Television Everywhere


Book Description

"Television Everywhere" is on the way. It's a generic term for using the internet to get TV to more devices in more places more conveniently - what you want, where you want, when you want it. It's far from a new idea. Plenty of futuristic notions of TV have been promoted in the past, usually by technologists with a shaky understanding of the television business. But this time Hollywood's content ownership combined with new, simple technologies could enable the television industry itself to take the lead and modernize television, while extending its economic life well into the future. More important than delivering TV through the internet is using the internet to retain and expand audiences for the TV we already have. That's what this book is about- why it's a problem worth solving, how to go about solving it, and how today's television industry will benefit from stepping in where cable companies, phone companies, and their technology suppliers are failing miserably. Aimed primarily at Hollywood, this book is for studio, network, and channel executives, producers, show runners, ad agency strategists ("digital" or otherwise), media buyers, and executives at ratings/measurement companies. We describe how Hollywood can both extend the life of so-called linear television and control the transition to internet-delivered TV, while building upon existing "starter" digital assets such as Hulu, or channel- and program-specific web properties and applications. Finally, this book is also a wake-up call to internet content and technology companies to take a fresh look at an old problem, using a comparatively new, low-cost set of approaches produced by the "Web 2.0" and cloud computing waves which emerged over the last several years.




Media Today


Book Description

"Turow’s Media Today: Mass Communication in a Converging World, now in its fifth edition, chooses [a] cutting-edge option. This is a student-friendly publication, offering aids such as definitions of key terms, colourful infographics, case studies and end-of-chapter review questions. There’s a companion website, too, and a password-protected website for instructors."—Philip Kemp, Times Higher Education Media Today uses convergence as a lens that puts students at the center of the profound changes in the 21st century media world. Through the convergence lens they learn to think critically about the role of media today and what these changes mean for their lives presently and in the future. The book’s media systems approach helps students to look carefully at how media is created, distributed, and exhibited in the new world that the digital revolution has created. In this way, Media Today goes beyond the traditional mass communication textbook’s focus on consuming media, to give students an insider’s perspective on how media businesses operate. How exactly does Google profit from web searches? What will a magazine look like five years from now? Informative and engaging, Media Today, Fifth Edition, is characterized by its focus on: Convergence: In addition to separate chapters on the Internet and the Video Games industry, coverage of convergence and its impact is incorporated into every chapter. Consumer Education: Media Literacy questions ask students to consider their roles as a media consumer and potential media creator. Comprehensive Media Industry Coverage: Historical timelines in the print book and on the companion website track the development of each media industry, giving students an overview of a particular industry at a glance. Contemporary, Student-friendly Examples: New culture and media boxes help students think about the impact of media industries on their own lives and globally. Joseph Turow—who has been teaching Intro to Mass Communication for well over a decade—demonstrates the many ways that media convergence and the pervasiveness of the Internet have blurred distinctions between and among various media. From newspapers to video games or social networking to mobile platforms, Media Today prepares students to live in the digital world of media.




Television on Demand


Book Description

Since the beginning of broadcasting, radio and television producers have pushed their shows to audiences in controlled environments that end in a discrete and quantifiable site to be transformed into advertising rates. Today's viewers program their DVR's to create their own viewing schedules, wait to watch entire seasons in marathon DVD viewing sessions and stream shows to their mobile devices. The rise of a curatorial culture where viewers create their own entertainment packages and select from a buffet of viewing options and venues has caused a seismic shift for the traditional television industry. While audiences clamor for more story-driven and scripted entertainment, their new viewing habits undermine the dominant economic structures that fund quality episodic series.Television on Demand examines how we have reached this present moment; and considers the viable future(s) of this crucial culture industry. This leads to an understanding of an empowered audience that realizes its means of control of how it consumes media, as well as a new way of looking at the industry we have traditionally and currently call 'television.'




Is Television a Bad Influence?


Book Description

These titles encourage critical thinking and debate by providing case studies, historical contexts, and individual opinions on each issue. Readers are encouraged to think and express themselves independently, evaluatively, and critically. At the end, readers are left to make up their own minds, having acquired transferable skills such as the ability to distinguish fact from opinion, weigh up the strength of other people's arguments, and recognize other people's assumptions.




Television at Large in South Asia


Book Description

This book explores the empirical and theoretical significance of understanding television as a dynamic technology, a creative industry, and a vibrant cultural form that is "at large" in South Asia. Bringing together prominent scholars who have shaped television studies in South Asia, as well as emerging scholars who address new topics, this book decisively positions television as a key site in the study of South Asian History and Culture. In doing so, it also positions the study of television in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora as crucial in the rethinking of global television history and opens up new directions for the future of television studies. This volume will be essential reading for scholars and teachers of media and communication studies, media history, anthropology, and sociology, besides being of great interest to policymakers and media professionals. This book was originally published as a special issue of South Asian History and Culture.




Television's Moment


Book Description

Television was one of the forces shaping the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when a blockbuster TV series could reach up to a third of a country’s population. This book explores television’s impact on social change by comparing three sitcoms and their audiences. The shows in focus – Till Death Us Do Part in Britain, All in the Family in the United States, and One Heart and One Soul in West Germany – centered on a bigoted anti-hero and his family. Between 1966 and 1979 they saturated popular culture, and managed to accelerate as well as deradicalize value changes and collective attitudes regarding gender roles, sexuality, religion, and race.




Understanding Society, Culture, and Television


Book Description

What is the real nature of television, and what is its place in contemporary society and culture? In a provocative rethinking of the medium and its ensuing effects, this book argues that we have misunderstood television and have thus contributed to a distorted view of art and culture in the 20th century. During the final quarter of this century both in academic and popular circles, we have spread wildly exaggerated claims about television's undermining of human consciousness and behavior. Television has become a scapegoat for all sorts of societal and cultural ills. The arguments presented by many researchers on behalf of the ill-effects of TV are fundamentally weak and flawed. On the eve of the 21st century, the claimed distinctions between high art and popular culture have become a final, hopeless repository of pedantry. Television can be understood only by viewing it as an art form, and measuring its role in society and culture in concert with the first principles of human reason and liberty.




Mobile TV: Customizing Content and Experience


Book Description

Developing usable, useful, and appealing solutions for the customer or user experience requires customization according to specific users' needs amidst frequently changing physical and social environments. Complex design problems like these require interdisciplinary perspectives that cover software functionality, human interaction and communication experiences, and perceived value. After defining and summarizing current research and development, this book focuses on Mobile TV experience in everyday life, innovative conceptual and participatory design methods, contextual analysis methods, social context for interactive multimedia systems, advanced interaction with mobile digital content, and future trends for the wide range of products and services that will be offered in the decade to come. The Editors have carefully balanced the theoretical and empirical approaches providing a valuable insight into principles and methods, as well as actionable guidelines and recommendations for all those interested in exploring how to achieve the core objectives of usability, usefulness, and social appeal of this new mobile-video technology. The book answers many questions, and raises some new ones that only future technology development and deployment in mobile human-computer interaction and communication can answer.







Annual Review of Communications: Volume 59


Book Description

An indispensable reference publication for telecommunication and information-industry professionals. Each year, the IEC brings together into one unique resource the most current thinking and practical experience of industry leaders around the world on a variety of topics facing their areas of specialization. This 700+ page reference tool is a must for executives, managers, engineers, analysts, and educators in all sectors of today's changing information industry.