The Small Screen: How Television Equips Us to Live in the Information Age

Treating television as an important socializing force, this book examines how prime–time television in the 1990s equipped viewers to negotiate the transition from the industrial age to the information age. Jam–packed with examples, the book demonstrates how television aided viewers in confronting information overload, identity drift, the increasing pace of life, the guilt of feeling techno–illiterate, and cultural fragmentation.

Contents.

Preface.

1. Television and Social Change.

The Times They Are a–Changin .

Television as Public Discourse.

2. Life in the Information Age.

The Information Explosion.

Society through the Lens of Technocapitalism.

Social Anxieties in the Information Age.

3. Hyperconscious Television.

Embracing the Future : The Attitude of Yes.

The Simpsons as Exemplar.

Symbolic Equipments in Hyperconscious TV.

4. Nostalgia Television.

Celebrating the Past : The Attitude of No.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as Exemplar.

Symbolic Equipments in Nostalgia TV.

5. Television and the Future.

(Re)Viewing the Small Screen.

Life and Television in the Twenty–First Century.

The Next Great Paradigm Shift?.

References.

Index

Brian L. Ott is an Associate Professor of Media Studies at Colorado State University. He is an award winning scholar and teacher, who has published widely in the area of media studies.

In The Small Screen, Brian L. Ott explores how US television of the 1990s met the Information Age. With theoretical clarity and acute critical analysis of content and form in the television experience, Ott illustrates how some Americans embraced the future through hyperconscious television while others celebrated the past through nostalgia. A breakthrough study.
Thomas W. Benson, Pennsylvania State University<!––end––>

Brian L. Ott s book is accessible to students and valuable for professional scholars. It integrates a wide range of contemporary scholarship at a high level of sophistication without ever falling into jargon or postmodern dogma. This volume will be cutting edge in the rhetorical study of television.
Barry Brummett, University of Texas–Austin

"...ultimately what is pleasing about Ott′s book is its willingness to take television seriously "
M/C Reviews

Ott hints at the coming identity crisis as the connected age replaces the information age. Summing Up: Recommended.
Choice

Ott s distinctions between hyperconscious and nostalgic programming serve as fine distinctions for considering the cultural significance of television.
PsycCritiques