Television and Women's Culture

Does television play a positive or negative role in the diffusion of women's culture? What relationship exists between television and women's culture? In this impressive volume, an international team of contributors critically examines the profound role television plays in defining women's culture. Topics addressed include women as audiences, rock videos, feminist criticism of television, and consumerism, to name but a few. As a substantial contribution to both mass communication and women's studies, Television and Women's Culture will be welcomed by faculty, students, and researchers in the fields of popular culture, women's studies, communication studies, and sociology. "Television and Women's Culture represents a welcome addition to the rapidly growing body of literature on television theory as well as to the development of feminist television-based criticism. . . . This research is an unquestionably important intervention in the area of feminist television-based theory for the primary reason that it seriously considers the ways in which popular television genres are intimately imbricated with the everyday lives of a great number of women. . . . I would recommend Television and Women's Culture . . . it represents a significant contribution to the study of popular culture, mass communication, and women's studies. . . . This collection provides an important forum for debate around the issues of audiences, women's culture, and television theory, and, as such, deserves close and critical reading." --Canadian Journal of Communication "The individual authors represent a fine range of international perspectives and address topics that range from traditionally women-identified genres of television, such as soap operas and game shows, to a surprisingly fresh inquiry into women's reception of a male-identified television spectacle, Australian-rules football. . . . All 12 essays fulfill the promise of the cultural studies mission to isolate and elevate subcultural resistance strategies. . . . The book includes an excellent, extensive bibliography of current research in cultural studies and women audiences. . . . Television and Women's Culture is a significant collection. It challenges and expands research agendas in media studies and foregrounds voices and subcultural communities formerly silenced both by dominant culture and in our own research. As a supplemental text in media courses or a reference source for researchers, it could function to stimulate fresh questions about the multiple dimensions of the relationship between television and its viewers, especially the gendered dimensions of our media habits." --Quarterly Journal of Speech "There are sophisticated, persuasive chapters which apply contemporary theorizing to popular culture. . . .The essays hang together as convincing demonstration of how women, while still functioning within the dominant economic and social order, can and sometimes do appropriate television texts for their own affective and political purposes." --Journalism Quarterly "Though [the contributors] recognize that television frequently distorts and oppresses women's experience, the authors eschew a simplistic manipulative view of the media. Instead they show how and why such different genres as game shows, police fiction and soap opera offer women opportunities for negotiation of their own meanings and their own aesthetic appreciation." --Gender & Mass Media "[One] of four important titles . . . advancing insights on contemporary issues. . . . Probing and critical." --The Bookwatch "A refreshing collection of theoretical and critical works examining the impact of women and women's culture on television. . . . An excellent guide to promote critical thinking and new approaches to the study of television and women's culture. . . . A good classroom resource for the study of women and media . . . and . . . a good addition to the body of research needed for the inclusion of multicultural education in the curriculum." --Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media "Well-written and well-conceptualized. . . . Those interested in the feminist perspective in media studies will find this volume valuable. The essays are highly readable. The ideas presented are challenging and offer refreshing insights." --Et Cetera: Journal of General Semantics "An engaging, informative collection of essays . . . fresh, original. . . . The book provides food for thought on how to produce as well as consume television content without perpetuating gender inequities." --Women and Language "Useful to undergraduate and graduate students of women's studies, mass communications, and cultural studies. The introduction provides a succinct explanation of the theoretical groundings of this growing body of research. Clear definitions of terminology are found throughout the volume, making this book accessible to those unschooled in feminist theory. . . . Provides much-needed examples of feminist television content analysis." --Choice "Brown incisively frames these essays with a lucid and straightforward introduction and conclusion. . . . Provocative reading for anyone interested in what is going on in cultural studies . . . the essays work together quite coherently." --Contemporary Sociology