The Television Will Be Revolutionized

Download The Television Will Be Revolutionized full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Television Will Be Revolutionized ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Second Edition

Author : Amanda D. Lotz
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479865737
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Second Edition by : Amanda D. Lotz

Download or read book The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Second Edition written by Amanda D. Lotz and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Go behind the TV screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matters Many proclaimed the “end of television” in the early years of the twenty-first century, as capabilities and features of the boxes that occupied a central space in American living rooms for the preceding fifty years were radically remade. In this revised, second edition of her definitive book, Amanda D. Lotz proves that rumors of the death of television were greatly exaggerated and explores how new distribution and viewing technologies have resurrected the medium. Shifts in the basic practices of making and distributing television have not been hastening its demise, but are redefining what we can do with television, what we expect from it, how we use it—in short, revolutionizing it. Television, as both a technology and a tool for cultural storytelling, remains as important today as ever, but it has changed in fundamental ways. The Television Will Be Revolutionized provides a sophisticated history of the present, examining television in what Lotz terms the “post-network” era while providing frameworks for understanding the continued change in the medium. The second edition addresses adjustments throughout the industry wrought by broadband delivered television such as Netflix, YouTube, and cross-platform initiatives like TV Everywhere, as well as how technologies such as tablets and smartphones have changed how and where we view. Lotz begins to deconstruct the future of different kinds of television—exploring how “prized content,” live television sports and contests, and linear viewing may all be “television,” but very different types of television for both viewers and producers. Through interviews with those working in the industry, surveys of trade publications, and consideration of an extensive array of popular shows, Lotz takes us behind the screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matter.

The Television Will be Revolutionized

Author : Amanda D. Lotz
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781479890392
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (93 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Television Will be Revolutionized by : Amanda D. Lotz

Download or read book The Television Will be Revolutionized written by Amanda D. Lotz and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Many proclaimed the "end of television" in the early years of the twenty-first century, as capabilities and features of the boxes that occupied a central space in American living rooms for the preceding fifty years were radically remade. In this revised, second edition of her definitive book, Amanda D. Lotz proves that rumors of the death of television were greatly exaggerated and explores how new distribution and viewing technologies have resurrected the medium. Shifts in the basic practices of making and distributing television have not been hastening its demise, but are redefining what we can do with television, what we expect from it, how we use it--in short, revolutionizing it. Television, as both a technology and a tool for cultural storytelling, remains as important today as ever, but it has changed in fundamental ways. The Television Will Be Revolutionized provides a sophisticated history of the present, examining television in what Lotz terms the "post-network" era while providing frameworks for understanding the continued change in the medium. The second edition addresses adjustments throughout the industry wrought by broadband delivered television such as Netflix, YouTube, and cross-platform initiatives like TV Everywhere, as well as how technologies such as tablets and smartphones have changed how and where we view. Lotz begins to deconstruct the future of different kinds of television--exploring how "prized content," live television sports and contests, and linear viewing may all be "television," but very different types of television for both viewers and producers. Through interviews with those working in the industry, surveys of trade publications, and consideration of an extensive array of popular shows, Lotz takes us behind the screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matter"--

The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Second Edition

Author : Amanda D Lotz
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479830070
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Second Edition by : Amanda D Lotz

Download or read book The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Second Edition written by Amanda D Lotz and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Go behind the TV screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matters Many proclaimed the “end of television” in the early years of the twenty-first century, as capabilities and features of the boxes that occupied a central space in American living rooms for the preceding fifty years were radically remade. In this revised, second edition of her definitive book, Amanda D. Lotz proves that rumors of the death of television were greatly exaggerated and explores how new distribution and viewing technologies have resurrected the medium. Shifts in the basic practices of making and distributing television have not been hastening its demise, but are redefining what we can do with television, what we expect from it, how we use it—in short, revolutionizing it. Television, as both a technology and a tool for cultural storytelling, remains as important today as ever, but it has changed in fundamental ways. The Television Will Be Revolutionized provides a sophisticated history of the present, examining television in what Lotz terms the “post-network” era while providing frameworks for understanding the continued change in the medium. The second edition addresses adjustments throughout the industry wrought by broadband delivered television such as Netflix, YouTube, and cross-platform initiatives like TV Everywhere, as well as how technologies such as tablets and smartphones have changed how and where we view. Lotz begins to deconstruct the future of different kinds of television—exploring how “prized content,” live television sports and contests, and linear viewing may all be “television,” but very different types of television for both viewers and producers. Through interviews with those working in the industry, surveys of trade publications, and consideration of an extensive array of popular shows, Lotz takes us behind the screen to explore what is changing, why it is changing, and why the changes matter.

