This work brings together writings on television published in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, from essays by Nick Browne and Beverle Houston to the latest historical and critical research. It considers television's economics, technologies, forms and audiences from a cultural perspective that links history, theory and criticism. The authors address several key issues: the formative period in American television history; the relation between television's political economy and its cultural forms; gender and melodrama; and new technologies such as video games and camcorders. Originally published in 1993.

Introduction Part 1: The Establishment of American Television: Industrial Organization and Social Meaning in the 1950s 1. The Rise of the Telefilm and the Network's Hegemony Over the Motion Picture Industry 2. Failed Opportunities: The Integration of the US Motion Picture and Television Industries 3. The Meaning of Memory: Family, Class, and Ethnicity in Early Network Television Part 2: Cultural Theory and Network Television: Mapping Economy and Subjectivity 4. The Political Economy of the Television (Super) Text 5. Viewing Television: The Metapsychology of Endless Consumption 6. TV Through the Looking Glass Part 3: Television Formats and the Inscription of Gender 7. Speculations on the Relationship Between Soap Opera and Melodrama 8. The Return of the Unrepressed: Male Desire, Gender, and Genre 9. On Commuting Between Television Fiction and Real Life Part 4: Video Transformations: Gaming, Pictorialization, Surveillance 10. Performing Style: Industrial Strength Semiotics and the Basic Televisual Apparatus 11. Surveying the Surveilled: Video, Space and Subjectivity 12. Playing with Power on Saturday Morning Television and on Home Video Games