On Screen Rivals: Cinema and Television in the United States and Britain

This lively text compares two different media--film and television--in two different countries--Britain and the US--in an attempt to chart the changing relationship between them and their relative status in the cultural sphere. Integrating historical with textual analysis in a fruitful and wide-ranging manner, it focuses particularly on the meaning of television by exploring the medium's construction and representation in the rival cultural technology of film. The introduction takes the reader from the invention of television to the present day, then the complex relationship between television and film is explored in detail.