How to Watch Sports - (User's Guides to Popular Culture) by Adam Rugg & Benjamin Burroughs (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A new edition that brings the ways we watch and think about television up to the present

We all have opinions about the television shows we watch, but television criticism is about much more than simply evaluating the merits of a particular show and deeming it "good" or "bad." Rather, criticism uses the close examination of a television program to explore that program's cultural significance, creative strategies, and its place in a broader social context.

How to Watch Television, Second Edition brings together forty original essays--more than half of which are new to this edition--from today's leading scholars on television culture, who write about the programs they care (and think) the most about. Each essay focuses on a single television show, demonstrating one way to read the program and, through it, our media culture. From fashioning blackness in Empire to representation in Orange is the New Black and from the role of the reboot in Gilmore Girls to the function of changing political atmospheres in Roseanne, these essays model how to practice media criticism in accessible language, providing critical insights through analysis--suggesting a way of looking at TV that students and interested viewers might emulate. The contributors discuss a wide range of television programs past and present, covering many formats and genres, spanning fiction and non-fiction, broadcast, streaming, and cable. Addressing shows from TV's earliest days to contemporary online transformations of the medium, How to Watch Television, Second Edition is designed to engender classroom discussion among television critics of all backgrounds.

To access additional essays from the first edition, visit the "links" tab at nyupress.org/9781479898817/how-to-watch-television-second-edition/.

Review Quotes

"Brings a consequential, timely update to sports studies. A useful guide for budding scholars in sports and media studies, How to Watch Sports assembles an excellent collection of expertise to serve as a wide-ranging handbook for approaching sports in our contemporary media environment."-- "Travis Vogan, author of The Boxing Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History"

"How to Watch Sports is an incisive collection that redefines what it means to "watch" sports within an increasingly mediated world. Adam Rugg and Benjamin Burroughs's rigorously curated collection brings together an impressive range of scholars. Attuned to issues of identity, representation, and political economy, the essays move fluidly between textual analysis and sociocultural critique, illuminating the complex entanglements between sport, media, and everyday life. This collection exemplifies the vibrancy of contemporary sports scholarship and offers indispensable frameworks for understanding the mediated dynamics of sport in the twenty-first century."-- "Samantha Noelle Sheppard, author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen"

About the Author

Adam Rugg (Editor)
Adam Rugg is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Fairfield University, where he is also Director of the Sports Media program. His work has been published in Critical Public Health, Communication & Sport, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, and numerous others.

Benjamin Burroughs (Editor)
Benjamin Burroughs is Associate Professor & Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His writing has been published in journals including New Media and Society, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, International Journal of Sport Communication, and Games and Culture.