The making of American audiences : from stage to television, 1750-1990 / Richard Butsch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Butsch, Richard, 1943-

Series:

Cambridge studies in the history of mass communications

Cambridge studies in the history of mass communication

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Performing arts--Audiences--United States.

Performing arts.

Radio audiences--United States.

Radio audiences.

Television viewers--United States.

Television viewers.

Performing arts--Audiences.

United States.

Physical Description:

x, 438 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Summary:

In The Making of American Audiences, Richard Butsch provides a comprehensive survey of American entertainment audiences from the colonial period to the present. Govering theater, minstrelsy, vaudeville, movies, radio, and television, he examines the evolution of audiences as each genre supplanted another as the primary popular entertainment. Based on original historical research, this volume exposes how audiences made themselves through their practices, and how they were made by contemporary discourses. During the nineteenth century, active audiences were represented as unruly and a threat to civic order, while in the twentieth century, audiences have been protrayed as passive and controlled by media messages. At the same time, dispersal of audiences from theaters to their homes by radio and television has made entertainment a private experience rather than a public occasion, and has severed the connection between audience practices and collective action. This timely study serves as an important contribution to communication research, as well as to American cultural history and cultural studies.

Contents:

Introduction: Participative Public, Passive Private? 1

1 Colonial Theater, Privileged Audiences 20

2 Drama in Early Republic Audiences 32

3 The B'Hoys in Jacksonian Theaters 44

4 Knowledge and the Decline of Audience Sovereignty 57

5 Matinee Ladies: Re-gendering Theater Audiences 66

6 Blackface, Whiteface 81

7 Variety, Liquor, and Lust 95

8 Vaudeville, Incorporated 108

9 "Legitimate" and "Illegitimate" Theater around the Turn of the Century 121

10 The Celluloid Stage: Nickelodeon Audiences 139

11 Storefronts to Theaters: Seeking the Middle Class 158

12 Voices from the Ether: Early Radio Listening 173

13 Radio Cabinets and Network Chains 193

14 Rural Radio: "We Are Seldom Lonely Anymore" 208

15 Fears and Dreams: Public Discourses about Radio 219

16 The Electronie Cyelops: Fifties Television 235

17 A TV in Every Home: Television "Effects" 252

18 Home Video: Viewer Autonomy? 267

19 Conclusion: From Effects to Resistance and Beyond 280

Appendix Availability, Affordability, Admission Price 295.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 393-429) and index.

ISBN:

0521662532

0521664837

OCLC:

41612428