Media and Society Series – serie

This important new study of the political uses of popular music, from the era of slavery to the present traces the search for individual identity, freedom, and dignity as it has been expressed in popular music. Beginning with the spirituals of the slaves and the gospel of the black church and continuing through the blues, jazz forms, country, folk, and rock, Pratt presents popular music as part of a continuing effort, over two centuries, to create community values and identity in the face of social transformations. The book refutes the idea that the use of popular music for expression by a socially marginal society is new. Pratt demonstrates that popular music as an expression of community identity is centuries old.Early chapters of the book explore the social and political functions of music and its relationship to the concept of culture, individualism, and freedom. Later chapters concentrate on the history and role of political messages in specific music forms: the blues, gospel, jazz, rock and soul. A summary chapter considers the future of American popular music as an instrument of political expression. Extensive references and chapter endnotes make this book an important edition to the popular culture library. Students and scholars of musicology, sociology, popular culture, and politics will find Rhythm and Resistance a valuable reference. and will be of special interest to academics engaged in research in musicology, popular culture and politics and culture.

Part of Praeger's Media and Society Series, this contributed volume is the only collection of essays on television authorship. It includes work of some of the most prominent scholars in television studies. Rather than assigning one author to individual television texts, the contributors probe the relationship between the various authors at work within the institutional, cultural, and economic settings that characterize the television industry. This book analyzes and defines the unique methods of television authorship and suggests numerous candidates for authorial accountability allowing the medium to enter the realm of contemporary criticism.The first part of the volume provides a case study in four chapters on authorship issues surrounding Frank's Place, the short lived but compelling situation comedy. This is followed by three chapters focusing on issues of authorship in international television. The book then probes the studio's role as author, including essays on Warner Brothers, Desilu, and Screen Gems. Finally the contributors examine individual TV authors and cover such topics as point of view in music video, television production as collective action, and unconventional television.

Although much has been written about the golden days of radio, Entrepreneurs of Profit and Pride is the first book to examine the black radio industry. This book traces the development of black radio programming which began when the concept of black appeal first occured to certain entrepreneurs, a concept that played a pivotal role in the rise of cultural pride and soul. Through the case studies of three representative black radio stations, Newman reveals the evolution of programming practices dictated not only by pride but by profits gained through successful marketing. A unique feature of this book is the inclusion of business considerations into a cultural analysis of the medium.The book begins with a discussion of how poor communications to black audiences in early network broadcasting led to the creation of black-appeal narrowcasting. The author probes the patterns of development in black programming and assesses the impact of that programming on soul consciousness. In addition, the book discusses individuals in the history of black radio, marketing to a minority audience, and the role of media in society as a seller of products and culture.

This intriguing book explores why spectacular films involving Biblical figures or set in Biblical times have been a staple of filmmaking since talkies began. Forshey looks at these films, and suggests that the underlying purpose was to mediate between a monistic scientific world view and a dualistic religious world view, and between secular and religious ethics. Forshey discusses how filmic, political, religious, and cultural history influenced filmmakers of these spectaculars.The first chapter differentiates between religious spectaculars and biblical spectaculars. Following are chapters on early religious films and others on how the post-war and cold war led to a struggle to define the righteous nation. The chapters on biblical spectaculars examine films in which sex and social responsibility was a paramount concern (Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba). The 1960s were dominated by films about Jesus, searching for an ethical system for a world undergoing rapid social change. One entire chapter is devoted to Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, the epitome of the form, followed by chapters on John Huston's The Bible as a culmination of the form, and a final one on how television rethought spectaculars and how Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ drew the battle lines between humanistic Christians and evangelical Christians. American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars will appeal to scholars of film, religion, and popular culture.

Conventional research suggests that news coverage of terrorism is a tool of the terrorist to gain public support and recognition. Based on an analysis of more than 200 evening newscasts aired during the first six years of the Reagan administration, Tales of Terror offers a detailed account of the ways in which news media escalate public panic about terrorism and encourage support for specific U.S. policy objectives, rather than build sympathy for terrorists. Bethami Dobkin explores similarities between news media and government portrayals of terrorism, combining textual criticism with an interpretation of official U.S. policy statements, and argues that government depictions and news presentations of terrorism reproduce an ideology that supports military strength and intervention.Dobkin examines several specific features of news coverage: the dramatic format of television news and the political interests that this format serves; the narrative construction of enemies by television journalists and public officials and the political significance of the terrorist label; the use and significance of testimony, particularly that of people affected by crisis; the mutual exploitation of political crisis by both television news producers and public officials; the function of journalism in shaping the conduct of public diplomacy and public perceptions of foreign conflict; and the creation of consensus about the need for military responses to political violence. This revealing study will be of particular interest to scholars of communications and political science.

Soap opera story, the only mass-public form of continuing narrative today, is oral culture for our electronic era. Carol Williams' It's Time for My Story is an examination of soap opera sources, structure, and response, particularly from the critical viewpoints of psychology, both archetypal and empirical, and popular culture, specifically narratology and feminism, that uncover the true nature of the genre.First, Williams traces the development of soap opera from its immediate source in radio and television as well as from its fundamental source in age-old myth and storytelling. Then she analyzes the content and form that together make up the structure of soap opera. Finally, she looks at what soaps mean to watchers and in the process debunks many myths about soap opera (for instance, the myth that soap opera, like all television drama, is merely commercial, produced formulaically by advertisers; Williams argues that soap opera is not only a commercial product but also a popular art form derived from the wellspring of culture and folk story). She also argues that it is a form which has been depreciated because it is historically a woman's medium. Discussions with writers, creators, and fans are included throughout. Recommended to scholars and students of media, drama, popular culture, and women's studies.

The subject of competition between religion and television has, if only indirectly, received considerable attention, particularly from religionists disturbed by the threat posed by television programming to traditional religious beliefs, values, and attitudes. This detailed study considers the competing cultural forces of television and religion from a wider and more theoretical perspective. Newman examines the major forms of competition and the various motives and strategies of the people and groups involved. His philosophical approach allows us to see that the most important aspect of competition between television and religion is their rivalry as cultural forces. In this rivalry, religion continues to have a profound influence on the shaping of television, just as it has always had on all newly developing forms of culture.