Consuming Television is a textbook designed to introduce students to the role of television in contemporary society and to encourage an understanding of what contemporary audiences are all about. Written clearly and simply, and devoid of jargon Covers both the empirical and theoretical ground in a lively manner Unlike most books on the television audience, this volume looks at the programmes themselves, as well as the production process (including policies which affect television production)

This is an exploration of how much TV people watch, why they watch too much, and what they see. The authors argue that while people may have good reasons for watching television, they seem to be unaware that such habits might be harmful to their environmental health. The book examines how advertising and media companies have shaped the commercial content of most television, tracing industry motives and operations and their increasing concentration in fewer hands.

'An Introduction to Television Studies' is a comprehensive introduction to the field. It provides resources for thinking about key aspects and introduces institutional, textual, cultural, economic, production and audience-centred ways of looking at television.

This second edition of a trend-setting volume provides an updated examination of the interaction between families and the most pervasive mass medium: television. Charting the dynamic developments of the American family and television over the past decade, this volume provides a comprehensive representation of programmatic research into family and television and examines extensively the uses families make of television, how extensions of television affect usage, families' evolving attitudes toward television, the ways families have been and are portrayed on television, the effects television has on families, and the ways in which families can mediate its impact on their lives. The volume is an invaluable resource for scholars and students in the areas of media and society, children and media, and family studies.

Non-academic history – ‘public history’ – is a complex, dynamic entity which impacts on the popular understanding of the past at all levels. In Consuming History, Jerome de Groot examines how society consumes history and how a reading of this consumption can help us understand popular culture and issues of representation. This book analyzes a wide range of cultural entities – from computer games to daytime television, from blockbuster fictional narratives such as Da Vinci Code to DNA genealogical tools – to analyze how history works in contemporary popular culture. Jerome de Groot probes how museums have responded to the heritage debate and the way in which new technologies have brought about a shift in access to history, from online game playing to internet genealogy. He discusses the often conflicted relationship between ‘public’ and academic history, and raises important questions about the theory and practice of history as a discipline. Whilst mainly focussing on the UK, the book also compares the experiences of the USA, France and Germany. Consuming History is an important and engaging analysis of the social consumption of history and offers an essential path through the debates for readers interested in history, cultural studies and the media.

TV Living presents the findings of the BFI Audience Tracking Study in which 500 participants completed detailed questionnaire-diaries on their lives, their television watching, and the relationship between the two over a five year period. Gauntlett and Hill use this extensive data to explore some of the most fundamental questions in media and cultural studies, focusing on issues of gender, identity, the impact of new technologies, and life changes. Opening up new areas of debate, the study sheds new light on audiences and their responses to issues such as sex and violence on television. A unique study of contemporary tv audience behaviour and attitudes, TV Living offers a fascinating insight into the complex relationship between mass media and people's lives today.

This is a guide to an area of academic interest. Aspects of television studies covered in this guide are theoretical perspectives shaping the study of television, Marxism, semiology, feminism, representation, bias and science fiction.