At their worst, the programmes can come to resemble trial by kangaroo court in which the studio audience’s catharsis is gained through the hostile prosecution and judgement of the confessing witness

Broadly, within a liberal framework, the term democracy is taken to mean (among other things): the right of adults to vote for representation; free speech; and equal rights before the law. In this context, the Oprah Winfrey Show, along with some other American chat shows,

Oprah places on personal testimony comes from a set of traditions deriving from the Civil Rights movement and from African American Christianity, as well as from feminism.

We then go on to consider the alternative American Dreams—therapy version, family version, female version, and civil rights version. We explore the ways in which these differing Dreams can, on the one hand, reveal the underside, the betrayal, the failures to deliver of the conventional Dream, and yet, on the other hand, work precisely to recuperate it.4 Links to an external site.

It has often been argued that broadcasting is not only a national institution but a nationalist one, imbricated in the construction of competing versions of nation and democracy

BBC was comparatively slow to provide service, ‘relay exchanges’ sprang up. Reception in most places was excellent and constantly improving and so by 1935 only some 3 percent of radio licence holders received service through these wires but the war increased reception problems and by 1950 some 8 percent of radio homes were back on the wire (Hollins 1984:35–41).

he nemesis of the UK cable industry was GPO and BBC insistence on a form of universal service whereby, for example, the huge variety of possible UHF signals was curtailed in the interests of maximising reception. In Britain, as in most European states, the original thirteen VHF and the current sixty-nine UHF bands were used to ensure that every household received the same signals clearly. In the UK this meant three national networks, which were to become four only in 1982 with the start of Channel Four and the Welsh channel, S4C.

in 1980, the prestigious CNN 24-hour news service as well as less distinguished exercises such as a music channel, a rival to Warner’s Music TV (MTV), which was off the air within weeks of its launch. WTBS aside, the profitability of many of these enterprises, including CNN, remained questionable and the whole array was nearly bankrupted by the hubristic acquisition of MGM in 1986. The MSOs bailed Turner out and he survived to launch yet another service, TNT, based on the MGM library of old films, and to bid, unsuccessfully, for CBS.

On Tuesday and Saturday nights in the late 1940s, the bars of Summit Hill, Pennsylvania would fill with people from the town of Lansford in Panther Valley below to watch Milton Berle and the boxing matches.

As Peter Eckersley, the engineer who had built the BBC’s SB wireless net, suggested to Reith, it was nothing less than a complete alternative to wireless transmission (Briggs 1961:358); but almost nowhere did this happen, nor has it developed in this way.

By the mid‐1980s, such dismal predictions about the future of broadcast television were commonplace among industry observers. According to broadcast historian Michele Hilmes: “From a situation in which the big three split over 90 percent of the viewing among them, by 1985 their combined audience share totaled under 75 percent and would fall much further”

These parts of the industry play an equally strong role in relations of power, offering insight into which social groups have power and which do not. Douglas Kellner, whose work focuses on critical media literacy, argues that the divide between cultural studies and industry studies, based on differences in disciplines and methodologies, has prevented scholars from using aspects of both of them productively.

Encapsulating the key cultural and industrial shifts of the period, FOX enables us to examine an industrial “perfect storm” of sorts: the rise of cable, niche marketing and narrowcasting, network branding, and quality programming.

n Dynasty (1981–89), Yuppie angst in thirtysomething (1987–91), as well as family-friendly earnestness with its TGIF line‐up anchored by Full House (1987–95) and Cult TV‐in‐the‐making with David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1990–91). NBC was riding high, relatively speaking, due to the ongoing gifts of solid comedy and dramatic programming and its “Must See TV” line‐up in the late 1980s with The Cosby Show (1984–92), Cheers (1982–93) and LA Law (1986–94) and coasted through the latter part of the 1990s with Friends (1994–2004), Seinfeld (1989–98) and ER (1994–2009). During the multi‐channel transition, the actions of the Big Three were reactive rather than proactive; this allowed an upstart to come on the scene.

This period marked an era of new uses for TV: while the network era established a set of norms for financing, operating, and programming in US television (rules based in the Communications Act of 1934), the multi‐channel transition easily appears to be an entirely new media form, bearing almost no resemblance to the representations, flows, and regulations of what came before.

, the changing of norms as exemplified by the increasing use of impersonal greetings

The overt effect of telegraphy was the way it was able to mediate the effects of distance in regards to communication.

New words were introduced into the English language. For example, “telegram” came to replace the phrase telegraphic dispatch or telegraph communication.

A less widely known application of telegraph technology was its use in medical practice.

Throughout history, people’s relationship with, and conception of time has changed

But, until this is accomplished, we must acknowledge our dependence on the messenger-boys and fairly recognize them as person of business.

mbitious boys are given an opportunity to do extra work. Sometimes, a boy can do a good day's work by 8 A.M.,

Now, do you know how far a boy will have to walk in a day, delivering these messages and returning to the office?

These are the telegraph-boys or messengers. It will be found that they are not all dressed alike, and a little inquiry will show that this is because they are in the employ of different companies.

There are plenty of boys in the country, too, who are steady, hard workers, and some of these even poets have not forgotten to write about.

History also provides a terrain for moral contemplation.

History also helps provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all modern nations encourage its teaching in some form. Historical data include evidence about how families, groups, institutions and whole countries were formed and about how they have evolved while retaining cohesion

The demise of Dr. Brinkley’s astonishing career did not bring a halt to the world of the border blasters.

History is a slippery object. The family sitcoms mentioned earlier are historical texts,

Strong families” meant heterosexual, nuclear units with a dad who worked, a mom who stayed home and looked after the house, and good clean kids who respected their parents. “Things were better” because the government stayed out of people’s private lives, and families were self-sufficient and right-thinking.

In short, we can’t. And part of the intellectual heritage of twentieth century postmodernism is acknowledgment of this fact.

Henry Wilcox here stands for the inequities and blind spots of a whole way of life in early twentieth-century England, a time during which change took place so rapidly that people’s values, beliefs, and perceptions could barely keep up.

People live in the present. They plan for and worry about the future. History, however, is the study of the past. Given all the demands that press in from living in the present and anticipating what is yet to come, why bother with what has been?