Creating Television: Conversations With the People Behind 50 Years of American TV
A Volume in LEA's Communication Series, © Copyright 2004
Robert Kubey (kubey@scils.rutgers.edu)
Director, Center for Media Studies (www.mediastudies.rutgers.edu)
Professor, Dept of Journalism & Media Studies, Rutgers University
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT "CREATING TELEVISION"
"Robert Kubey, preeminent in the field as both critic and admirer . . .[offers us] an unprecedented and altogether extraordinary opportunity to get to know, up close, the creative minds responsible for shows like The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, The Tonight Show, I Love Lucy and scores of other landmark programs. With rare insight and with humor and humanity, Kubey has put together fascinating interviews. When the interviewees are brash and opinionated, those qualities are left intact. Readers will discover piquant vignettes on almost every page. What makes these stories so revealing is their utter frankness. Many of these television creators are among the medium's harshest critics. You would not think they would bite the hand that feeds them, but they do, and very eagerly. Kubey clearly has the credentials for producing this masterwork. But he also knows how to coax candid interviews out of TV professionals, and knows how to tell a story to others. Unlike many scholars, he knows how to make this journey universally appreciated and engrossing for all to read. In fact, everyone interested in television will find his work innovative, instructive and utterly fascinating-in a word, superb."
-- Bernard S. Redmont, Former CBS foreign correspondent and Dean Emeritus of Boston University's College of Communication
Read the full text of the Television Quarterly review (forthcoming in May 2004)
"This is a masterful and unprecedented voyage into the minds of some 40 of television's most important, thoughtful and creative forces, thanks to Robert Kubey's insightful interviews. Never before has television's vital human capital-- people representing all of the key roles in the industry over a 50-year period, from writers and producers to actors, directors, even agents--been cross-examined to such useful and impressive ends. Professor Kubey, with a scholar's deft touch, proves that television is more than a message or an industry, but most critically the creative work of the people behind the box. Anyone remotely interested in television will find this book instructive and inspiring."
-- Everette E. Dennis, Felix E. Larkin Distinguished Professor of Media & Entertainment Industries, Fordham Graduate School of Business
"Few tribes are as strange, or talented, as the people who make TV. Robert Kubey has penetrated the world behind the tube and coaxed candid, revealing interviews from a wide range of successful players. Anyone who wants to understand the reality of making television would be fortunate to have him as their Sherpa and this book as their field guide."
-- Martin Kaplan, Director, The Norman Lear Center; Associate Dean, USC Annenberg School for Communication
"Entertainment Tonight...Access Hollywood...The E! True Hollywood Story...Inside TV Land: television these days spends a lot of time examining itself. Still, most viewers know comparatively little about the complex workings of creativity in this medium. Millions of people who never read Oliver Twist could tell you who wrote it but couldn't name the creators of Friends, which they watch every week.... In Creating Television, Robert Kubey, long known for his thought-provoking and innovative ways of thinking about the media, describes an industrialized creative process by talking with forty people who are a part of it. Taken together, these interviews provide a clear picture of how ideas and programs are assembled....Recognizing both the polyauthorial nature of television and the fact that individuals, not corporations, make the programs we watch, Kubey offers a significant contribution to the emerging field of television studies."
-- Robert Thompson, Director, Center for the Study of Popular Television, Syracuse University
"The first core concept of media literacy is 'All media are constructed.' So who makes the media we so avidly consume? In Creating Television: Conversations with the People Behind 50 Years of American TV, media literacy researcher Robert Kubey introduces us to 40 of the most significant actors, agents, writers, directors, producers, and executives who have created TV since the early 1950s. Through compelling verbatim interviews, Creating Television provides an unprecedented look inside the strange mix of artistic collaboration and cutthroat competition that is the U.S. television industry. Absorbing and insightful, it's a creative classroom resource!"
-- Elizabeth Thoman, Director, The Center for Media Literacy, Los Angeles
"In this new book, Kubey has made a major contribution. This is not a dry academic book. Because television is such a collaborative medium, we learn, through the interviews, how important decisions got made. A terrific resource for media educators who need behind the scenes insights."
-- Barry Duncan, Barry's Bulletin, Winter 2004, Media Awareness Network, Canada
"Teachers and students of the media need to understand HOW television is produced. Robert Kubey's new book does exactly that and MORE. There is a wealth of 'behind-the-scenes' interviews with those who made TV what it is today. This book belongs on the shelf of every serious student of media."
-- Frank Baker, Media Educator, Columbia, South Carolina
"The voices and activities of media producers are too often absent from academic writing about media and communications. But, as Professor Kubey is well aware from his work on media literacy, literacy must encompass writing as well as reading. These interviews with television workers are a fascinating record of some of the key shapers of our popular culture over the last five decades. The interview format is respectful, critical and illuminating. This book will be a valuable and necessary addition to the growing academic field of media production studies both in the USA and internationally."
-- Maire Messenger Davies, School of Journalism, Media & Cultural Studies Cardiff University, United Kingdom
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