Book Review: Television and the Self: Knowledge, Identity, and Media Representation, edited by Kathleen M. Ryan and Deborah A. Macey

Abstract

Television and the Self: Knowledge, Identity, and Media Representation. Kathleen M. Ryan and Deborah A. Macey, eds. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013. 304 pp. $75.00 hbk. $44.99 pbk. $44.99 ebk.As I read each of the well-written and researched chapters of this edited volume, I kept coming back to this quote from the editors on page 1 that says this book is half-jokingly referred to as Everything I Know I Learned from Television. Indeed, this volume contains many studies from many perspectives about television and the ways that we, as societal beings, learn from it.Kathleen M. Ryan, an associate professor in the College of Media, Communication & Information at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Deborah A. Macey, a visiting assistant professor in the College of Communication at Saint Louis University, have compiled a volume useful in entertainment theory, family communication, or media studies at the graduate level. Each of the five sections of the book use television as a lens to examine how we learn something through our viewing of television. five sections are The Electronic Hearth, Father and Mother Know Best, Family Ties, The Facts of Life, and As Not Seen on TV.From learning who we are from a nationalist perspective to gender roles, this book has it all. In Chapter 2, autoethnography was used to analyze how television taught the author her Polish identity after she immigrated to Canada as a child. Another chapter about Space Rangers and masculinity argues thatthe rocketmen also taught their young viewers about the roles they would be expected to play in the nearer-future world of their adulthood. They served as exemplars of social, political, and particularly masculine success in a rapidly changing world, thwarting evil, defending democracy, and embodying virtues that advanced the common good.Another chapter about Bette White compared her with the Greek goddesses Aphrodite, Persephone, and Demeter.Another chapter's findings regarding gender roles and advertising for tweens on Nickelodeon suggest that the commercial culture on Nickelodeon does not strongly contribute to producing girl power products or to empowered viewers in the positive ways afforded to female characters in the corresponding television programs. Another chapter argues thatif gay men, as conspicuous consumers of the images and the messages conveyed to them, are to adopt practices that render older gay men and gay elders intelligible within the discursive system of ageism, they must begin to demand more accurate, comprehensive portrayals of themselves across the larger spectrum of chronological ages. …