Quality TV

Author : Janet McCabe
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857715992
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (577 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Quality TV by : Janet McCabe

Download or read book Quality TV written by Janet McCabe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-09-26 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his seminal book "Television's Second Golden Age", Robert Thompson described quality TV as 'best defined by what it is not': 'it is not "regular" TV'. Audacious maybe, but his statement renewed debate on the meaning of this highly contentious term. Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field of contemporary television to debate what we currently mean by quality 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 has described as 'now better than the movies!' But how do we understand the emergence of these kinds of fiction? Are they genuinely new? What does quality TV have to tell us about the state of today's television market? And is this a new Golden Age of quality TV? Original, often polemic, each chapter proposes new ways of thinking about and defining quality TV. There is a foreword from Robert Thompson, and heated dialogue between British and US television critics. Also included - and a great coup - are interviews with W. Snuffy Walden (scored "The West Wing" among others) and with David Chase ("The Sopranos" creator). "Quality TV" provides throughout groundbreaking and innovative theoretical and critical approaches to studying television and for understanding the current - and future - TV landscape.

Portals

Author : Amanda D. Lotz
Publisher : Maize Books
ISBN 13 : 9781607854005
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (54 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Portals by : Amanda D. Lotz

Download or read book Portals written by Amanda D. Lotz and published by Maize Books. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Television audiences and its industry alike have been confused by the emergence of new ways to watch television. On one hand, the programs seem every bit like the television we've long known, while the way we can watch, what we can watch, and the business models supporting them differ significantly. Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television pushes understandings of the business of television to keep pace with the considerable technological change of the last decade. It explains why shows such as Orange is the New Black or Transparent are indeed television despite coming to screens over internet connection and in exchange for a monthly fee. It explores how internet-distributed television is able to do new things - particularly, allow different people to watch different shows chosen from a library of possibilities. This technological ability allows new audience behaviors and new norms in making television. Portals are the "channels" of internet-distributed television, and Portals identifies how the task of curating a library of shows differs from channels' task of building a schedule. It explores the business model--subscriber funding--that supports many portals, and identifies the key differences from advertiser or direct purchase. Portals considers what we know about the future of television, even though we remain early in a process of transformative change.

The Revolution Was Televised

Author : Alan Sepinwall
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476739684
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Revolution Was Televised by : Alan Sepinwall

Download or read book The Revolution Was Televised written by Alan Sepinwall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A phenomenal account, newly updated, of how twelve innovative television dramas transformed the medium and the culture at large, featuring Sepinwall’s take on the finales of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. In The Revolution Was Televised, celebrated TV critic Alan Sepinwall chronicles the remarkable transformation of the small screen over the past fifteen years. Focusing on twelve innovative television dramas that changed the medium and the culture at large forever, including The Sopranos, Oz, The Wire, Deadwood, The Shield, Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, Sepinwall weaves his trademark incisive criticism with highly entertaining reporting about the real-life characters and conflicts behind the scenes. Drawing on interviews with writers David Chase, David Simon, David Milch, Joel Surnow and Howard Gordon, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and Vince Gilligan, among others, along with the network executives responsible for green-lighting these groundbreaking shows, The Revolution Was Televised is the story of a new golden age in TV, one that’s as rich with drama and thrills as the very shows themselves.

Beyond Prime Time

Author : Amanda Lotz
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135842604
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (358 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Beyond Prime Time by : Amanda Lotz

Download or read book Beyond Prime Time written by Amanda Lotz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-04-02 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daytime soap operas. Evening news. Late-night talk shows. Television has long been defined by its daily schedule, and the viewing habits that develop around it. Technologies like DVRs, iPods, and online video have freed audiences from rigid time constraints—we no longer have to wait for a program to be "on" to watch it—but scheduling still plays a major role in the production of television. Prime-time series programming between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. has dominated most critical discussion about television since its beginnings, but Beyond Prime Time brings together leading television scholars to explore how shifts in television’s industrial practices and new media convergence have affected the other 80% of the viewing day. The contributors explore a broad range of non-prime-time forms including talk shows, soap operas, news, syndication, and children’s programs, non-series forms such as sports and made-for-television movies, as well as entities such as local affiliate stations and public television. Importantly, all of these forms rely on norms of production, financing, and viewer habits that distinguish them from the practices common among prime-time series and often from each other. Each of the chapters examines how the production practices and textual strategies of a particular programming form have shifted in response to sweeping industry changes, together telling the story of a medium in transition at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Contributors: Sarah Banet-Weiser, Victoria E. Johnson, Jeffrey P. Jones, Derek Kompare, Elana Levine, Amanda D. Lotz, Jonathan Nichols-Pethick, Laurie Ouellette, Erin Copple Smith

Black Power TV

Author : Devorah Heitner
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822399679
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Black Power TV by : Devorah Heitner

