In this timely examination of television and American identity,
Cummins and Gordon take readers on an informed walk through the
changes that TV has already wrought-and those still likely to
confront us. Commercial television in America is less than 60 years
old, yet it has had an enormous impact on what we like, what we do,
what we know, and how we think. A family transplanted from the
1940s to the present day would certainly be stunned by a
fundamentally different world: instead of gathering in the living
room for a shared evening of radio, they would be scattered around
the house to indulge their individual interests on one of a hundred
cable channels; instead of a society with rigid racial and ethnic
divisions, they would see people of different ethnicities in
passionate embraces; and certainly they would see a very different
set of values reflected across the board. They would, in sum, find
themselves in an unrecognizable America, one both reflected in and
shaped by television, a medium that has been shown to have an
unprecedented influence on our lives both for better and for worse.
By focusing on the development of television within the cultural
context that surrounds it, and drawing on such phenomena as quiz
shows, comedy hours, the Kennedy assassination, the Olympics,
sitcoms, presidential ads, political debates, MTV, embedded
journalism, and reality TV, the authors reveal television's impact
on essential characteristics of American life. They cover topics as
diverse as politics, crime, medicine, sports, our perceptions, our
values, our assumptions about privacy, and our unquenchable need
for more "things." In addition, they consider the future of the
medium in the light of theproliferation of programming options, the
prevalence of cameras and receivers in our lives, the growing links
between TV and computers, and the crossed boundaries of television
throughout the world.
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