Desperate Citizens

by: John McMurria / DePaul University
Extreme Makeover Home Edition contestants are portrayed as good and deserving citizens who are the victims of misfortunes beyond their control. However, while EMHE helps these deserving citizens, the corporate sponsored show fails to recognize the irony inherent in the fact that it is these very corporations that contribute to these problems in the first place.

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The August Audience

by: Jonathan Gray / Fordham University
While television networks are rolling out their lineups of new shows this month, many potential viewers have already decided which programs they will tune in to, and which they will actively avoid. How does pre-season marketing play in to the way audiences interpret television texts, and how do we analyze those readings as critics in television studies?

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