnation of "info-structure" that dominates our lives. Author Patrick Parsons also considers the ways that economics, public perception, public policy, entrepreneurial personalities, the ...

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In this interdisciplinary study of the laws and policies associated with commercial radio and television, Thomas Streeter reverses the usual take on broadcasting and markets by showing that government regulation creates rather than intervenes in the market. Analyzing the processes by which commercial media are organized, Streeter asks how it is possible to take the practice of broadcasting—the reproduction of disembodied sounds and pictures for dissemination to vast unseen audiences—and constitute it as something that can be bought, owned, and sold. With an impressive command of broadcast history, as ...

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First published in 1976, Television: The Critical View set the foundation for the serious study of television, becoming the gold standard of anthologies in the field. With this seventh edition, editor Horace Newcomb has moved the book from one merely intended to legitimize the critical inquiry of television to a text that reflects how complex critical approaches to television have become today. Comprised of virtually all new selections that deal with both classic and contemporary programming, the seventh edition adds new material on television history, the reception context ...

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Television is a form of media without equal. It has revolutionized the way we learn about and communicate with the world and has reinvented the way we experience ourselves and others. More than just cheap entertainment, TV is an undeniable component of our culture and contains many clues to who we are, what we value, and where we might be headed in the future. Media historian Gary R. Edgerton follows the technological developments and increasing cultural relevance of TV from its prehistory (before 1947) to the Network Era ...

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Over the last half century, developments in television broadcasting haveexerted an immeasurable influence over our social, cultural, and economicpractices. With contributions by leading media scholars, _The TelevisionHistory Book _presents an overview of the of history of broadcasting in GreatBritain and the United States.With its integrated format, _The Television History Book _encourages readersto make connections between events and tendencies that both unite anddifferentiate these national broadcasting traditions. From the origins of thepublic service and commercial systems of broadcasting to the current period ...

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Channels of Discourse has become the definitive text on TV studies. The first systematic consideration of commercial television in the light of contemporary culture, literary and cinematic criticism, the essays address the place of semiotics, narrative theory, reception theory, ideological analysis, psychoanalysis, feminist criticism and British cultural studies in the critical analysis of television. The second edition includes two new chapters discussing postmodernism and television theory: Television and Modernism' and Relations of Discourse'. The original essays have been substantially revised and updated in the light of contemporary theory, and ...

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How is it that television has come to play such an important role in ourculture? What, in fact, does it tell us, and how are its messages conveyed?What is it we find so satisfying in the format of television police series, orin quiz or sports programmes, that we enjoy watching them again and again?_Reading Television_ was the book that first pushed the boundaries oftelevision studies beyond the insights offered by cultural studies and textualanalysis, creating a vibrant new field of study. ...

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For centuries, medicine aimed to treat abnormalities. But today normality itself is open to medical modification. Equipped with a new molecular understanding of bodies and minds, and new techniques for manipulating basic life processes at the level of molecules, cells, and genes, medicine now seeks to manage human vital processes. _The Politics of Life Itself_ offers a much- needed examination of recent developments in the life sciences and biomedicine that have led to the widespread politicization of medicine, human life, and biotechnology. Avoiding the hype of popular science and ...

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View the Table of Contents Read the Introduction After occupying a central space in American living rooms for the past fifty years, is television, as we’ve known it, dead? The capabilities and features of that simple box have been so radically redefined that it’s now nearly unrecognizable. Today, viewers with digital video recorders such as TiVo may elect to circumvent scheduling constraints and commercials. Owners of iPods and other portable viewing devices are able to download the latest episodes of their favorite shows and watch them whenever and wherever ...

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In the 1990s, American televison audiences witnessed an unprecedented rise in programming devoted explicitly to women. Cable networks such as Oxygen Media, Women's Entertainment Network, and Lifetime targeted a female audience, and prime_time dramatic series such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Judging Amy", "Gilmore Girls", "Sex and the City", and "Ally McBeal" empowered heroines, single career women, and professionals struggling with family commitments and occupational demands. After establishing this phenomenon's significance, Amanda D. Lotz explores the audience profile, the types of narrative and characters that recur, and changes to ...

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If there is anything that exemplifies a certain common style in ethnographically-oriented approaches to culture and society today, and sets them apart from other kinds of social science, it is the habit, irritating to colleagues in some other disciplines, frustrating to students, deemed perverse by potential funders, and bewildering to the public, of responding to explanations with the remark, “We need to complicate the story.” The words “reductionist” and “essentializing” are brandished with scorn. One important perspective is expressed by this ...

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Among the social sciences, anthropology relies most fundamentally on "fieldwork"the long-term immersion in another way of life as the basis for knowledge. In an era when anthropologists are studying topics that resist geographical localization, this book initiates a long-overdue discussion of the political and epistemological implications of the disciplinary commitment to fieldwork. These innovative, stimulating essayscarefully chosen to form a coherent wholeinterrogate the notion of "the field," showing how ...

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Feminist Anthropology: A Reader surveys the history of feminist anthropology,a field that was inspired by the women’s movement of the late 1960s and hassince emerged at the forefront of efforts to make anthropology more responsiveto the concerns of disempowered people around the globe. The field has movedfrom a central concern with women as an unproblematic focus to the study ofgender as an analytical construct.Feminist Anthropology offers students and scholars a fascinating collection ofboth classic and contemporary articles, grouped to highlight key ...

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This new edition of Jerry D. Moore's Visions of Culture presents introductory anthropology students with a brief, readable, and balanced treatment of theoretical developments in the field. ...

