textbook

The Sitcom Brett Mills

September 2009 Pb 978 0 7486 3752 2 £16.99

192pp 216 x 138 mm Hb 978 0 7486 3751 5 £55.00

A textbook overview of the debates surrounding the sitcom genre

Description The Author The sitcom has become a staple of broadcasting the world over, but there is Brett Mills is Lecturer in Film and little rigorous academic work on it as a genre. This book redresses the balance by Television Studies at the University of examining the sitcom in terms of production, audiences and texts. It draws on a East Anglia. range of examples and case studies in order to examine the genre's characteristics, social position, and pleasures. Using this long-lasting and popular form of television, Series Brett Mills offers insights into genre theory and explores how the comic aim of TV Genres sitcom forms a central characteristic of the genre. Readership Key Features Undergraduate students of Media • Includes extensive interviews with sitcom writers, directors and producers Studies and Television Studies in the • Offers detailed textual analyses of a range of programmes, drawing on Humour UK and the US. Theory to explore the ways in which jokes and comic moments work • Investigates audience responses to sitcom, with reference to offence, pleasure, Table of Contents and social change 1. Introduction • Outlines the future for sitcom, considering new media developments and the 2. Genre changing relationships between broadcasters and audiences 3. Industry 4. Programmes Selling Points 5. Audiences 6. Future • Includes international examples as well as those produced by the dominant British and American broadcasting companies Courses • Sitcoms discussed include Extras, My Family, Curb Your Enthusiasm, One Foot in the Grave, Peep Show, Summer Heights High, Popetown, and Friends. Television Genres Television Comedy Television History Media Culture

Film, Media & Cultural Studies

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