Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture

by Jason Mittell

Genre and Television proposes a new understanding of television genres as cultural categories, offering a set of in-depth historical and critical examinations to explore five key aspects of television history, industry, audience, text, and genre mixing. Drawing on well-known television programs from Dragnet to The Simpsons , this book provides a new model of genre historiography and illustrates how genres are at work within nearly every facet of television-from policy decisions to production techniques to audience practices. Ultimately, the book argues that through analyzing how television genre operates as a cultural practice, we can better comprehend how television actively shapes our social world.

Genres: Tv

256 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2004

About the author

Jason Mittell is Professor of Film & Media Culture and American Studies at Middlebury College, USA. He is the author of Genre & Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture (2004), Television & American Culture (2009), Complex Television: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling (forthcoming), and co-editor of How to Watch Television (2013), as well as numerous essays about film and media studies. He runs the blog Just TV.

Reviews

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Little bit of theory, more on examples and case studies