Essay on Television

Compose a 6 - 7 page, double-spaced paper that analyzes the argument of an
essay from the field of television studies and, as a conclusion, reflects on how the essay
influenced your thoughts about and experience of watching a related program.
Academic Level : Bachelor
Paper details
Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is for you to:
Further develop your thinking about an area of television studies that interests you
Familiarize yourself with scholarly writing about television
and connect your own thoughts about and experiences with television to ideas in scholarly writing
The paper: Compose a 6 - 7 page, double-spaced paper that analyzes the argument of an essay from the field
of television studies and, as a conclusion, reflects on how the essay influenced your thoughts about and
experience of watching a related program.
Aim for your analysis of the essay to bring insight to the topic that the author is discussing and why
understanding it in the way the author advocates matters. This analysis could involve:
identifying the essay's thesis and explaining why it's relevant
summarizing the overall points of the essay, the author's goals, key examples
quoting key phrases and interpreting them
paraphrasing key points and providing interpretation
comparing the author's conclusions to another source's conclusions
As a conclusion (perhaps 1/3 of the paper), reflect on any ways that the essay influenced your thoughts on
and/or experience of the program. You might discuss aspects of the essay that you found surprising, that you
disagreed with, or that you agreed with to an extent, but would ultimately draw different conclusions from.
Although your experience of the program is subjective (and it's fine to use the first person pronoun when
writing it), aim for this section as well to bring insight to the relevance that the author focuses on in the essay.
Research: You are required to significantly draw from at least scholarly source from the field of television
studies that is in some way related to one of the course units: television's production, form, systems of
representation, and audience viewing practices. I recommend that you begin by browsing the recent essays in
television journals like the ones below, which focus on television, and looking for an essay that interests you
(you'll need to log in through the library website for most of these):
Critical Studies in TelevisionLinks to an external site.
Flow (Links to an external site.)
Journal of popular film & television (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Consider these journals as well. They deal with film and other media but frequently have essays about
television from which to select:
Camera Obscura (Links to an external site.)
Film Quarterly (Links to an external site.)
New Review of Film and Television Studies (Links to an external site.)
Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies (Links to an external site.)
The Velvet Light Trap (Links to an external site.)
This is not by any means a complete list of all of the scholarly journals about television. You're welcome to
draw from any other scholarly source (including book chapters), as long as it comes from the field of television
or media studies. In other words, the source should not be an essay that happens to deal with television but is
part of a physics dissertation that does so in a way that is outside the scope of the class.
As you read, take note of the essay's main points and the key television programs that it mentions.
Viewing: Watch a program related to the essay you selected. The essay may deal directly with the program.
You may also select a program that is not mentioned in the essay but that is still directly relevant to its
argument. As you watch, take notes on how the ideas in the essay you read inform your thoughts and
experiences of the program. You'll conclude the essay with a discussion of these thoughts and experiences.