Watching TV Is Not Required Thinking About Media and Thinking About Thinking [Paperback]

This book uses a social worldtoday's undergraduate students' ubiquitous everyday experience of televisionas a vehicle for helping awaken students to the true possibilities for learning and their responsibilities inherent in achieving those goals. The book also introduces students to the social construction of reality embedded in the experience of TV. The lead author Barney McGrane is one of the most accomplished and successful teachers of sociology in the United States today and is also the co-author with John Gunderson and the late Inge Bell of the classic book for teaching This Book Is Not Required: An Emotional Survival Manual For Students.

CH 1  PARENT TV: OUR THIRD PARENT

CH 2  IDENTITY TV: YOU ARE WHAT YOU WATCH

CH 3  REALITY TV: TV IS A PLACE WHERE WE LIVE

CH 4  CONSUMERISM TV: YOU ARE WHAT YOU WANT

CH 5  RELATIONSHIP TV: I DONT REALLY LOVE YOU, I LOVE GORDONS GIN/JOHN CUSAK

CH 6  CHILDRENS TV: SATURDAY MORING GHETTO

CH 7  MIRROR TV: LOOKING GLASS SELF

Ch 8  UN-TV: NO TV AND MEDITATION TV

McGrane and Gunderson have put together an extraordinarily provocative stream of sociologically inspired responses to television. Nothing could be more relevant to students, and in the right hands, this is a resource for a learning experience that at once maximizes critical and creative thinking. McGrane and Gunderson give new life to sociological thinking. Jack Katz, Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

Barney McGrane has a huge following among lower-division sociology instructors in North America. Barney has taught literally thousands of students at UCLA, UC Irvine, Pitzer, Colby College, and now Chapman University during his career. He is a mesmerizing teacher.