So you want to study television? Free sample introductions to TV and 'Small Screen' studies

As a follow up to yesterday's post on online introductions to film studies (and to a positive flurry of email responses to it), Film Studies For Free (a veritable addict of screens of all sizes) brings you a list of links to exemplary, freely-available, online essays, sample book chapters, and other resources, all of which give a very rich sense indeed of what it is like to study different kinds of television and related media at university or college. The list begins with the most accessible resources.

• Museum of Broadcast Communications - 'Television Studies' Guide
• Jason Mittell, ' Introduction: Why Television?', Television and American Culture (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Companion Website/Resource Center. See Mittell's blog Just TV HERE; and also see Henry Jenkins' great interview with Mittell part one HERE and part two HERE.
  
• Glen Creeber, Toby Miller and John Tulloch (eds), The Television Genre Book (BFI/ Palgrave Macmillan, 2e, 2009): Chapter on DRAMA (including Studying Television Drama (G.W.Brandt/J.Tulloch) – Robin Nelson; The Single Play (The Wednesday Play/Play for Today) – Glen Creeber; The Western (Alias Smith and Jones) – William Boddy (Deadwood– Glen Creeber); The Action Series (Man from UNCLE/Avengers) –Toby Miller (24– Glen Creeber); The Crime Series (Hill Street Blues) – Lez Cooke (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) (The Sopranos– Glen Creeber) ; Hospital Drama (ER) – Jason Jacobs; Science Fiction (Star Trek) – Luke Hockley(The X-Files– Catherine Johnson),(Doctor Who– Matt Hills); Drama–Documentary (Cathy Come Home/The Day After) – John Corner; The Mini-Series (Roots/The Singing Detective) – Glen Creeber; Costume Drama (Jane Austen Adaptations) – Robin Nelson; The Teen Series – Rachel Moseley (Buffy the Vampire Slayer– Cathy Johnson); Postmodern Drama (Twin Peaks) – Adrian Page (Ally McBeal – Robin Nelson),(Heroes– Glen Creeber) note: a large file so slow to download but well worth the wait)
• Jeremy G. Butler, 'Chapter 13: Television Studies: Alternatives to Empirical Approaches', Television: Critical Methods and Applications, 3rd Edition (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, September 2006) and Companion Website
• Paul Bowman,'Introduction: Deconstructing "the Popular"’, Deconstructing ‘the Popular' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
• Critical Studies in Television: Scholarly Studies For Small Screen Fictions - Resources Website
• John Caldwell, 'Convergence Television: Aggregating Form and Repurposing Content in the culture of conglomeration (excerpt) from Lyn Spigel and Jan Olson (eds), Television after TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition (Duke University Press, 2004)
• Susan Holmes, "'The Only Place Where ''Success'' Comes before ''Work'' Is in the Dictionary...?': Conceptualising Fame in Reality TV." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). 11 May. 2009
• Maire Messenger Davies, 'Chapter 1: Children and Broadcasting in the 1990s', 'Dear BBC' Children, Television Storytelling and the Public Sphere (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
• Tania Modleski, 'The Search for Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas - Notes on a feminine narrative form' from Charlotte Brunsdon and Lyn Spigel (eds), Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader (Open University Press/McGraw Hill, 2007)
• Nitesh Rohit, 'Cinema/Television in India- a story of images', IndianAuteur.com - Winds from theEast, November 30, 2008
  

If there any other relevant websites or sample introductory book chapters out there that FSFF has inadvertently omitted from this list, please feel free to email with information. (last updated May 12 2009)