Overview

How cable television upended American political life in the pursuit of profits and influence As television began to overtake the political landscape in the 1960s, network broadcast companies, bolstered by powerful lobbying interests, dominated screens across the nation. Yet over the next three decades, the expansion of a different technology, cable, changed all of this. 24/7 Politics tells the story of how the cable industry worked with political leaders to create an entirely new approach to television, one that tethered politics to profits and divided and distracted Americans by feeding their appetite for entertainment-frequently at the expense of fostering responsible citizenship. In this timely and provocative book, Kathryn Cramer Brownell argues that cable television itself is not to blame for today's rampant polarization and scandal politics-the intentional restructuring of television as a political institution is. She describes how cable innovations-from C-SPAN coverage of congressional debates in the 1980s to MTV's foray into presidential politics in the 1990s-took on network broadcasting using market forces, giving rise to a more decentralized media world. Brownell shows how cable became an unstoppable medium for political communication that prioritized cult followings and loyalty to individual brands, fundamentally reshaped party politics, and, in the process, sowed the seeds of democratic upheaval. 24/7 Politics reveals how cable TV created new possibilities for antiestablishment voices and opened a pathway to political prominence for seemingly unlikely figures like Donald Trump by playing to narrow audiences and cultivating division instead of common ground.

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9780691246666

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"""Brownell is an excellent historian, and her account of cable's evolution from the period right after World War II to the period right after the Cold War is among the best I have read.""---Jesse Walker, Reason"

"""Brownell is an excellent historian, and her account of cable's evolution from the period right after World War II to the period right after the Cold War is among the best I have read.""---Jesse Walker, Reason ""Brownell, a historian, details how the opponents of network broadcasting successfully cast the industry as ‘elitist’ and peddled cable as a democratizing force that would ‘empower people, politicians, and perspectives.’ Her persuasive account argues that cable’s advocates were, in fact, motivated primarily by profit, and that cable television’s Sisyphean pursuit of ratings and revenue ultimately served to cultivate a toxic media—and political—environment."" * New Yorker *"

Author Information

Kathryn Cramer Brownell is associate professor of history at Purdue University and the author of Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life.

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