Local TV

Local Television: Histories, Communities, and Aesthetics offers critical analyses of an expansive range of practices, policies, and debates in local television histories from the United States. Television is typically perceived as a commercial and/or national form of communication with the potential to reach millions of viewers. Yet, from the earliest years of television through the present, communities have participated in the production of television, creating media relevant to their needs and concerns. This collection broadens our notion of what this medium can achieve, allowing for innovative representation and community use that disrupts the political, economic, national, and social norms of mainstream offerings. Rather than a comprehensive historical survey--which given the sheer number of local television productions would be impossible--we’ve curated methodologically distinctive chapters that assess the possibilities and limitations of television’s mission to serve local publics. In doing so, we are attentive to the idiosyncratic histories, technologies, and functions of local television that have emerged in different cities over the course of the 20th and 21st Century. We likewise amplify the use of television by marginalized groups--whose perspectives are too often sidelined or distorted in mainstream fare--as a site for community formation, cultural expression, civic engagement, and political action.