Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Television Truths considers what we know about TV, whether we love it or hate it, where TV is going, and whether viewers should bother going along for the ride. This engaging volume, written by one of television's best known scholars, offers a new take on the history of television and an up-to-date analysis of its imaginative content and cultural uses.

Explores the pervasive, persuasive, and powerful nature of television: among the most criticized phenomena of modern life, but still the most popular pastime ever
Written by John Hartley, one of television's best known scholars
Considers how television reflects and shapes contemporary life across the economic, political, social and cultural spectrum, examining its influence from historical, political and aesthetic perspectives
Probes the nature of, and future for, television at a time of unprecedented change in technologies and business plans
Provides an up-to-date analysis of content and cultural uses, from the television live event, to its global political influence, through to the concept of the "TV citizen"
Maps out a new paradigm for understanding television, for its research and scholarship, and for the very future of the medium itself

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Figures (p. vii)
• List of Tables (p. viii)
• Acknowledgments (p. ix)
• 1 Television Truths (Argumentation of TV) (p. 1)
• Part I Is TV True? (Epistemology of TV) (p. 15)
• 2 The Value Chain of Meaning (p. 19)
• 3 Public Address Systems: Time, Space, and Frequency (p. 36)
• 4 Television and Globalization (p. 61)
• Part II Is TV a Polity? (Ethics/Politics of TV) (p. 75)
• 5 Television, Nation, and Indigenous Media (p. 77)
• 6 A Television Republic? (p. 96)
• 7 Reality and the Plebiscite (p. 126)
• Part III Is TV Beautiful? (Aesthetics of TV) (p. 161)
• 8 From a "Wandering Booby" to a Field of Cows: The Television Live Event (p. 163)
• 9 Shakespeare, Big Brother, and the Taming of the Self (p. 182)
• 10 Sync or Swim? Plebiscitary Sport and Synchronized Voting (p. 200)
• Part IV What Can TV Be? (Metaphysics of TV) (p. 221)
• 11 "Laughs and Legends" or the Furniture that Glows? Television as History (p. 223)
• 12 Television in Knowledge Paradigms (p. 243)
• References (p. 261)
• Index (p. 272)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

As Hartley (Queensland Univ. of Technology, Australia, and an authority on the subject of television) notes, since Bhutan introduced television in 1999, no country on the planet lacks a system. The author describes this broad survey as "a sustained reflection on the tensions produced by the problem of knowledge in and about television." After an introductory chapter outlining his approach, the author presents four sections. "Is TV True?" provides three chapters on the epistemology of the medium in the context of the larger fields of historical and global knowledge. Included is a discussion of aspects of television across time and space. The three chapters in "Is TV a Polity?" examine television in regard to its audience and the political process, and the degree to which television engages its viewers in political life. "Is TV Beautiful?" (three chapters) focuses on content, in particular coverage of live events (and so-called "reality" television), sports programs, and drama. The two chapters in the final section--"What Can TV Be?"--assess the medium and the study of it over time; Hartley argues that television's history and historiography have not been well done thus far. The book as a whole offers something of a philosophy of television. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. C. Sterling George Washington University