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Article: Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Velvet Light Trap
- Article date:
- September 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 University of Texas at Austin (University of Texas Press). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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by Anna McCarthy
It is undeniable that television has become a fixture in public space. The pervasiveness of the television in "routine locations" outside of the home has become part of the familiar ambience of grocery stores, shopping malls, bars, laundromats, and airports, to name a few establishments (1). In Ambient Television Anna McCarthy has launched an extensive investigation of the "work" the presence of the television set "does" in the public environment from the 1940s through the 1990s. She considers the effects of the publicness of television on American media culture, focusing primarily on the politics of spectatorship and institutional power.