Visible Fictions - Cinema: Television: Video (Paperback, 2nd edition)

In a revised edition of this work, now a standard text, John Ellis combines an examination of the cinema and television industries with a detailed analysis of their aesthetic and semiotic characteristics. He uses new developments in theory of narrative and the place of the spectator to re-explore his definition of cinema and broadcast TV as interdependent rather than interchangeable cultural forms, with their own distinct social roles. Ellis draws on his own experience to examine subtle negotiations taking place in the relationship between viewer, programme and programme-maker in the face of satellite television and multiple channels. In a new chapter, he discusses the "meaning routines" fundamental to television broadcasting in TV news and soaps, and explores the legacy of the home video boom of the 1980s and the replacement of the drive-in with the "stay-in". Considering whether, as its cultural importance diminishes, television is now about to experience a kind of liberation, he expresses his notion of an unfolding and unpredictable revolution in broadcasting. This book should be of interest to undergraduates and postgraduates in media, film and cultural studies.