1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910779824203321

Autore

Ouellette Laurie

Titolo

Viewers like you : how public TV failed the people / / Laurie Ouellette

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, NY : , : Columbia University Press, , [2002]

©2002

ISBN

978023150599X

0-231-52931-7

0-231-50599-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (299 pages)

Disciplina

384.55/4/0973

Soggetti

Elite (Social sciences) - United States - History

Ideology - United States - History

Public television

Public television - United States - History

United States

Radio & TV Broadcasting

Journalism & Communications

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Cultural Contradictions of Public Television -- I. Oasis of the Vast Wasteland -- II. The Quest to Cultivate -- III. TV Viewing as Good Citizenship -- IV. Something for Everyone -- V. Radicalizing Middle America -- Epilogue: Public Television, Popularity, and Cultural Justice -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

How "public" is public television if only a small percentage of the American people tune in on a regular basis? When public television addresses "viewers like you," just who are you? Despite the current of frustration with commercial television that runs through American life, most TV viewers bypass the redemptive "oasis of the wasteland" represented by PBS and turn to the sitcoms, soap operas, music videos, game shows, weekly dramas, and popular news programs produced by the culture industries. Viewers Like You? traces the history of public



broadcasting in the United States, questions its priorities, and argues that public TV's tendency to reject popular culture has undermined its capacity to serve the people it claims to represent. Drawing from archival research and cultural theory, the book shows that public television's perception of what the public needs is constrained by unquestioned cultural assumptions rooted in the politics of class, gender, and race.