Domesticating the Airwaves Broadcasting, Domesticity and Femininity

by Andrews, Maggie

• ISBN13: 9781441172723
• ISBN10: 1441172726
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-29
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Using case studies and analytical overviews this book explores the relationship between broadcasting and the intimate domestic sphere into which it is broadcast. It focuses on the period from the 1920s, when broadcasting was established in the UK, to the present day when both domesticity and broadcasting have become areas of anxiety and contestation. The entry of the 'wireless', and later television, into the home changed men and women's experience of domesticity, offering education and reducing isolation. But broadcasting did not merely change domestic leisure patterns, it actively intervened in constructing domesticity. The supposedly natural relationship between femininity and domesticity has structured the nature of broadcasting, and also the discourses which have emerged concerning the consumption of broadcast media. Contemporary broadcasting continues to be obsessed by domesticity, both in an idealised sense as well as portraying the domestic world as one of turmoil and crisis. This volume demonstrates that the relationship between broadcasting and domesticity is a key, and often neglected, feature of the cultural history of Britain in the last 100 years.

Author Biography

Maggie Andrews is a Cultural Historian whose research and publications have focused upon women, domesticity and media. She is Associate Head of the Institute of Humanities and Creative Arts at the University of Worcester.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	p. vi
Acknowledgements	p. vii
Introduction	p. viii
Domesticating the airwaves	p. 1
Early domestic goddesses: competing discourses of domestic expertise	p. 30
The gardener and the chef: broadcasting celebrities-1930s style	p. 55
Domesticity under fire: fractured and extended	p. 82
From austerity to consumer wonderland: post-war domesticities	p. 114
Broadening domestic 'realities': soaps, documentaries and working-class domesticities in the 1960s and 1970s	p. 149
The personal becomes political: domesticity in turmoil and as a political project	p. 179
Still contesting and idealizing domesticity	p. 209
Afterword: an uncertain future for domesticity and broadcast media	p. 242
Bibliography	p. 245
Index	p. 265ÿþ
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