[6] His digital-humanities activities focus primarily on videographic media criticism and, in 2015, he co-founded the first "Scholarship in Sound & Image" workshop, supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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.
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.
The core assumption of this approach is that viewers actively construct storyworlds in their minds, and that the best way to understand the comprehension process is through the tools of cognitive psychology.”[12] In line with this, Mittell also draws on Murray Smith's work.
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.