Rules of the Game: Quiz Shows and American Culture

Critically examines the quiz show genre in American culture from the 1930s to the present.

From The $64,000 Question and Twenty-One to Jeopardy and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, quiz shows have permeated American culture ever since their beginnings in early radio. In Rules of the Game, Olaf Hoerschelmann critically examines the quiz show genre in American culture, drawing on a large body of radio and television programs and on archival materials relating to the broadcast industry, program sponsors, advertising agencies, and individual producers. Hoerschelmann relates quiz shows to the larger social and industrial structures from which they originate and examines the connection of quiz shows to the production of knowledge in American society. He also provides a rethinking of media genre theory, offering a detailed analysis of the text-audience relationships on quiz shows and their significance for the practice of broadcasting.