Communities of Reception

Television Esthetics and Locality in Midcentury America

Bibliographic Data

ID13100534
AuthorsPhillip J Hutchison (0000-0001-7315-5570, University of Kentucky, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume6
Issue1
Pages106-121
Publication date2019-12-20
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeoHumanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2373-5678 • E-ISSN: 2373-566X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/2373566x.2019.1691465
OpenAlexW2995530810
LanguageEN
References cited20

This historical study examines the cultural impact of local television communities in the United States from the 1950s through the 1970s. These signal-defined communities, although traditionally addressed in terms of government policy, are noteworthy for their synergistic esthetic and technological attributes. Theories of ritual illustrate how these factors enabled signal-defined television communities to structure and define local life throughout the United States during this era. Most notably, in ways that have been largely overlooked, early local television rituals situated cultural experience in time and space. The study fortifies its historical insights by engaging contemporary viewer testimonies about these programs. This ethnographic perspective illustrates how these rituals reflected virtual and material attributes that shaped audiences’ perceptions of local geography and structured social memories that persist today. For these reasons, now-extinct local television programs remain very important to former audiences

Aesthetics · Art · Geography · Locality · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Media Studies and Communication · Media, Gender, and Advertising

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