The 1980s saw the rise of Ronald Reagan and the New Right in American politics, the popularity of programs such as "thirtysomething" and "Dynasty" on network television, and the increasingly widespread use of VCRs, cable TV, and remote control in American living rooms. In "Seeing Through the Eighties," Jane Feuer critically examines this most aesthetically complex and politically significant period in the history of American television in the context of the prevailing conservative ideological climate. With wit, humor, and an undisguised appreciation of TV, she demonstrates the richness of...

During the latter half of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, television talk shows, infotainment news, and screaming supermarket headlines became ubiquitous in America as the "tabloidization" of the nation's media took hold. In "Tabloid Culture" Kevin Glynn draws on diverse theoretical sources and an unprecedented range of electronic and print media in order to analyze important aspects and key debates that have emerged around this phenomenon.
Glynn begins by situating these media shifts within the context of Reaganism, which gave rise to distinctive ideological currents in society...

In "Haunted Media" Jeffrey Sconce examines American culture's persistent association of new electronic media--from the invention of the telegraph to the introduction of television and computers--with paranormal or spiritual phenomena. By offering a historical analysis of the relation between communication technologies, discourses of modernity, and metaphysical preoccupations, Sconce demonstrates how accounts of "electronic presence" have gradually changed over the decades from a fascination with the boundaries of space and time to a more generalized anxiety over the seeming sovereignty of...

Critics often claim that prime-time television seemed immune--or even willfully blind--to the landmark upheavals rocking American society during the 1960s. "Groove Tube" is Aniko Bodroghkozy's rebuttal of this claim. Filled with entertaining and enlightening discussions of popular shows of the time--such as "The Monkees, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Mod Squad--"this book challenges the assumption that TV programming failed to consider or engage with the decade's youth-lead societal changes.
Bodroghkozy argues that, in order to woo an increasingly lucrative baby boomer...

Although we tend to think of television primarily as a household fixture, TV monitors outside the home are widespread: in bars, laundromats, and stores; conveying flight arrival and departure times in airports; uniting crowds at sports events and allaying boredom in waiting rooms; and helping to pass the time in workplaces of all kinds. In "Ambient Television" Anna McCarthy explores the significance of this pervasive phenomenon, tracing the forms of conflict, commerce, and community that television generates outside the home.
Discussing the roles television has played in different...

Historical and theoretical essays on television and media culture by a leading feminist studies scholar.

Although we tend to think of television primarily as a household fixture, TV monitors outside the home are widespread: in bars, laundromats, and stores; conveying flight arrival and departure times in airports; uniting crowds at sports events and allaying boredom in waiting rooms; and helping to pass the time in workplaces of all kinds. In "Ambient Television" Anna McCarthy explores the significance of this pervasive phenomenon, tracing the forms of conflict, commerce, and community that television generates outside the home.
Discussing the roles television has played in different...

"Mobile Cultures "provides much-needed, empirically grounded studies of the connections between new media technologies, the globalization of sexual cultures, and the rise of queer Asia. The availability and use of new media fax machines, mobile phones, the Internet, electronic message boards, pagers, and global television have grown exponentially in Asia over the past decade. This explosion of information technology has sparked a revolution, transforming lives and lifestyles, enabling the creation of communities and the expression of sexual identities in a region notorious for the regulation...

In the early 1960s, whenever the "Today Show" discussed integration, wlbt-tv, the nbc affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi, cut away to local news after announcing that the "Today Show "content was "network news . . . represent ing] the views of the northern press." This was only one part of a larger effort by wlbt and other local stations to keep African Americans and integrationists off Jackson's television screens. "Watching Jim Crow" presents the vivid story of the successful struggles of African Americans to achieve representation in the tv programming of Jackson, a city many considered one...

In the last ten years, television has reinvented itself in numerous ways. The demise of the U.S. three-network system, the rise of multi-channel cable and global satellite delivery, changes in regulation policies and ownership rules, technological innovations in screen design, and the development of digital systems like TiVo have combined to transform the practice we call watching tv. If tv refers to the technologies, program forms, government policies, and practices of looking associated with the medium in its classic public service and three-network age, it appears that we are now entering...