Includes bibliographical references and index.

The development of television studies / Horace Newcomb -- Critical perspectives on television from the Frankfurt School to postmodernism / Doug Kellner -- Television and history / Paddy Scannell -- Our TV heritage / Lynn Spigel -- Television as a moving aesthetic / Julianne H. Newton -- Locating the televisual in golden age television / Caren Deming -- Television production / Jane M. Shattuc -- Who rules TV? States, markets, and the public interest / Sylvia Harvey -- Public broadcasting and democratic culture / Graham Murdock -- Culture, services, knowledge / Stuart Cunningham -- Television advertising as textual and economic systems / Matthew P. McAllister -- Watching television / Eileen R. Meehan -- Keeping "abreast" of MTV and Viacom / Jack Banks -- The trade in television news / Andrew Calabrese -- Configurations of the new television landscape / Albert Moran -- The study of soap opera / Christine Geraghty -- The shifting terrain of American talk shows / Jane M. Shattuc -- Television and sports / Michael R. Real -- "Where the past comes alive" / Gary R. Edgerton -- "How will you make it on your own?" / Bonnie J. Dow -- Television and race / Sasha Torres -- Television, public spheres, and civic cultures / Peter Dahlgren -- Television and public opinion / Justin Lewis -- Reality TV / Annette Hill -- A special audience? children and television / David Buckingham -- Local community channels / DeeDee Halleck -- Latin American commercial television / John Sinclair -- Television in China / Yuezhi Zhao and Zhenshi Guo -- Japanese television / Shunya Yoshimi -- Change and transformation in South African television / Ruth Teer-Tomaselli -- Television in the Arab East / Nabil H. Dajani.