Ambient television : visual culture and public space / Anna McCarthy.

Main entry:

McCarthy, Anna, 1967-

Title & Author:

Ambient television : visual culture and public space / Anna McCarthy.

Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2001.

Description:

xi, 316 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Series:

Console-ing passions

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-303) and index.
TV, class, and social control in the 1940s neighborhood tavern -- Gendered fantasies of TV shopping in the postwar department store -- Out-of-home networks in the 1990s -- Shaping public and private space with TV screens -- Television at the point of purchase -- Television while you wait -- Terminal thoughts on art, activism, and video for public places.

Summary:

Although we tend to think of television primarily as a household fixture, TV monitors outside the home are widespread: in bars, laudromats, and stores; conveying flight arrival and departure times in airports; uniting crowds at sports events and allaying boredom in waiting rooms; and helping to pass the time in workplaces of all kinds. In Ambient Television Anna McCarthy explores the significance of this pervasive phenomenon, tracing the forms of conflict, commerce, and community that television generates outside the home. Discussing the roles television has played in different institutions from 1945 to the present day, McCarthy draws on a wide array of sources. These include retail merchandising literature, TV industry trade journals, and journalistic discussions of public viewing, as well as the work of cultural geographers, architecutural theorists, media scholars, and anthropologists. She also uses photography as a research tool, documenting the uses and meanings of television sets in the built environment and focuses on such locations as the tavern and the department store to show how television is used to support very different ideas about gender; class, and consumption. Turning to contemporary examples, McCarthy discusses practices such as Turner Private Networks' efforts to transform waiting room populations into advertising audiences and the use of point-of-sale video that influences brand visibility and consumer behavior. Finally, she inquires into the activist potential of out-of-home television through a discussion of the video practices of two contemporary artists in everyday public settings. -- from back cover.

Resources:
ACLS Humanities E-Book
ebrary
Table of contents
Electronic access restricted; authentication may be required

ISBN:

0822326833 (alk. paper)
9780822326830 (alk. paper)
0822326922 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
9780822326922 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Television broadcasting Social aspects.
Télévision Aspect social.
05.36 television.
Visuelle Wahrnehmung
Öffentlichkeit
Kultur
Fernsehen
Televisie.
Openbare ruimte.
Materiële cultuur.
Acceptatie.
Invloed.

Added entries:

Console-ing passions.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 222747
Call No.: PN1992.6 .M3 2001
Status: Available

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