Electronic Hearth: Creating an American Television Culture

基本信息

Format:Paperback / softback 272 pages, 20 halftones, 30 line drawings

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Imprint:Oxford University Press Inc

ISBN:9780195079142

Published:22 Apr 1993

Weight:378g

Dimensions:233 x 154 x 18(mm)

页面参数仅供参考，具体以实物为准

书籍简介

所有人都在谈论“电视”或“盒子”，就好像电视只是冰箱或烤面包机之类的另一种电器。但塞西莉亚·蒂奇认为，实际上电视是一种环境，一个无处不在的屏幕世界，几乎渗透到了现代生活的方方面面。在《电子壁炉》一书中，她探讨了这种环境是如何演变的，进而又如何塑造了美国人的经历。

蒂奇探索了近五十年来关于电视的写作——小说、漫画、新闻、广告、评论书籍和文章——来定义电视在美国意识中的角色。她研究了早期电视广告，展示该行业是如何努力将这种新设备定位，不仅是一件小玩意，而且是一件享有盛誉的新家具，一件对家庭非常有价值的添置物。她写道，电视机已经成为一种新型的电子壁炉——家庭活动的中心。在罗杰的版本中描述了这种“壁炉原始的吸引力”：“电视有不可抗拒的魅力，是一团火。在一个空房间里，我们打开它，一个会说话的人出现了。”在电视前，美国人生活在一个安全区，没有外界的敌意和暴力。她还讨论了长期以来人们对看电视的怀疑：电视收视通常是孤独的，几乎是自发性的，它被认为麻木了儿童的思想和想象力，并断言看电视会麻醉美国人的思想。电视一直被视为公众人物的危险领域，从将军，讽刺和广播新闻往往削弱他们的权威。而新闻和图书出版等印刷文化已经与之展开了长达数十年的生存战争，结果却发现，新一代的电视世代把盒子和图书都视为自己文化世界的一部分。她写道，在今天的文化中，我们已经变成“电视意识”，例如，通过电视看到现实生活(“就像在电视上看到的那样”)，通过电视在艺术、电影、音乐、连环画、织物版画，甚至是电视节目中的普遍存在，电视不断得到认可。

蒂奇的作品远远超出了广播行业的范畴，它讲述了当代美国文化的历史，一种由电视环境定义的文化。经过深入研究和富有洞察力的写作，《电子壁炉》为我们提供了一个重要但饱受诟病的方面的全新理解。

We all talk about the "tube" or "box," as if television were simply another appliance like the refrigerator or toaster oven. But Cecilia Tichi argues that TV is actually an environment--a pervasive screen-world that saturates almost every aspect of modern life. In Electronic Hearth, she looks at how that environment evolved, and how it, in turn, has shaped the American experience.

Tichi explores almost fifty years of writing about television--in novels, cartoons, journalism, advertising, and critical books and articles--to define the role of television in the American consciousness. She examines early TV advertising to show how the industry tried to position the new device as not just a gadget but a prestigious new piece of furniture, a highly prized addition to the home. The television set, she writes, has emerged as a new electronic hearth--the center of family activity. this "primitive appeal of the hearth" in Roger's Version: "Television is--its irresistible charm--a fire. Entering an empty room, we turn it on, and a talking face flares into being." Sitting in front of the TV, Americans exist in a safety zone, free from the hostility and violence of the outside world. She also discusses long-standing suspicions of TV viewing: its often solitary, almost autoerotic character, its supposed numbing of the minds and imagination of children, and assertions that watching television drugs the minds of Americans. Television has been seen as treacherous territory for public figures, from generals to presidents, where satire and broadcast journalism often deflate their authority. And the print culture of journalism and book publishing has waged a decades-long war of survival against it--only to see new TV generations embrace both the box and the book as a part of their cultural world. In today's culture, she writes, we have become "teleconscious"--seeing, for example, real life being certified through television ("as seen on TV"), and television constantly ratified through its universal presence in art, movies, music, comic strips, fabric prints, and even references to TV on TV.

Ranging far beyond the bounds of the broadcast industry, Tichi provides a history of contemporary American culture, a culture defined by the television environment. Intensively researched and insightfully written, The Electronic Hearth offers a new understanding of a critical, but much-maligned, aspect of modern life.

作者简介

塞西莉亚·蒂奇（Cecelia Tichi）是美国学者，也是神秘小说的作者。她是范德比尔特大学的格特鲁德·康纳威·范德比尔特英语和美国研究教授。

Cecelia Tichi is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Shifting Gears: Technology, Literature, and Culture in Modernist America and New World, New Earth: Environmental Reform in American Literature from Puritans to Whitman.