Beyond the Box: Television and the Internet

In Beyond the Box: Extending TV Text, Sharon Ross delves into developments in today s TV industry, making sense of generational shifts, new textual strategies, and technological changes. She offers a fresh and innovative perspective that focuses on the shift in audience experience and how it has blurred the lines of established boundaries. Featuring discussions of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Lost" and "American Idol", Beyond the Box gives students and couch potatoes alike a better understanding of what it means to watch television in an era of profound technological change.

Introduction: Online/Offline∼What It Means to Watch (and Make) TV in the Age of the Internet.

1. Fascinated with Fandom: the Interactively Aware Viewers of Xena and Buffy.

2. Power to the People, or the Industry?: American Idol Voting, Adult Swim Bumping, and Viral Video–ing.

3. Managing Millenials: Teen Expectations of Tele–Participation.

4. No Network Is An Island: Lost s Tele–participation and ABC s Return to Industry Legitimacy.

5. Conclusion: The Remains Of The Day: The Future Of TV

Sharon Marie Ross is Assistant Professor of television studies in the Television Department at Columbia College, Chicago, where she teaches critical analysis of TV.

"Ross′s stance is academic, but she also considers the stance of fans, producers, creators and marketers. Together, these voices combine to create a new understanding of the connectedness of all parties in the process of telling stories, both authorised and unauthorised." ( Science Fiction Film and Television, July 2010)

"Ross provides a valuable resource on the emerging field of interactive television and its relationship to fandom, viral marketing, tele–participation, and the Internet. The book illustrates how little research has yet been done on the complex relationship between television fans and Web discourse about popular shows." ( CHOICE)