Synopses & Reviews
In 1970, ABC, CBS, and NBC--the and#147;Big Threeand#8221; of the pre-cable television era--discovered the feminist movement. From the famed sit-in at
Ladiesand#8217; Home Journal to multi-part feature stories on the movement's ideas and leaders, nightly news broadcasts covered feminism more than in any year before or since, bringing women's liberation into American homes.
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In Watching Women's Liberation, 1970: Feminism's Pivotal Year on the Network News, Bonnie J. Dow uses case studies of key media events to delve into the ways national TV news mediated the emergence of feminism's second wave. First legitimized as a big story by print media, the feminist movement gained broadcast attention as the networksand#8217; eagerness to get in on the action was accompanied by feministsand#8217; efforts to use national media for their own purposes. Dow chronicles the conditions that precipitated feminism's new visibility and analyzes the verbal and visual strategies of broadcast news discourses that tried to make sense of the movement.
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Groundbreaking and packed with detail, Watching Women's Liberation, 1970 shows how feminism went mainstream--and what it gained and lost on the way.
Review
"As with her previous work, Dow's critical rhetorical analysis is sound and incisive, and her archival research is very impressive. This is an important study for media studies and feminist media studies, and I anticipate it will have a wide impact."
--Sarah Banet-Weiser, author of Authenticand#8482;: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture
Review
Combines the fields of media and feminist studies to expose how truly remarkable 1970 was.and#160; What Dow contributes to this field is insight into a movement when this treatment began, and what she reveals is the continued relevancy of her claim.andquot;--H-Net Reviews
About the Author
Bonnie J. Dow is an associate professor and chair of communication studies and an associate professor of women's and gender studies at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of
Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women's Movement Since 1970.