These are both somewhat old now (late 1980s, early 1990s), but John
Ellis's Visible Fictions and John Fiske's
Television Culture are both good places to start. Two
other useful books that present applications of various theories to
television are Robert C. Allen, Channels of Discourse,
Reassembled, and Leah Vande Berg's collection of readings
called Television Criticism.
Good luck,
Sandy Camargo
Department of English
University of Missouri
> I have been asked to teach a course about cinema and television.
As I am already teaching cinema studies, I know much more about film
than tv, but am surprised to see that despite hundreds of books about
television, there seems to be no textbook about television studies, or
introduction to television studies. I can quote 30 books about violence
in television, but I found none that can summarize the field of
television studies. I would appreciate a few hints, and to enlarge the
scope, I accept suggestions for books in English, French, or Spanish.
>
> Thank you
>
>----
>Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
>http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite