Television Myth and the American Mind - 2nd Edition by Hal Himmelstein (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book offers an interpretation of the myths that shape television images and reinforce this culture's dominant ideology. It provides histories of all television genres and connects developments within each genre to political, social, and cultural shifts in the larger society. This new Second Edition updates the previous edition's close textual analysis of representative series and serials to mid-1993, reflecting the significant changes that have occurred in both the business of television in the United States and in the larger society's dominant ideology. The Second Edition also reflects significant advances in critical theory related to the study of television that have occurred over the past decade, and it incorporates both the structuralist critical position (dominant in the first edition) and a post-structuralist position which moves away from a determinist textual analysis of ideology to a consideration of possible multiple decodings.

Book Synopsis

This book offers an interpretation of the myths that shape television images and reinforce this culture's dominant ideology. It provides histories of all television genres and connects developments within each genre to political, social, and cultural shifts in the larger society. This new Second Edition updates the previous edition's close textual analysis of representative series and serials to mid-1993, reflecting the significant changes that have occurred in both the business of television in the United States and in the larger society's dominant ideology. The Second Edition also reflects significant advances in critical theory related to the study of television that have occurred over the past decade, and it incorporates both the structuralist critical position (dominant in the first edition) and a post-structuralist position which moves away from a determinist textual analysis of ideology to a consideration of possible multiple decodings.

About the Author

HAL HIMMELSTEIN is Professor of Television and Radio at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and Director of Research of the Center for the Study of World Television. His book On the Small Screen (Praeger, 1981) was chosen as Outstanding Academic Book in Mass Communication for 1981-82 by Choice magazine, and his articles on television and culture and his interviews with video artists have appeared in Access, Wide Angle, The Journal of Film and Video, and various anthologies. He is a regular contributor to Almanac: The Annual of the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and is a frequent guest on the television series All About TV.