Television Aesthetics and Style

Steven Peacock, Jason Jacobs, Steven Peacock, Jason Jacobs

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781441157515
• eBook ISBN:
  9781623569037
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Fernsehgeschichte & -kritik

Although Film Studies has successfully (re)turned attention to matters of style and interpretation, its sibling discipline has left the territory uncharted - until now. The question of how television operates on a stylistic level has been critically underexplored, despite being fundamental to our viewing experience. This significant new work redresses a vital gap in Television Studies by engaging with the stylistic dynamics of TV; exploring the aesthetic properties and values of both the medium and particular types of output (specific programmes); and raising important questions about the way we judge television as both cultural artifact and art form.


Television Aesthetics and Style provides a unique and vital intervention in the field, raising key questions about television's artistic properties and possibilities. Through a series of case-studies by internationally renowned scholars, the collection takes a radical step forward in understanding TV's stylistic achievements.

Table of contents

• FC
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Introduction Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock
• PART ONE Conceptual debates
• 1 Television aesthetics: Stylistic analysis and beyond Sarah Cardwell
• 2 The qualities of complexity: Vast versus dense seriality in contemporary television Jason Mittell
• 3 What does it mean to call television ‘cinematic’? Brett Mills
• 4 Rescuing television from ‘the cinematic’: The perils of dismissing television style Deborah L. J
• PART TWO Aesthetics and style of television comedy
• 5 Why comedy is at home on television Alex Clayton
• 6 Situating comedy: Inhabitation and duration in classical American sitcoms Sérgio Dias Branco
• 7 Arrested developments: Towards an aesthetic of the contemporary US sitcom Timotheus Vermeulen an
• 8 Better or differently: Style and repetition in The Trip James Walters
• 9 The presentation of detail and the organisation of time in The Royle Family James Zborowski
• 10 The man from ISIS: Archer and the animated aesthetics of adult cartoons Holly Randell-Moon and
• PART THREE Critical analyzes of television drama
• 11 Don Draper and the promises of life George Toles
• 12 Justifying Justified William Rothman
• 13 HBO aesthetics, quality television and Boardwalk Empire Janet McCabe
• 14 Storytelling in song: Television music, narrative and allusion in The O.C. Faye Woods
• 15 Camera and performer: Energetic engagement with The Shield Lucy Fife Donaldson
• 16 Flashforwards in Breaking Bad: Openness, closure and possibility Elliott Logan
• 17 The fantastic style of Shameless Beth Johnson
• PART FOUR Non-fiction and history
• 18 ‘Let’s just watch it for a few minutes’: This is Your Life in 1958 Charles Barr
• 19 Gaudy nights: Dance and reality television’s display of talent Frances Bonner
• 20 Television sublime: The experimental television of Lithuanian CAC TV Linus Andersson
• 21 Closer to the action: Post-war American television and the zoom shot Nick Hall
• 22 Think-tape: The aesthetics of montage in the post-war television documentary Ieuan Franklin
• 23 What FUIs can do: The promises of computing in contemporary television series Cormac Deane
• Index