Media Audiences

Television, Meaning and Emotion

Kristyn Gorton

• Publisher: EUP
• Year: 2009
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780748630363
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

An engaging and original study of current research on television audiences and the concept of emotion, this book offers a unique approach to key issues within television studies. Topics discussed include: television branding; emotional qualities in television texts; audience reception models; fan cultures; 'quality' television; television aesthetics; reality television; individualism and its links to television consumption. The book is divided into two sections: the first covers theoretical work on the audience, fan cultures, global television, theorising emotion and affect in feminist theory and film and television studies. The second half offers a series of case studies on television programmes such as Wife Swap, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under in order to explore how emotion is fashioned, constructed and valued in televisual texts. The final chapter features original material from interviews with industry professionals in the UK and Irish Soap industries along with advice for students on how to conduct their own small-scale ethnographic projects.Key Features:*An accessible guide to theoretical work on emotion and affect, this book is key reading for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates doing media studies, communication and cultural studies and television studies.*Case studies on emotion and television in British and US media contexts demonstrate new research and provide a starting point for readers undertaking their own research.*Each chapter includes exercises, points for discussion and lists for further reading

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface: emotion, engagements and orientation
• Introduction: why study television?
• Part One Theoretical background
• 1 ‘Desperately Seeking the Audience’: models of audience reception
• 2 Personal Meanings, Fandom and Sitting Too Close to the Television
• 3 Global Meanings and Trans-cultural Understandings of Dallas
• 4 Theorising Emotion and Affect: feminist engagements
• 5 Theorising Emotion in Film and Television
• Part Two Case studies
• 6 A Sentimental Journey: writing emotion in television
• 7 ‘There’s No Place Like Home’: emotional exposure, excess and empathy on TV
• 8 Emotional Rescue: The Sopranos (HBO 1999–2007), ER (NBC 1994–) and State of Play (BBC1 2003)
• 9 Feminising Television: the Mother Role in Six Feet Under (HBO 2001–6) and Brothers & Sisters (ABC 2006–)
• 10 Researching Emotion in Television: a small-scale case study of emotion in the UK/Irish soap industry
• Bibliography
• Index