Essays by David Thorburn

"Detective Programs" and "The Name of the Game" In Encyclopedia of Television. Edited by Horace Newcomb. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

"Interpretation and Judgment: A Reading of Lonesome Dove" Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 1993): 113-27.

"Is TV Acting A Distinctive Art Form?" New York Times, 1977

"The Sopranos" in The Essential HBO Reader , eds. Gery Edgerton and Jeff Jones (2007).

"Television Aesthetics" in Encyclopedia of Television, ed. Horace Newcomb, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2007). 

"Television as an Aesthetic Medium" Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Vol. 4, No. 2 (June 1987): 161-173.

"Television Melodrama" in Television: The Critical View, Horace Newcomb (ed), 6th ed. (2000).

"Web of Paradox" The American Prospect, Vol. 9, No. 40 (September/October 1998): 78-80.