{"product_id":"heartland-tv-prime-time-television-and-the-struggle-for-us-identity-9780814742938","title":"Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinner of the 2009 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award The Midwest of popular imagination is a \"Heartland\" characterized by traditional cultural values and mass market dispositions. Whether cast positively ; as authentic  pastoral  populist  hardworking  and all-Americanor negativelyas backward  narrowminded  unsophisticated  conservative  and out-of-touchthe myth of the Heartland endures. Heartland TV examines the centrality of this myth to televisions promotion and development  programming and marketing appeals  and public debates over the mediums and its audiences cultural worth. Victoria E. Johnson investigates how the \"square\" image of the heartland has been ritually recuperated on prime time television  from The Lawrence Welk Show in the 1950s  to documentary specials in the 1960s  to The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s  to Ellen in the 1990s. She also examines news specials on the Oklahoma City bombing to reveal how that city has been inscribed as the epitome of a timeless  pastoral heartland  and concludes with an analysis of network branding practices and appeals to an imagined \"red state\" audience. Johnson argues that non-white  queer  and urban culture is consistently erased from depictions of the Midwest in order to reinforce its \"reassuring\" image as white and straight. Through analyses of policy  industry discourse  and case studies of specific shows  Heartland TV exposes the cultural function of the Midwest as a site of national transference and disavowal with regard to race  sexuality  and citizenship ideals.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45657503989813,"sku":"ByrdShop_0814742939","price":30.92,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780814742938.jpg?v=1782043658","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/heartland-tv-prime-time-television-and-the-struggle-for-us-identity-9780814742938","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}