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In less than a century, the flickering blue-grey light of the television screen has become a cultural icon. What do the images transmitted by that screen tell us about power, authority, gender stereotypes, and ideology in the United States? Television, History, and American Culture addresses this ...

In less than a century, the flickering blue-grey light of the television screen has become a cultural icon. What do the images transmitted by that screen tell us about power, authority, gender stereotypes, and ideology in the United States? Television, History, and American Culture addresses this question by illuminating how television both reflects and influences American culture and identity.The essays collected here focus on women in front of, behind, and on the TV screen, as producers, viewers, and characters. Using feminist and historical criticism, the contributors investigate how television has shaped our understanding of gender, power, race, ethnicity, and sexuality from the 1950s to the present. The topics range from the role that women broadcasters played in radio and early television to the attempts of Desilu Productions to present acceptable images of Hispanic identity, from the impact of TV talk shows on public discourse and the politics of offering viewers positive images of fat women to the negotiation of civil rights, feminism, and abortion rights on news programs and shows such as I Spy and Peyton Place.Innovative and accessible, this book will appeal to those interested in women's studies, American studies, and popular culture and the critical study of television.Contributors. Julie D'Acci, Mary Desjardins, Jane Feuer, Mary Beth Haralovich, Michele Hilmes, Moya Luckett, Lauren Rabinovitz, Jane M. Shattuc, Mark Williams

In the beginning, television was filled with promise. Offering convenient entertainment and easy access to the latest news and information, it was a truly democratic medium that was supposed to enrich the lives of its citizens. Yet today, the airwaves are inundated by a flood of drivel that panders ...

In the beginning, television was filled with promise. Offering convenient entertainment and easy access to the latest news and information, it was a truly democratic medium that was supposed to enrich the lives of its citizens. Yet today, the airwaves are inundated by a flood of drivel that panders to the audience's most base interests.

How did this happen? What went wrong?

Down the Tube answers these questions. Explaining that the United States, almost alone among the nations of the world, surrendered virtually the entire command of its public airwaves into the hands of the commercial sector, it reveals that television's primary purpose has nothing to do with producing quality programs. Its main concern is to package and deliver identifiable demographic groups (e.g., women 18-49) to their advertisers. Written by insiders who have played on both sides of the programming game, Down the Tube is both a sweeping examination of the history of television and an important indictment of the mercenary mentality that taints the most influential and powerful medium in the world.

Latin American Television makes English speakers aware of the dimensions, operation, and significance of the globalization of television in the Spanish-speaking world. Second only in scale to the market for English-language programming, the Spanish-language market embraces not just most nations of ...

Latin American Television makes English speakers aware of the dimensions, operation, and significance of the globalization of television in the Spanish-speaking world. Second only in scale to the market for English-language programming, the Spanish-language market embraces not just most nations of South and Central America but also Spain, and even the United States--the sixth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. This intercontinental space is connected physically by satellite communication, and culturally by a common language and heritage which binds it as both a `geolinguistic region' and an `imagined community' which certain media corporations, Latin American and North American, seek to exploit. A similar phenomenon with regard to Brazil and the Portuguese-speaking world is also examined, with special attention to its comparable features and points of exchange with the Spanish-speaking world. The book chronicles and analyses the development and structure of the globalization of these markets as a `Latin world'.