Television

Featured Sites

• ScreenSite. The single most useful academic film and television studies site. Includes links for production, history, audience analysis, and much more.
• IMDB While better known as a film site, IMDB is the most comprehensive site for basic data about television shows past and present.

General Sites

• After Ellen. A site with news and reviews on queer women in television and other media.
• ClassicTV. Good resource on TV shows from the 1950s onward.In addition to show information, the site includes accessto theme songs, fashions and other TV-related materials.
• E-server: Film and Television Articles Online. More than sixty scholarly articles on television.
• Hulu Free access to many old and current TV shows, with upgrade to even more comprehensive pay site.
• Jump the Shark. This site looks at TV shows and the moment in which they "jumped the shark," or hit their peak then went downhill. It also has information on current shows.
• MediaFiends. Reality TV news site with a reality TV schedule and links to other sources.
• MZTV Museum. Fun site with lovely pictures of classic radios and television sets; lends itself to a semiotic analysis of how changing aesthetic styles in TV sets might reflect cultural changes.
• Queery's TVGayGuide. Sort of the queer TV Guide, with a daily schedule of television programming (as well as movies) with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queercharacters or topics related to queer issues.
• Reality Blurred. A reality TV news digest with news on all reality TV since 2000.
• Television: Critical Methods and Approaches The companion website to the excellent TV studies book of the same name by Jeremy Butler.
• TVcom. Previously tv tome, an excellent source for information on most any show, including tv listings, show summaries, episode guides, casting information, news, videos, images, reviews and a fan forum.
• TV Guidemagazine. Useful commercial site for tracking trends in TV watching.
• VanderbiltUniversity TV News Archive. Key resource for anyoneexamining the past and present of TV news programming. Includes a database with written summaries of news broadcasts, and on-demand video copiesof broadcasts.

Online Articles

• Conventions of Television News. Article by John Hartley briefly introducing analysis of the way formats and other conventions shape the content of television news programs.
• "Fables and Endless Genealogies:" Soap Opera and Women's Culture. Argues that soap operas are the most recent instance in a long tradition of 'orality' among women, and that the disdain we hold for soap operas is also common to this tradition.
• FAIR: Channel One. Several articles from the non-profit organization FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting), analyzing the actual "news" content of the Channel One broadcasts which many school kids are required to watch.
• Homoeroticism or Male Intimacy? A case study from current American television, Joey and Chandler from Friends.
• More (Male) Power: Humor and Gender in Home Improvement. Analyzes the show through its use of humor/satire, specifically as it plays into the perceptions of male and female power. A pdf version of this article.
• Notes on the Construction of Reality in TV News Programmes. Is TV news really objective? Should it be?

See also:

• E-server: Film and Television Articles Online. More than sixty scholarly articles on television.

TV Programs: Some Old, Some Actiive, Some Well-known, Some Almost Unknown, Many Weird

Includes some "Official" sites, and some examples of the often much more interesting sites made by "Fans"

• Adult Swim. Includes shows such as The Boondocks, Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Cowboy Beebop, Family Guy and various other adult cartoons and anime shows.
• The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
• The Adventures of Pete and Pete.
• Alias.
• Batman, the Animated Series.
• Battlestar Galactica
• Beavis and Butthead.
• Beverly Hills, 90210.
• Blake's 7.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• Clarissa Explains It All.
• Colbert Report.
• Computer Chronicles.
• Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
• Desperate Housewives.
• Doctor Who.
• Duckman.
• Earth 2.
• The East Village: A CyberSoap Opera.In addition to photographs and audio and video clips, this soap allows you to join the "cyber clique" of a favorite character (after registering, of course). Once in a "clique," you will receive “secret email” from that character that gives you information not in the story line. Chat rooms are also available.
• Fawlty Towers.
• Firefly.
• Herman’s Head.
• Highlander.
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
• Home Improvement.
• The Kids in the Hall.
• La Femme Nikita.
• The Late Show with David Letterman.
• Lois and Clark.
• Lost.
• Lost in Space.
• Max Headroom.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• My So-Called Life.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K).
• Party of Five.
• Picket Fences.
• The Prisoner.
• Quantum Leap.
• Quartermass.
• Reboot. A very imaginative computer-generated cartoon adventure inside the mainframe of a computer.
• Red Dwarf.
• Remington Steele.
• The Rockford Files.
• Saturday Night Live.
• Saved by the Bell.
• The Scene. A free internet show about the world of internet movie pirating.
• School House Rock.
• The Simpsons.
• Sliders.
• Space Precinct.
• Star Trek WWW. Links to literally thousands of sites about the various Star Trek series, movies, books, etc. A good way to get a sense of what the Net has done to fandom.
• Star Trek Online. The show that will never die continues in an online version.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (STDS9).
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (STTNG).
• Star Trek: Voyager (STV).
• Tiny Toons Adventures.
• TV Nation.
• The Twilight Zone.
• Twin Peaks.
• Unsolved Mysteries.
• Wild Wild West.
• The X-Files.
• Xena: Warrior Princess. The official site.
• XenaVille. Compare this fan site to the official one above. And there are dozens of other interesting Xena fansites and fan fiction sites to explore further into cultdom.