Download or read book Black Power TV written by Devorah Heitner and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-12 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Black Power TV, Devorah Heitner chronicles the emergence of Black public affairs television starting in 1968. She examines two local shows, New York's Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant and Boston's Say Brother, and the national programs Soul! and Black Journal. These shows offered viewers radical and innovative programming: the introspections of a Black police officer in Harlem, African American high school students discussing visionary alternatives to the curriculum, and Miriam Makeba comparing race relations in the United States to apartheid in South Africa. While Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant and Say Brother originated from a desire to contain Black discontent during a period of urban uprisings and racial conflict, these shows were re-envisioned by their African American producers as venues for expressing Black critiques of mainstream discourse, disseminating Black culture, and modeling Black empowerment. At the national level, Soul! and Black Journal allowed for the imagining of a Black nation and a distinctly African American consciousness, and they played an influential role in the rise of the Black Arts Movement. Black Power TV reveals how regulatory, activist, and textual histories are interconnected and how Black public affairs television redefined African American representations in ways that continue to reverberate today.

Color by Fox

Author : Kristal Brent Zook
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195106121
Total Pages : 177 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Color by Fox by : Kristal Brent Zook

Download or read book Color by Fox written by Kristal Brent Zook and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1999 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Locating a persistent black nationalist desire - yearning for home and community - in the shows produced in the 1980s and 1990s, Zook shows how the Fox hip-hop sitcom both reinforced and rebelled against earlier black sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s.

The Platinum Age of Television

Author : David Bianculli
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 1101911328
Total Pages : 594 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Platinum Age of Television by : David Bianculli

Download or read book The Platinum Age of Television written by David Bianculli and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Television today is better than ever. From The Sopranos to Breaking Bad, Sex and the City to Girls, and Modern Family to Louie, never has so much quality programming dominated our screens. Exploring how we got here, acclaimed TV critic David Bianculli traces the evolution of the classic TV genres, among them the sitcom, the crime show, the miniseries, the soap opera, the Western, the animated series, the medical drama, and the variety show. In each genre he selects five key examples of the form to illustrate its continuities and its dramatic departures. Drawing on exclusive and in-depth interviews with many of the most famed auteurs in television history, Bianculli shows how the medium has evolved into the premier form of visual narrative art. Includes interviews with: MEL BROOKS, MATT GROENING, DAVID CHASE, KEVIN SPACEY, AMY SCHUMER, VINCE GILLIGAN, AARON SORKIN, MATTHEW WEINER, JUDD APATOW, LOUIS C.K., DAVID MILCH, DAVID E. KELLEY, JAMES L. BROOKS, LARRY DAVID, KEN BURNS, LARRY WILMORE, AND MANY, MANY MORE

We Now Disrupt This Broadcast

Author : Amanda D. Lotz
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026203767X
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis We Now Disrupt This Broadcast by : Amanda D. Lotz

Download or read book We Now Disrupt This Broadcast written by Amanda D. Lotz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-04-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced a new golden age of TV. Cable television channels were once the backwater of American television, programming recent and not-so-recent movies and reruns of network shows. Then came La Femme Nikita, OZ, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead. And then, just as “prestige cable” became a category, came House of Cards and Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and other Internet distributors of television content. What happened? In We Now Disrupt This Broadcast, Amanda Lotz chronicles the collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced an era termed “peak TV.” Lotz explains that changes in the business of television expanded the creative possibilities of television. She describes the costly infrastructure rebuilding undertaken by cable service providers in the late 1990s and the struggles of cable channels to produce (and pay for) original, scripted programming in order to stand out from the competition. These new programs defied television conventions and made viewers adjust their expectations of what television could be. Le Femme Nikita offered cable's first antihero, Mad Men cost more than advertisers paid, The Walking Dead became the first mass cable hit, and Game of Thrones was the first global television blockbuster. Internet streaming didn't kill cable, Lotz tells us. Rather, it revolutionized how we watch television. Cable and network television quickly established their own streaming portals. Meanwhile, cable service providers had quietly transformed themselves into Internet providers, able to profit from both prestige cable and streaming services. Far from being dead, television continues to transform.

TV (The Book)

Author : Alan Sepinwall
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 1455588202
Total Pages : 443 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (555 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis TV (The Book) by : Alan Sepinwall

Download or read book TV (The Book) written by Alan Sepinwall and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible? For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down to this: What's the greatest TV show ever? That debate reaches an epic conclusion in TV (THE BOOK). Sepinwall and Seitz have identified and ranked the 100 greatest scripted shows in American TV history. Using a complex, obsessively all-encompassing scoring system, they've created a Pantheon of top TV shows, each accompanied by essays delving into what made these shows great. From vintage classics like The Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy to modern masterpieces like Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, from huge hits like All in the Family and ER to short-lived favorites like Firefly and Freaks and Geeks, TV (THE BOOK) will bring the triumphs of the small screen together in one amazing compendium. Sepinwall and Seitz's argument has ended. Now it's time for yours to begin!

