Television and Women's Culture

Introduction - Mary Ellen Brown Feminist Culturalist Television Criticism Culture, Theory, Practice PART ONE: WOMEN AS AUDIENCES AND CRITICS Women as Audiences - Virginia Nightingale For Television-Centered Television Criticism - Caren Deming Lessons from Feminism Women Audiences and the Workplace - Dorothy Hobson PART TWO: REPRESENTATION AND FANTASY: THE STRUCTURING OF FEMININE READING POSITIONS Melodramatic Identification - Ien Ang Television Fiction and Women's Fantasy Consumer Girl Culture - Lisa Lewis How Music Video Appeals to Girls Rock Video - Sally Stockbridge Pleasure and Resistance PART THREE: WOMEN AND TELEVISION GENRES `Cagney and Lacey' - Danae Clark Feminine Strategies of Detection Women and Quiz Shows - John Fiske Consumerism, Patriarchy and Resisting Pleasures Male Gazing - Beverly Poynten and John Hartley Australian Rules Football, Gender and Television Class, Gender and the Female Viewer - Andrea Press Women's Responses to `Dynasty' Motley Moments - Mary Ellen Brown and Linda Barwick Soap Opera, Carnival, Gossip and the Power of the Utterance Conclusion - Mary Ellen Brown Consumption and Resistance - The Problem of Pleasure

`provocative reading for anyone interested in what is going on in cultural studies' - Contemporary Sociology `This anthology of feminist culturalist television criticism brings together the works of US, European, and Australian researchers in a collection that will prove 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. The volume furnishes examples of feminist audience research and provides much-needed examples of feminist television content analysis. The question of women and television is framed within the broader questions of women's class positions, and the positioning of women's culture and women's discourse within society' - Choice `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 `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 and Mass Media