Television and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland
Editorial Reviews
Midwest Book Review
Television remote controls are now in more than 90% of American homes and have single-handedly changed the way Americans watch television. No longer passive viewers, we have become television "users", able to exert greater control over the content of what we watch -- even more so in an age of cable and satellite competing with traditional broadcasting technologies. Television And The Remote Control: Grazing On A Vast Wasteland provides an overview within the context of the history and economics of media industries then goes on to explore the challenge of measuring remote control activity and presents the latest academic and industry research. Different viewer habits are described such as "zapping" (using the remote control to avoid advertising and undesirable content), "zipping" (avoiding content by fast-forwarding through recorded programming), and "grazing" (combining disparate program elements into an individualized program mix). Bellamy and Walker discuss the effects of these behaviors on television programming, promotion, and advertising. Television And The Remote Control conclude with projections of the remote control's role in the future of television. Unique and useful, an original contribution in studying a powerful factor in popular culture development.
Review
"Television and the Remote Control is an insightful ( and delightful) synthesis of industry and academic thinking and research into the hows, whys, and wherefores of remote control use. It is an easy grazing book--one can zip right along checking it all out or jump into the content that is most interesting.
"The topics of remote controls sounds so small but proves to be so large. Bellamy and Walker effectively marshall elements of history, public policy, audience analysis, and programming theory to position the RCD at the edge of the new technologies--and they give both practitioners and scholars a glimpse of a detailed 'Road Ahead.'
"Bellamy and Walker have taken the time to share their careful analysis of the history of events related to the remote control and the numerous research studies that have examined aspects of remote use. This kind of synthesis is of enormous value to other scholars--who usually lack the time to do it themselves.
"Bellamy and Walker's distinction between the first, second, and third generations of television will prove a marvelous heuristic in the classroom and workshop--and I expect to hear it turning up in speeches all over the place! Separating the 'generations' illuminated many aspects of television activity that tended to get lumped and lost." --Susan Tyler Eastman, Associate Professor of Telecommunications, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
"Television and the Remote Control is the most comprehensive review to date of the impact of the remote control device on television programming and advertising. Solidly grounded both in theories of audience uses and gratification and in the economic underpinnings of the American media system, the text makes an important contribution to our knowledge about one of the most ubiquitous and yet least understood media devices. An excellent synthesis of academic and industry research." --Barry L. Sherman, Ph.D., Director, Peabody Awards, University of Georgia
Television and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland,Jr., Robert V. Bellamy,James R. Walker,The Guilford Press,157230085X,Channel selectors,General,Grazing (Television),Media Studies - Electronic Media,Reference,Sociology,Television,Television - General,Zapping (Television),Zipping (Video recordings),Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication
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