Network Sites

• 4kidsTV.
• ABC.
• Asia Television Limited.
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
• BBC.
• BBC America.
• BET NetWorks.
• Bravo!
• CBC. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
• Cartoon Network.
• CBS.
• CMC. California Music Channel.
• CMC. Country Music Channel.
• CMT. Country Music Television.
• CNBC.
• CNN Sports Main Page.
• CNN World News.
• Comedy Central.
• Court TV Law Center.
• C-Span.
• Discovery Channel Canada.
• Discovery Channel Online.
• Discovery Channel School.
• Dish Network.
• The Disney Channel.
• ESPN.
• Euro TV. European TV Guide Web.
• Food Network.
• FOX Sports World.
• Globalvision.
• Great American Country.
• HBO.
• The History Channel.
• Home and Garden Television.
• IFC. Independent Film Channel.
• International Channel Networks.
• Lifetime Online.
• LOGO. MTV's Gay Network.
• MTV Online.
• MuchMusic USA.
• NATPE. National Association of Television Program Executives.
• NBC.
• News Talk Television.
• The Outdoor Channel.
• Ovation. "The Arts Network."
• PBS Online.
• PC TV.
• Resort Sports Network.
• Sci-Fi Channel.
• Showtime.
• Sundance Channel.
• Tokyo Broadcasting System.
• The Travel Channel.
• TBS. Turner Broadcasting System.
• Turner Classic Movies.
• TNT. Turner Network Television.
• Twilight Zone. The original series remains one of the most creatively bizarre things ever seen on TV.
• Twin Peaks. David Lynch's infamous TV show.
• UPN. United Paramount Network.
• USA Network.
• VH1. Video Hits 1.
• WB. Warner Brothers Animation.

Bibliography

[Few topics on popular culture can be adequately researched on the web alone. These reading suggestions are designed as beginning points for further offline study.]

Allen, Robert C. Speaking of Soap Operas. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

Classic, still relevant study of the production and consumption of daytime soap operas.

Ang, Ien. Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World. London: Routledge, 1996.

Excellent collection of essays exploring various difficulties and possibilities in analyzing the responses of popular culture audiences.

Butler, Jeremy. Television: Critical Methods and Approaches. NY: Routledge, 2012.

Excellent introduction to major scholarly approaches to television studies. See also the companion website linked above.

Doty, Alexander. Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

Witty re-reading of popular figures from Jack Benny to Laverne and Shirley as having a “queer” subtext.

Gamson, Joshua. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

The best book on the strange and wondrous phenomenon of Jerry Springer-style “tabloid” talk shows.

Gray, Herman. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for "Blackness." Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.

Brilliant interpretation of the evolution of representations of African Americans in television news and fiction programming, from the 1980s to the present.

Hamamoto, Darrell Y. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans andthe Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Wide-ranging study that includes issues of internment, and the war in Southeast Asia, in addition to ongoing, everyday stereotypes of TV orientalism.

Jhally, Sut and Justin Lewis. Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.

Combines audience surveys and textual analysis to look at how confusions of race and class in the US are reflected in and reinforced by Cosby’s mid-80s show.

Kackman, Michael, et al. eds,. Flow TV: Television in the Age of Media Convergence. Routledge, 2010.

Collection of essays Eexaming how new digital media like smart phones, iPads, and PCs that re-present TV shows are changing the medium and the meanings of televisual experience.

Kaplan, E. Ann. Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture. New York: Methuen, 1987.

Sophisticated analysis of the relations among MTV videos, consumer culture, and the psychodynamics of identity formation in youth.

Lemish, Carol. Screening Gender of Children's Television. Routledge, 2010.

Examines changing images of gender in recent TV aimed at young audiences.

Lewis, Lisa. Gender Politics and MTV. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.

Takes an audience-ethnographic approach that sees Madonna and similar figures as empowering to girls and young women.

Marc, David. Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.

Generally regarded as the best overall book on the sit-com.

Walters, Suzanna Danuta. All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

An excellent book looking primarily at gay visibility in television but in all forms of media up to its publication in 2001.

Trashy or Transgressive? "Reality TV" and the Politics of Social Control. Charts some of the objections to one of the latest trends in television programming, and finally asks the question, "What's new?"
Nationalities, Sexualities, and Global TV. Course and web project from University of Maryland.
CineMedia: Television. Billed as the largest media site on the net, CineMedia's television section is indeed a vast resource on all aspects of TV.
I Saw it On TV: A Guide to Broadcast and Cable Programming Sources. A very useful resource for finding anything that has ever appeared on TV, from shows to movies to commercials.
Ally McBeal's Younger Sisters. Jane Rosenzweig argues that television's women are getting less mature while its girls are getting more so.
Can TV Improve Us? Television is a powerful medium: can it be used for good?
The Trouble with Teletubbies. In airing The Teletubbies, the authors argue, PBS has stepped over an important line: from catering to an existing market (such as with Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood) to creating a new one, namely, one-year old children.
TV’s Last Taboo. “With ‘reality TV’ still in vogue, why shouldn’t networks let a little reality creep into contraceptive advertising?”
Babylon 5.
Beakman’s World.
The Bold and the Beautiful.
Cheers.
Gilligan’s Island.
Late Night with Conan O’Brian.
MacGyver.
M.A.S.H.
Animaniacs.