How to Watch Television EthanThompson and JasonMittell, Editors. New York: New York University Press, 2013.

Abstract

How to Watch Television Ethan Thompson and Jason Mitteil, Editors. New York: New York University Press, 2013.Imagine you've just purchased a new TV. You haul it home, open the box, set it up. You may or may not glance at the instruction manual. But once you've got the power on, chances are you never think about how to watch TV again. It just happens. Yet the way in which one watches matters deeply, both to individual viewers and to our collective culture. In their 2013 book, How to Watch Television, editors Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell offer a new kind of guide, one that explores different ways of watching, methods for looking at or making sense of television (1). This book, unlike the manual that comes with your TV set, is utterly readable, highly engaging, and worth referring back to, long after you've switched on your favorite channel.Where other collections have considered emerging genres (Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture [2004]), the global functions of (Global Television Formats: Understanding Television Across Borders [2011]) and the changing nature of the medium in the digital era (Television After TV: Essays On a Mednetwork ium in Transition [2004]), Thompson and Mittell's collection attends to specific shows, old and new. Each of the volume's forty chapters begins with a brief summary, introducing the author, program, and a particular analytical framework. Throughout, the reader is presented with a diverse group of narrativesfrom the Disney cartoon Phineas and Ferb, to telenovelas and Monday Night Football, to contemporary dramas such as House and 24. Essays are organized into five thematic sections, which discuss form, representation, politics, industry, and practice, although many chapters skillfully weave these strands together in ways that transcend categorization.A number of the collection's contributors position the narrative and stylistic nuances of programs within a historical context. For instance, in his essay on The Wonder Years (ABC, 1988-1993), Daniel Marcus writes that the bildungsroman served as an expression of nostalgia for the countercultural 1960s during the Reagan era. Similarly, Noel Murray links MMWs (CBS, 1972-1983) depiction of the Korean War to social commentary on war writ large in the 1970s, as public dissatisfaction with US involvement in Vietnam intensified. Evelyn Alsultany's critique of the more recent 24 (FOX, 2001-2010) unpacks the show's depiction of terrorism in a post-9/ 11 landscape. …