Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting

Published by New York University Press 2007

Cable Visions

Television Beyond Broadcasting

Edited by: Sarah Banet-Weiser , Cynthia Chris and Anthony Freitas

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814739242.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Cable television, on the brink of a boom in the 1970s, promised audiences a new media frontier-an expansive new variety of entertainment and information choices. Music video, 24–hour news, 24-hour weather, movie channels, children's channels, home shopping, and channels targeting groups based on demographic characteristics or interests were introduced.
Cable Visions looks beyond broadcasting’s mainstream, toward cable's alternatives, to critically consider the capacity of commercial media to serve the public interest. It offers an overview of the industry's history and regulatory trends, case studies of key cable newcomers aimed at niche markets (including Nickelodeon, BET, and HBO Latino), and analyses of programming forms introduced by cable TV (such as nature, cooking, sports, and history channels).

Author / Editor information

Banet-Weiser Sarah :

Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. She is the author of four books, including Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (2012), which won the International Communication Association's Outstanding Book Award, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity (1999), Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship (2007), and Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (2018). She is the co-editor of Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting (2007) and Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times (2012), both available from NYU Press.Chris Cynthia :

Cynthia Chris is Assistant Professor of Media Culture at the City University of New York's College of Staten Island, and author of Watching Wildlife.Freitas Anthony :

Anthony Freitas works as a media relations consultant for non-profit organizations in San Francisco.Sarah Banet-Weiser (Editor)
Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. She is the author of four books, including Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (2012), which won the International Communication Association's Outstanding Book Award, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity (1999), Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship (2007), and Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (2018). She is the co-editor of Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting (2007) and Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times (2012), both available from NYU Press.

Cynthia Chris (Editor)
Cynthia Chris is Assistant Professor of Media Culture at the City University of New York's College of Staten Island, and author of Watching Wildlife.

Anthony Freitas (Editor)
Anthony Freitas works as a media relations consultant for non-profit organizations in San Francisco.

Reviews

This comprehensive survey is a must for anyone interested in the opportunities, limits, and future projections of the new-media environment.

William Boddy,author of New Media and Popular Imagination: Launching Radio, Television, and Digital Media in the United States:
Through a series of highly original and carefully researched essays, Cable Visions offers a lively and comprehensive survey of the contemporary multichannel television landscape in the United States.

Lynn Spigel,author of Make Room for TV and TV by Design:
Cable Visions is a compelling exploration of contemporary U.S. television that grapples with the contradictory logic of consumerism and citizenship upon which cable TV is based. Thoroughly researched, accessible, and innovative in design, the essays trace cable from its early utopian beginnings as ‘alternative’ TV to its current-day realization as a multichannel (but not necessarily diverse) commercial system aimed at niche tastes. A ‘must read’ for anyone interested in understanding the opportunities and limits of the new media environment.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Institutions and Audiences
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
1. The Moms ’n’ Pops of CATV Megan Mullen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
2. A Taste of Class: Pay-TV and the Commodification of Television in Postwar America John McMurria Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
3. Cable’s Digital Future François Bar and Jonathan Taplin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
4. If It’s Not TV,What Is It? The Case of U.S. Subscription Television Amanda D. Lotz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
5. Where the Cable Ends: Television beyond Fringe Areas Lisa Parks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Part II. Channels
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
6. Discovery’s Wild Discovery: The Growth and Globalization of TV’s Animal Genres Cynthia Chris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
7. Tunnel Vision and Food: A Political-Economic Analysis of Food Network Cheri Ketchum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
8. Target Market Black: BET and the Branding of African America Beretta E. Smith-Shomade Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
9. Monolingualism, Biculturalism, and Cable TV: HBO Latino and the Promise of the Multiplex Katynka Z. Martínez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	194
10. Gay Programming, Gay Publics: Public and Private Tensions in Lesbian and Gay Cable Channels Anthony Freitas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
11. The Nickelodeon Brand: Buying and Selling the Audience Sarah Banet-Weiser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234
Part III. Cable Programs: The Platinum Age of Television?
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
12. Cable Watching: HBO, The Sopranos, and Discourses of Distinction Dana Polan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
13. Bank Tellers and Flag Wavers: Cable News in the United States Toby Miller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	284
14. Dualcasting: Bravo’s Gay Programming and the Quest for Women Audiences Katherine Sender Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	302
15. “I’m Rich, Bitch!!!”: The Comedy of Chappelle’s Show Christine Acham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
16. Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment’s Global Reach: Latino Fans and Wrestlers Ellen Seiter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	338
About the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	359
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	363

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Keywords: alternatives; beyond; broadcastings; Cable; cables; capacity; commercial; consider; critically; interest; looks; mainstream; media; public; serve; toward; Visions

eBook

Published: September 1, 2007
ISBN: 9780814739242