Electronic Hearth: Creating an American Television Culture

Television is so deeply embedded in American culture that, in Tichi's view, it has brought about a ``momentous cognitive change'': the on-screen world ratifies existence. Politicians, actors and other ``simulated heroes'' of TV are elevated into specious authority figures. The author, a professor of English at Vanderbilt, maps the average viewer's ``teleconsciousness,'' which begins with a ``continuous reprioritizing of attention in the habitat of the `always on' TV.'' She traces the postwar role of television in promoting such values as individualism, domesticity and Cold War patriotism. Drawing on writers--Donald Barthelme, DeLillo, Kosinski--and on cartoons, ads and rock music, she illuminates the pervasive influence of the ``TV hearth'' on personal behavior. This sophisticated, McLuhanesque study bristles with fresh insights. Illustrations not seen by PW. (July)