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In _Anthropology and Social Theory_ the award-winning anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner draws on her longstanding interest in theories of cultural practice to rethink key concepts of culture, agency, and subjectivity for the social sciences of the twenty-first century. The seven theoretical and interpretive essays in this volume each advocate reconfiguring, rather than abandoning, the concept of culture. Similarly, they all suggest that a theory which depends on the interested action of social beings—specifically practice theory, associated especially with the work of Pierre Bourdieu—requires a more developed notion of human ...

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A comprehensive and accessible survey of the history of theory in anthropology, this anthology of classic and contemporary readings contains in- depth commentary in introductions and notes to help guide students through excerpts of seminal anthropological works. The commentary provides the background information needed to understand each article, its central concepts, and its relationship to the social and historical context in which it was written. Six of the 45 articles are new to this edition.. ...

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The 57 articles collected in Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology, together with the editors’ introduction, provide the most comprehensive selection of readings and insightful overview available of anthropological theory and epistemology over the past century. Anthropology in Theory identifies crucial conceptual signposts for the continued resurgence of the discipline and new theoretical directions. Moreover, it demonstrates both the vitality and value of anthropological theorizing within the discipline, as well as how such anthropological projects are fundamentally reconfiguring broader debates in the social sciences: debates about society and culture; structure ...

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Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person's true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of <I>Descartes' Error</I> in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world's leading neurologists" (<I>The New York Times</I>)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In ...

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_The Ontogeny of Information_ is a critical intervention into the ongoing and perpetually troubling nature-nurture debates surrounding human development. Originally published in 1985, this was a foundational text in what is now the substantial field of developmental systems theory. In this revised edition Susan Oyama argues compellingly that nature and nurture are not alternative influences on human development but, rather, developmental products and the developmental processes that produce them. Information, says Oyama, is thought to reside in molecules, cells, tissues, and ...

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The complex epistemological and methodological problems of data-quality control or ethnographer bias in anthropological research as they relate to the use of the native languages and/or the use of native-interpreter informants are critically reexamined. Summarizing the 1939-1940 Mead-Lowie debate, the paper suggests, on the basis of a close review of selected classic ethnographies of Africa, various ways by which the quality of comparative cross-cultural data could be meaningfully improved. ...

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We've been under the spell of DNA for too long. Science historian and MacArthur Fellow Evelyn Fox Keller makes the case for radically new thinking about the nature of heredity in _The Century of the Gene_. This short, magisterial treatise examines over 100 years of genetic thinking and finds outdated elements of Victorian beliefs still permeating our scientific writing today. Despite compelling evidence that cytoplasmic and other non-chromosomal factors play important roles in development and even in the inheritance of traits, most discussion still relies on the master/slave ...

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Evolution is a fact: of that there can be no dispute. But, writes Richard Morris in this lively overview of modern biology, scientists have been arguing about most other aspects of Darwinian thought for generations, and the battle is growing ever fiercer with the advent of "evolutionary psychology" and other new approaches. Following the biologist Ernst Mayr, Morris identifies at least five subtheories in the theory of evolution: "evolution as such," or the idea that evolution takes place at all; "common descent," the notion that all life originated in ...

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<b>The book that shook the world<br> First time from Signet Classic</b> <br><br> This is the book that revolutionized the natural sciences and every literary, philosophical and religious thinker who followed. Darwin's theory of evolution and the descent of man remains as controversial and influential today as when it was published over a century ago. ...

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In the first major book on AIDS, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Randy Shilts examines the making of an epidemic. Shilts researched and reported the book exhaustively, chronicling almost day-by-day the first five years of AIDS. His work is critical of the medical and scientific communities' initial response and particularly harsh on the Reagan Administration, who he claims cut funding, ignored calls for action and deliberately misled Congress. Shilts doesn't stop there, wondering why more people in the gay community, the mass media and the country at large didn't ...

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This article studies the use of linguistic resources to construct an "imagined community" in a Chinese gay and lesbian magazine. Four groups of linguistic resources are examined: terminology from gay and lesbian cultures in the West, the women's movement, Chinese revolutionist discourse, and the Chinese kinship system. We show that the producers of the magazine draw on resources from various discourses, but they do not adopt them in their entirety. These resources are reworked and combined to construct an imagined Chinese ...

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How "public" is public television if only a small percentage of the American people tune in on a regular basis? When public television addresses "viewers like you," just who are you? Despite the current of frustration with commercial television that runs through American life, most TV viewers bypass the redemptive "oasis of the wasteland" represented by PBS and turn to other, more "popular" media, _Viewers Like You?_ traces the history of public broadcasting in the United States, questions its priorities, and argues that public TV's tendency to reject ...

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The Audible Past explores the cultural origins of sound reproduction. It describes a distinctive sound culture that gave birth to the sound recording and transmission devices so ubiquitous in modern life. With an ear for the unexpected, scholar and musician Jonathan Sterne uses the technological and cultural precursors of telephony, phonography, and radio as an entry point into a history of sound in its own right. Sterne studies the constantly shifting boundary between phenomena organized as "sound" and "not sound." ...

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_Examines contemporary anxiety over the phenomenon of conspiracy theories._ ...

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Although we tend to think of television primarily as a household fixture, TV monitors outside the home are widespread: in bars, laundromats, and stores; conveying flight arrival and departure times in airports; uniting crowds at sports events and allaying boredom in waiting rooms; and helping to pass the time in workplaces of all kinds. In _Ambient Television_ Anna McCarthy explores the significance of this pervasive phenomenon, tracing the forms of conflict, commerce, and community that television generates outside the home. Discussing the roles television has played in different ...

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This study examines _Rome Open City_ and its place in Roberto Rossellini's career. The film is based on events that took place in Nazi occupied Italy 1944, one year before the film was made. The author argues that the film has value both as a commerorative piece and as a documentary record. ...