This book examines the representation of blackness on television at the height of the southern civil rights movement and again in the aftermath of the Reagan-Bush years. In the process, it looks carefully at how television's ideological projects with respect to race have supported or conflicted with the industry's incentive to maximize profits or consolidate power.

Sasha Torres examines the complex relations between the television industry and the civil rights movement as a knot of overlapping interests. She argues that television coverage of the civil rights movement during...

Recent media events like the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, the beating of Rodney King and its aftermath, and the murder trial of O.J. Simpson have trained our collective eye on the televised spectacle of race. "Living Color" combines media studies, cultural studies, and critical race theory to investigate the representation of race on American TV.
Ranging across television genres, historical periods, and racial formations, "Living Color"--as it positions race as a key element of television's cultural influence--moves the discussion out of a black-and-white binary and...