Redesigning Women: Television After The Network Era (Feminist Studies And Media Culture)

Redesigning Women: Television After The Network Era (Feminist Studies And Media Culture)

In the 1990s, American televison audiences witnessed an unprecedented rise in programming devoted explicitly to women. Cable networks such as Oxygen Media, Women's Entertainment Network, and Lifetime targeted a female audience, and prime_time dramatic series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Judging Amy, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal empowered heroines, single career women, and professionals struggling with family commitments and occupational demands. After establishing this phenomenon's significance, Amanda D. Lotz explores the audience profile, the types of narrative and characters that recur, and changes to the industry landscape in the wake of media consolidation and a profusion of channels. Employing a cultural studies framework, Lotz examines whether the multiplicity of female-centric networks and narratives renders certain gender stereotypes uninhabitable, and how new dramatic portrayals of women have redefined narrative conventions. targeting of a niche segment of the overall audience, and the ways in which the new, sophisticated portrayals of women inspire sympathetic identification while also commodifying viewers into a marketable demographic for advertisers. Amanda D. Lotz is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Michigan. She has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Television, 2nd ed., and other books and journals. Review "Redesigning Women provides a highly sophisticated, expertly handled explication of the social and industrial conditions surrounding the emergence of female-centered dramatic series in the late 1990s. Lotz's earnest argumentation and evocative writing style make Redesigning Women an engaging, convincing read and significant research tool for scholars interested in the industrial production of media texts, particularly those that contribute to the always-evolving cultural canon of women's representations."--Jhistory Book Description The complex causes and effects of television?s changing portrayal of women In the 1990s, American televison audiences witnessed an unprecedented rise in programming devoted explicitly to women. Cable networks such as Oxygen Media, Women?s Entertainment Network, and Lifetime targeted a female audience, and prime-time dramatic series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Judging Amy, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal empowered heroines, single career women, and professionals struggling with family commitments and occupational demands. After establishing this phenomenon?s significance, Amanda D. Lotz explores the audience profile, the types of narrative and characters that recur, and changes to the industry landscape in the wake of media consolidation and a profusion of channels. Employing a cultural studies framework, Lotz examines whether the multiplicity of female-centric networks and narratives renders certain gender stereotypes uninhabitable, and how new dramatic portrayals of women have redefined narrative conventions. Redesigning Women also reveals how these changes led to narrowcasting, or the targeting of a niche segment of the overall audience, and the ways in which the new, sophisticated portrayals of women inspire sympathetic identification while also commodifying viewers into a marketable demographic for advertisers. About the Author Amanda D. Lotz is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Michigan. She has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Television,