Television as Digital Media

Author : James Bennett
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822349108
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Television as Digital Media by : James Bennett

Download or read book Television as Digital Media written by James Bennett and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of essays that consider television as a digital media form and the aesthetic, cultural, and industrial changes that this shift has provoked.

Prestige Television

Author : Seth Friedman
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 1978818289
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (788 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Prestige Television by : Seth Friedman

Download or read book Prestige Television written by Seth Friedman and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-11 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prestige Television explores how a growing array of 21st century US programming is produced and received in ways that elevate select series above the competition in a saturated market. Contributing authors demonstrate that these shows are positioned and understood as comprising an increasingly recognizable genre characterized by familiar markers of distinction. In contrast to most accounts of elite categorizations of contemporary US television programming that center on HBO and its primary streaming rivals, these essays examine how efforts to imbue series with prestigious or elevated status now permeate the rest of the medium, including network as well as basic and undervalued premium cable channels. Case study chapters focusing on diverse series, ranging from widely recognized examples such as The Americans (2013-2018) and The Knick (2014-15) to contested examples like Queen of the South (2016-2021) and How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014), highlight how contributing authors extend conceptions of the genre beyond expected parameters.

HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis

Author : Dominique Gendrin
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1498545610
Total Pages : 339 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis by : Dominique Gendrin

Download or read book HBO's Treme and Post-Katrina Catharsis written by Dominique Gendrin and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, outsiders will have two versions of the Katrina experience. One version will be the images they recall from news coverage of the aftermath. The other will be the intimate portrayal of the determination of New Orleans residents to rebuild and recover their lives. HBO’s Treme offers outsiders an inside look into why New Orleanians refused to abandon a place that many questioned should not be rebuilt after the levees failed. This critically acclaimed series expanded the boundaries of television making in its format, plot, casting, use of music, and realism-in-fictionalized-TV. However, Treme is not just a story for the outside gaze on New Orleans. It was a very local, collaborative experience where the show’s creators sought to enlist the city in a commemorative project. Treme allowed many in the city who worked as principals, extras, and who tuned in as avid viewers to heal from the devastation of the disaster as they experimented with art, imitating life, imitating art. This book examines the impact of HBOs Treme not just as television making, but in the sense in which television provides a window to our worlds. The book pulls together scholarship in media, communications, gender, area studies, political economy, critical studies, African American studies and music to explain why Treme was not just about television.

Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman

Author : Samantha Pickette
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1793633169
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (936 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman by : Samantha Pickette

Download or read book Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman written by Samantha Pickette and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-12-19 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy analyzes the ways in which contemporary American television—with its unprecedented choice, diversity, and authenticity—is establishing a new version of the Jewish woman and a new take on American Jewish female identity that challenges the stereotypes of Jewish femininity proliferated on television since its inception. Using case studies of streaming, cable, and network comedy series from the past decade written and created by Jewish women, including Broad City, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, among others, this book illustrates how this new Jewish woman has been given voice and agency by the bevy of Jewish female showrunners interested in telling stories about Jewish women for wider audiences.

Sketch Comedy

Author : Nick Marx
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253044278
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Sketch Comedy by : Nick Marx

Download or read book Sketch Comedy written by Nick Marx and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of sketch comedy on American television and analysis of what it says about American culture and society. In Sketch Comedy: Identity, Reflexivity, and American Television, Nick Marx examines some of the genre’s most memorable?and controversial?moments from the early days of television to the contemporary line-up. Through explorations of sketches from well-known shows such as Saturday Night Live, The State, Inside Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, and more, Marx argues that the genre has served as a battleground for the struggle between comedians who are pushing the limits of what is possible on television and network executives who are more mindful of the financial bottom line. Whether creating new catchphrases or transgressing cultural taboos, sketch comedies give voice to marginalized performers and audiences, providing comedians and viewers opportunities to test their own ideas about their place in society, while simultaneously echoing mainstream cultural trends. The result, Marx suggests, is a hilarious and flexible form of identity play unlike anything else in American popular culture and media. “An excellent study of a long-neglected area in television/media studies and is part of a larger turn toward the centrality of comedy in post-war U.S. culture.” —Jeffrey Sconce, Northwestern University “A stalwart of television . . . sketch comedy finally gets the in-depth critical attention it deserves . . . Marx shows how sketch comedy has fit (and been constrained by) TV’s industrial contexts, from live variety shows in its earliest days to movement across media in the era of multiple platforms. These case studies not only chart sketch comedy’s past, they provide the theoretical and analytical tools to consider its future.” —Ethan Thompson, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi