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Blacks and White TV: African Americans in Television Since 1948

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MacDonald was one of the first to study the relationship between American television and African-Americans so extensively. He covers the time-period from the late 1940s until the early 1980s, documenting the transformations in entertainment and news programming, commercial and public television against the background of changing racial politics and popular attitudes.

The book's strength is its breadth not its critical depth. MacDonald's focus on the absence or presence of 'stereotypes' or - plainly - the presence of black characters in dramatic or comedic programs precludes an analysis of the multiple layers of meanings of the programs. This binary approach also implies that television has an in-built telos to eradicate stereotypes. That the politcal message projected by a black character on television cannot be decoded so easily becomes apparent toward the end of the book, as MacDonald struggles to situate successful black comedies from the 1970s like the 'Flip Wilson Show' that relied on a supply of (stereo)types. He also touches on the intersection between children's programming and the role African-Americans in TV as the medium's efforts to be relevant moved to this genre. These are two examples of topics MacDonald outlines but does not explore further.

While the analytical and critical engagement with the subject matter reflects the limits of media/television studies of the early 1980s, the encyclopedic overview that MacDonald has written remains valuable to this day. The book contains references to shows that were not shown in syndication reruns or released on DVD. Nor are these shows mentioned in more recent narrower - more analytical - studies. For anybody studying this subject or embarking on a research project of their own 'Blacks and White TV' should be a useful resource and guide to television of those decades.