A Companion to Television is a magisterial collection of original essays that chart the history of television from its inception to the present day. Over 30 leading scholars across the humanities and social sciences look at television scholarship as it responded to technological, institutional, and aesthetic changes around the world.

The essays cover a myriad of topics and theories that have led to television's current incarnation, and predict its likely future. From technology and aesthetics, television's relationship to the state, televisual commerce, texts, representation, genre, internationalism, and audience reception and effects, A Companion to Television is an invaluable reference for understanding the significance of television in the modern and postmodern world.

Janet Wasko is Professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Oregon. Her many books include Hollywood in the Information Age: Beyond the Silver Screen (1994), Consuming Audiences? Production and Reception in Media Research (1999), Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy (2001), and How Hollywood Works (2003).