American mass incarceration and post-network quality television : captivating aspirations / Lee A. Flamand.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Flamand, Lee A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prison television programs--United States--History and criticism.

Prison television programs.

Criminal justice, Administration of--United States.

Criminal justice, Administration of.

Mass media and criminal justice--United States.

Mass media and criminal justice.

Prisons--United States.

Prisons.

Prisons in mass media.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (311 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, 2022.

Summary:

Far more than a building of brick and mortar, the prison relies upon gruesome stories circulated as commercial media to legitimize its institutional reproduction. Perhaps no medium has done more in recent years to both produce and intervene in such stories than television. <br><br>This unapologetically interdisciplinary work presents a series of investigations into some of the most influential and innovative treatments of American mass incarceration to hit our screens in recent decades. Looking beyond celebratory accolades, Lee A. Flamand argues that we cannot understand the eagerness of influential programs such as <i>OZ, The Wire, Orange Is the New Black, 13th, and Queen Sugar</i> to integrate the sensibilities of prison ethnography, urban sociology, identity politics activism, and even Black feminist theory into their narrative structures without understanding how such critical postures relate to the cultural aspirations and commercial goals of a quickly evolving TV industry and the most deeply ingrained continuities of American storytelling practices.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

The Captivating Aspirations of Post-Network Quality Television in the Age of Mass Incarceration: An Introduction

1. Mass (Mediating) Incarceration

2. How Does Violent Spectacle Appear as TV Realism? Sources of OZ’s Penal Imaginary

3. If It’s Not TV, is It Sociology? The Wire

4. Is Entertainment the New Activism? Orange Is the New Black, Women’s Imprisonment, and the Taste for Prisons

5. Can Melodrama Redeem American History? Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Queen Sugar

Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform after TV’s Digital Turn

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 24 Nov 2022).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-003-69070-X

90-485-5368-7

9781003690702

OCLC:

1345581280