Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America (Paperback)

by Lynn Spigel (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This cultural history examines the postwar period, in which television was installed in nearly two-thirds of the nation's homes and replaced the movie theater as the primary source of entertainment. Spigel, who teaches at the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-TV, analyzes other popular media, such as women's magazines, to show the ambivalent societal responses to this new technology, which promised both to unite and separate families. Though filled with academic jargon, the book is a thoughtful treatment of a neglected really? aren't there dozens of books about dawn of TV age?/gen says there aren't many books on this topic so please stet/pk area of study, which may interest students of popular culture and perhaps trigger some nostalgia. Spigel places the television in the context of changing technology, suburbanization and a redefinition of leisure. Soap operas and variety shows were designed to accommodate the work pattern of housewives. Spigel argues that television not only intensified the retreat to suburbia but also provided a new form of community. Surveying television comedies, she suggests that they gave viewers the opportunity to laugh at staged domesticity, but at the same time to feel closer to the scene of the action, thus crossing the border between fiction and reality. OK that 'fiction/reality' motif closes previous review as well?/stet both/pk
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Using sources ranging from articles and advertisements in women's magazines to sitcom scripts and sociological studies, Spigel (cinema and TV, Univ. of Southern California) traces the effects of television on American family life from 1948 to 1955. The advent of television in most homes had an impact not only on the viewers but on their viewing areas as well. Family relationships, women's roles within the household, and home interior design were all discussed in relation to television in the popular media. As Spigel notes in the epilog, she has "tried to forge various correspondences between what was said about television and the society in which those utterances were possible." She has shown "how the multiple, and often conflicting, middle-class ideals of postwar America gave way to contradictory responses to television in popular culture." Extensive research notes and contemporary illustrations grace this interesting, well-written account of the dawn of the television age.
-Carolyn M. Mulac, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (June 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226769674
• ISBN-13: 978-0226769677
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #293,790 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)