Jason Mittell

In an interview in The New York Times on February 21, 2007, Mittell defended the use of Wikipedia as a citeable resource for college-level research. Mittell responded to critics that questioned the accuracy and reliability of an online document that anyone in the world can edit at any time by arguing that “The message that is being sent is that ultimately they see it as a threat to traditional knowledge...[;] I see it [Wikipedia] as an opportunity. What does that mean for traditional scholarship? Does traditional scholarship lose value?”

Jason Mittell is a professor of American studies and film and media culture at Middlebury College whose research interests include the history of television, media, culture, and new media. He is author of three books, Genre and Television (2004), Television and American Culture (2009), and Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling (NYU Press, 2015), and co-editor of How To Watch Television (NYU Press, 2013).

Mittell received his Ph.D. in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Media & Cultural Studies Program (part of the Department of Communication Arts) in August 2000. In the spring of 1996, Mittell obtained an M.A. in the same concentration and program. Mittell completed his undergraduate studies at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio in 1992, graduating with a B.A. and majoring in English and Theater.

Mittell taught Communication at Georgia State University from 2000 to 2002. Currently, he is a professor at Middlebury College, where he teaches a number of courses related to television, culture, and media, such as Television and American Culture, Theories of Popular Culture, Media Technology and Cultural Change, American Media Industries, Animated Film & TV, Narration Across Media, Media and Childhood in American Culture, and Urban American and Serial Television: Watching The Wire.

Mittell's book Complex TV outlines a historical poetics of contemporary television series, which he calls "complex TV." Mittell argues that the "complex" television series of today feature an array of storytelling techniques which cannot be adequately understood through the use of cinematic and literary theory. This is especially the case with seriality, i.e. the fact that television series are told in several, separate episodes. To Mittell, this form of television drama emerged in the early 1990s and is characterized by its use of “narrative special effect” which is to say that a program sometimes "flexes its storytelling muscles to confound and amaze a viewer”, e.g. by using flashbacks in innovative ways.