Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title

Dow discusses a wide variety of television programming and provides specific case studies of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, One Day at a Time, Designing Women, Murphy Brown, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. She juxtaposes analyses of genre, plot, character development, and narrative structure with the larger debates over feminism that took place at the time the programs originally aired. Dow emphasizes the power of the relationships among television entertainment, news media, women's magazines, publicity, and celebrity biographies and interviews in creating a framework through which television viewers "make sense" of both the medium's portrayal of feminism and the nature of feminism itself.

About the Author
Bonnie J. Dow is Assistant Professor of Communication at North Dakota State University.

Reviews

"Dow's critical insights are inventive, ranging wisely across several disciplines, particularly the history of the U.S. women's movement."-Journal of Communication

"Prime-Time Feminism is an important book for scholars and courses in gender and the media. It is a crucial piece of a picture that has not always been pretty."-Quarterly Journal of Speech

"The author offers surprising connections and comparisons in the book . . . and she provides a solid overview of the women's movement in America to the present. . . . Highly recommended for upper-division and graduate media, cultural, and feminist studies collections."-Choice

Awards
Winner of Winner of the 1997 Emily Toth Award by the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association 2021.



Book Information
ISBN 9780812215540
Author Bonnie J. Dow
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint University of Pennsylvania Press
Publisher University of Pennsylvania Press