Following after The Tin Kazoo (1975) and Good News, Bad News
(1978), and also derived in part from Diamond's work with the MIT
News Study Group: 20 punchy essays on media treatment of politics
and other American institutions in the last, "prime years" of
over-the-air TV - before the cable era. Two theme pieces describe
"Disco News" and "Hypes, Newsbreaks, Teases, Grabbers" with
authority and acumen: "For a cynical viewer to say that the
[homosexual] prom story was hyped for the sake of ratings . . . is
to miss the real cause for cynicism: the disco news producers
really think it's good television." Diamond, however, is not one to
decry the effects of TV on American youth (the reserach is suspect
- and remember the radio scare? the comic-book to-do?) or on the US
electorate (nonvoting is generational - and multi-causational).
Getting down to "Cases," in Part II, Diamond dissects "God's
television" ("Rich, visual pleasure"; "Christian success driving
away Satan's worry"); TV and sex (with pre-teens bumping jeans,
"where will it all end?"); ageism and icons (re the selection of
anchors); the (laggard) image of the workingman - from The Life of
Riley to Skag; Arabs and Israelis (whatever it does, TV can't win);
the hostage crisis (a lengthy, careful review) and the
hostage-return/Reagan-"renewal" ("Was it a great victory we were
celebrating? Or, was it a wound we were covering over?); the right
to privacy vis-a-vis the public right to know (on Teddy and
Nelson); the media myths of the media ("decent, honorable" Leu
Grant; Halberstam's "pop-eyed" The Powers That Be). Part III,
"Illusions of Power," debunks the notion of a press-created
"perceptual environment," or PR-elected candidates - from Carter to
Reagan. Maybe there was some truth in The Selling of the Candidate
in '68, says Diamond, but in post-Vietnam, post-Watergate '81,
"fewer and fewer people were buying advertising messages" (and
media-lit "meteor campaigns" - like Bush's - quickly fizzled out)
"Futures," the last section, brings scrutiny of Ted Turner's Cable
News Network ("technology is of little use if there's nothing to
say") and, most futuristically, "the active, independent viewer"
and "the developing video culture." The single best stop for an
up-to-date sighting. (Kirkus Reviews)
"For now - the 1980s - television is still in its prime time, and
hearing the first intimations of mortality." And what will follow
TV? More TV, TV that is different and yet not all that different.
In this evocative book, Edwin Diamond points out that what we see
on television today closely reflects our culture and society and
politics and will continue to do so. Because the country is not
changing as fast as the technology, Diamond's study of television
in its "prime time" is also a glimpse of much of the content of the
TV of the future, whether it comes to us over the air, by cable, or
by satellite. Among other topics, Sign Off covers sex on
television, the TV preachers of the "electronic church," the way
television handled the Iranian hostage crisis, "Full Disclosure" as
seen (or not seen) in the media's handling of Nelson Rockefeller s
death and Ted Kennedy's reputed "womanizing," "Disco News" and Ted
Turner's continuous news, the Three Mile Island reportage, the
reign of the young and the white and the male on commercial
television, and the twin myths of television's omnipotence and its
liberalism. Although today's network-dominated, "free" television
with limited channels will be superseded by cable and satellite
transmissions with two-way, viewer-responsive features and add-on
computer capabilities that will offer, usually for a fee, 60 to 100
channels precisely aimed at special-interest audiences, the content
of TV will not be altered so much as the kinds of in-home services
available. Edwin Diamond relates television to what is happening in
other media, as might be expected from a writer who has spent his
professional life working on newspapers and magazines in addition
to being a commentator on (and about) television. He is Senior
Lecturer in Political Science at MIT and was recently Associate
Editor for the New York Daily News Tonight edition. Diamond was
Senior Editor at Newsweek, a contributing editor of New York and
Esquire, and a regular commentator on the Washington Post-Newsweek
television stations. He is author of The Tin Kazoo and Good News,
Bad News, both published in paperback by The MIT Press.
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