Black television travels : African American media around the globe / Timothy Havens.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: African American television trade -- Roots and the perils of African American television drama in a global world -- Integrated eighties situation comedies and the struggle against apartheid -- The Cosby show, family themes, and the ascent of white situation comedies abroad in the late 1980s -- The Fresh prince of Bel-Air, channel fragmentation, and the recognition of difference -- The worldwide circulation of contemporary African American television -- Black television from elsewhere: the globalization of non-U.S. Black television -- Conclusion: transnational televisual aesthetics and global discourses of race.

"Black Television Travels explores the globalization of African American television and the way in which foreign markets, programming strategies, and viewer preferences have influenced portrayals of African Americans on the small screen. Television executives have been notoriously slow to recognize the potential popularity of black characters and themes, both at home and abroad. As American television brokers increasingly seek revenues abroad, their assumptions about saleability and audience perceptions directly influence the global circulation of these programs, as well as their content. Black Television Travels aims to reclaim the history of African American television circulation in an effort to correct and counteract this predominant industry lore. Based on interviews with television executives and programmers from around the world, as well as producers in the United States, Havens traces the shift from an era when national television networks often blocked African American television from traveling abroad to the transnational, post-network era of today. While globalization has helped to expand diversity in African American television, particularly in regard to genre, it has also resulted in restrictions, such as in the limited portrayal of African American women in favor of attracting young male demographics across racial and national boundaries. Havens underscores the importance of examining boardroom politics as part of racial discourse in the late modern era, when transnational cultural industries like television are the primary sources for dominant representations of blackness"--Provided by publisher.

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