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24/7 politics : cable television and the fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News / Kathryn Cramer Brownell

by Brownell, Kathryn Cramer, author.

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Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2023]

Television and politics.

Television in politics.

Cable television -- Moral and ethical aspects.

Cable television -- Political aspects.

9780691246666 (hardback) :

Politics and society in modern America.

xiv, 402 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Introduction: The great hidden political asset -- Act I. A political awakening. The power of broadcasting -- A business rivalry forms -- Distinguishing cable television -- Revenge politics -- Act II. Coming of age. The Watergate hangover -- Exploding the cable dial -- Visions '79 -- Becoming a household name -- Act III. The triumph of cable America. A political tool -- Regulatory consequences -- Winning at any cost -- The MTV presidency -- Conclusion: Democracy in cable America.

"As television began to overtake the political landscape in the 1960s, network broadcast companies, bolstered by powerful lobbying interests, dominated screens across the nation. Yet over the next three decades, the expansion of a different technology, cable, changed all of this. 24/7 Politics tells the story of how the cable industry worked with political leaders to create an entirely new approach to television, one that tethered politics to profits and divided and distracted Americans by feeding their appetite for entertainment--frequently at the expense of fostering responsible citizenship. In this timely and provocative book, Kathryn Cramer Brownell argues that cable television itself is not to blame for today's rampant polarization and scandal politics--the intentional restructuring of television as a political institution is. She describes how cable innovations--from C-SPAN coverage of congressional debates in the 1980s to MTV's foray into presidential politics in the 1990s--took on network broadcasting using market forces, giving rise to a more decentralized media world. Brownell shows how cable became an unstoppable medium for political communication that prioritized cult followings and loyalty to individual brands, fundamentally reshaped party politics, and, in the process, sowed the seeds of democratic upheaval. 24/7 Politics reveals how cable TV created new possibilities for antiestablishment voices and opened a pathway to political prominence for seemingly unlikely figures like Donald Trump by playing to narrow audiences and cultivating division instead of common ground."--Publisher's website.

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