`Most cultural analysis focuses on the spectacular and the unusual. Frances Bonner has done us a great service by insisting on - and demonstrating - the importance of everyday TV. Ordinary Television breaks genuinely new ground′ - Toby Miller, New York University In this book, Frances Bonner provides a distinctive angle on a key area of research and teaching across media and cultural studies - the content of television and the relations between television genres and audiences. Hitherto most books on television have focused on drama, or news and current affairs. In other words, they tend to ignore ′ordinary′ television - lifestyle programmes and ′reality TV′, just the sort of programmes which increasing dominate the schedules. In Ordinary Television, Frances Bonner makes a distinctive argument for regarding these disparate shows as a whole. By examining a substantial range of these programmes, Frances Bonner uncovers their shared characteristics, especially through a consideration of the dominant and disguised discources which pervade them. In addition, the comparative nature of her study enables the author to launch a powerful critique of conventional theories in relation to the globalization of television. This book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in television and the media in general.

'Ordinary Lifestyles' contains a collection of new essays that explore how various media texts bring ideas about taste and fashion to consumers, helping audiences to fashion their lifestyles as well as defining what constitutes an appropriate lifestyle for particular social formations.

On Television exposes the invisible mechanisms of manipulation and censorship that determine what appears on the small screen. Bourdieu shows how the ratings game has transformed journalism - and hence politics - and even such seemingly removed fields as law' science' art' and philosophy. Bourdieu had long been concerned with the role of television in cultural and political life when he bypassed the political and commercial control of the television networks and addressed his country's viewers from the television station of the College de France. On Television' which expands on that lecture' not only describes the limiting and distorting effect of television on journalism and the world of ideas' but offers the blueprint for a counterattack.

Despite its enduring popularity with both broadcasters and audiences, the quiz show has found itself marginalised in studies of popular television. This book offers a unique introduction to the study of the quiz show, while also revisiting, updating and expanding on existing quiz show scholarship. Ranging across programmes such as Double Your Money, The $64,000 Dollar Question, Twenty-One, The Price is Right, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link to the controversial 'Quiz TV Call' phenomenon, the book explores programmes with a focus on question and answer. Topics covered include the relationship between quiz shows and television genre; the early broadcast history of the quiz show; questions of institutional regulation; quiz show aesthetics; the social significance of 'games'; 'ordinary' people as television performers, and questions of quiz show reception (from interactivity to on-line fandom). Key Features*Represents one of few book-length studies of the quiz show*Offers an accessible introduction to the genre for undergraduate students*Draws upon new archival research in order to contribute to knowledge about the early history of the quiz show*Demonstrates why the quiz show matters to Television Studies*Brings together key approaches in the field with new interventions and areas of study (such as the quiz show in the multi-platform age, and the study of 'ordinary' people as performers).

Extraordinarily Ordinary offers a critical analysis of the production of a distinct form of twenty-first century celebrity constructed through the exploding coverage of reality television cast members in Us Weekly magazine. Erin A. Meyers connects the economic and industrial forces that helped propel Us Weekly to the top of the celebrity gossip market in the early 2000s with the ways in which reality television cast members fit neatly into the social and cultural norms that shaped the successful gossip formulas of the magazine. Us Weekly’s construction of the “extraordinarily ordinary” celebrity within its gossip narratives is a significant symptom of the broader intensification of discourses of ordinariness and the private in the production of contemporary celebrity, in which fame is paradoxically grounded in “just being yourself” while simultaneously defining what the “right” sort of self is in contemporary culture.

This book explores the new theoretical and political questions raised by food TV’s digital transformation. Bringing together analyses of food media texts and platform infrastructures—from streaming and catch-up TV to YouTube and Facebook food videos—it shows how new textual conventions, algorithmic practices, and market logics have redrawn the boundaries of food TV and altered the cultural place of food, and food media, in a digital era. With case studies of new and rerun television and emerging online genres, Digital Food TV considers what food television means at the current moment—a time when on-screen digital content is rapidly proliferating and televisual platforms and technologies are undergoing significant change. This book will appeal to students and scholars of food studies, television studies, and digital media studies.

Television presenters are key to the sociability of the medium, speaking directly to viewers as intermediaries between audiences and those who are interviewed, perform or compete on screen. As targets of both great affection and derision from viewers and the subjects of radio, internet, magazine and newspaper coverage, many have careers that have lasted almost as long as post-war television itself. Nevertheless, as a profession, television presenting has received little scholarly attention. Personality Presenters explores the role of the television presenter, analysing the distinct skills possessed by different categories of host and the expectations and difficulties that exist with regard to the promotion of the various films, books, consumer and cultural products with which they are associated. The close involvement of presenters with the content that they present is examined, while the impact of the presenters' own celebrity on the tasks that they perform is scrutinised. With a focus on non-fiction entertainment shows such as game shows, lifestyle and reality shows, chat, daytime and talk shows, this book explores issues of consumer culture, advertising and celebrity, as well as the connection of presenters with ethical issues. Offering detailed case studies of internationally recognised presenters, as well comparisons between national presenters from the UK and Australia, Personality Presenters provides a rich discussion of television presenters as significant conduits in the movement of ideas. As such, it will appeal to sociologists as well as those working in the fields of popular culture, cultural and media studies and cultural theory.

The Language of Journalism aims to provide an accessible, wide-ranging introductory textbook for a range of students. The book explores the significance of a range of linguistic practices occurring in journalism, demonstrating and facilitating the use of analysis in aiding professional journalistic and media practice. The book introduces the differences in language conventions that develop across media platforms. It covers all the key journalistic mediums available today, including sport, online and citizen journalism alongside the more standard chapters on magazine, newspaper and broadcast journalism. Clearly written and structured, this will be a key text for journalism students.

This volume explores higher level, critical, and creative thinking, as well as reflective decision making and problem solving -- what teachers should emphasize when teaching literacy across the curriculum. Focusing on how to encourage learners to become independent thinking, learning, and communicating participants in home, school, and community environments, this book is concerned with integrated learning in a curriculum of inclusion. It emphasizes how to provide a curriculum for students where they are socially interactive, personally reflective, and academically informed. Contributors are authorities on such topics as cognition and learning, classroom climates, knowledge bases of the curriculum, the use of technology, strategic reading and learning, imagery and analogy as a source of creative thinking, the nature of motivation, the affective domain in learning, cognitive apprenticeships, conceptual development across the disciplines, thinking through the use of literature, the impact of the media on thinking, the nature of the new classroom, developing the ability to read words, the bilingual, multicultural learner, crosscultural literacy, and reaching the special learner. The applications of higher level thought to classroom contexts and materials are provided, so that experienced teacher educators, and psychologists are able to implement some of the abstractions that are frequently dealt with in texts on cognition. Theoretical constructs are grounded in educational experience, giving the volume a practical dimension. Finally, appropriate concerns regarding the new media, hypertext, bilingualism, and multiculturalism as they reflect variation in cognitive experience within the contexts of learning are presented.