Viewers Like You - How Public TV Failed the People

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.

List of contents

Introduction: The Cultural Contradictions of Public Television
Oasis of the Vast Wasteland
The Quest to Cultivate
TV Viewing as Good Citizenship
Something for Everyone
Radicalizing Middle America
Epilogue: Public Television, Popularity, and Cultural Justice

About the author

Laurie Oullette

Summary

A history of public broadcasting, the book questions public television's common-sense priorities and argues that its tendency to reject popular culture has undermined its capacity to serve the people it claims to represent.

Product details

• Authors: Laurie Ouellette, Ouellette Laurie, Laurie Oullette
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 17.09.2002
• EAN: 9780231119429
• ISBN: 978-0-231-11942-9
• No. of pages: 288
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Photography, film, video, TV; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Technology > Electronics, electrical engineering, communications engineering; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Society; USA, Media Studies, Television, PERFORMING ARTS / Television / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, United States of America, USA