Books in the Reading Contemporary Television series

Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field of contemporary television to debate what we mean by quality TV.

Takes a look at the contradictions and reciprocities between feminism and television, engaging as they go in theoretical and critical conversations about media culture, third wave feminism, feminist spectatorship, the sex wars, and the politics of visual pleasure. This book offers a discussion of what television has to offer feminist fan.

"Mad Men" is a zeitgeist show of the early twenty-first century. This book demonstrates, partly because its characters are an earlier, confused and conflicted version of ourselves, trying to make the best of a future unfolding at breakneck speed.

"Lost", created by wunderkind JJ Abrams and aired on the US ABC network and Sky in the UK, began in 2004 and ends after its sixth season in 2010. This book not only offers an understanding of the multi-media phenomenon that is "Lost". It also demonstrates how the contemporary American television industry works.