Black women's work in television has been, since the beginning, a negotiation. Black Women and the Changing Television Landscape explores the steps black women, as actors, directors, and producers, have taken to improve representations of black people on the small screen. Beginning with The Beulah Show, Anderson articulates the interrelationship between US culture and the televisual, demonstrating the conditions under which black women particularly, and black people generally, exist in popular culture.

Watching While Black Rebooted: The Television and Digitality of Black Audiences examines what watching while Black means in an expanded U.S. televisual landscape. In this updated edition, media scholars return to television and digital spaces to think anew about what engages and captures Black audiences and users and why it matters. Contributors traverse programs and platforms to wrestle with a changing television industry that has exploded and included Black audiences as a new and central target of its visioning. The book illuminates history, care, monetization, and affect. Within these frames, the chapters run the gamut from transmediation, regional relevance, and superhuman visioning to historical traumas and progress, queer possibilities, and how televisual programming can make viewers feel Black. Mostly, the work tackles what the future looks like now for a changing televisual industry, Black media makers, and Black audiences. Chapters rethink such historically significant programs as Roots and Underground, such seemingly innocuous programs as Soul Food, and such contemporary and culturally complicated programs as Being Mary Jane and Atlanta. The book makes a case for the centrality of these programs while always recognizing the racial dynamics that continue to shape Black representation on the small screen. Painting a decidedly introspective portrait across forty years of Black television, Watching While Black Rebooted sheds much-needed light on under examined demographics, broadens common audience considerations, and gives deference to the preferences of audiences and producers of Black-targeted programming.

This book critically analyzes the portrayals of Black women in current reality television. Audiences are presented with a multitude of images of Black women fighting, arguing, and cursing at one another in this manufactured world of reality television. This perpetuation of negative, insidious racial and gender stereotypes influences how the U.S. views Black women. This stereotyping disrupts the process in which people are able to appreciate cultural and gender difference. Instead of celebrating the diverse symbols and meaning making that accompanies Black women's discourse and identities, reality television scripts an artificial or plastic image of Black women that reinforces extant stereotypes. This collection's contributors seek to uncover examples in reality television shows where instantiations of Black women's gendered, racial, and cultural difference is signified and made sinister.

With the emergence of popular culture phenomena such as reality television, blogging, and social networking sites, it is important to examine the representation of Black women and the potential implications of those images, messages, and roles. Black Women and Popular Culture: The Conversation Continues provides such a comprehensive analysis. Using an array of theoretical frameworks and methodologies, this collection features cutting edge research from scholars interested in the relationship among media, society, perceptions, and Black women. The uniqueness of this book is that it serves as a compilation of “hot topics” including ABC’s Scandal, Beyoncé’s Visual Album, and Oprah’s Instagram page. Other themes have roots in reality television, film, and hip hop, as well as issues of gender politics, domestic violence, and colorism. The discussion also extends to the presentation and inclusion of Black women in advertising, print, and digital media.

"With a new introduction, Herman Gray's classic investigation of television and race shows how the meaning of blackness on-screen has changed over the years by examining the portrayal of blacks on series such as The Jack Benny Show and Amos 'n' Andy, continuing through The Cosby Show and In Living Color."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This book seeks to interrogate the representation of Black women in television. Cheers explores how the increase of Black women in media ownership and creative executive roles (producers, showrunners, directors and writers) in the last 30 years affected the fundamental cultural shift in Black women’s representation on television, which in turn parallels the political, social, economic and cultural advancements of Black women in America from 1950 to 2016. She also examines Black women as a diverse television audience, discussing how they interact and respond to the constantly evolving television representation of their image and likeness, looking specifically at how social media is used as a tool of audience engagement.

This two-volume encyclopedia explores representations of people of color in American television. It includes overview essays on early, classic, and contemporary television and the challenges for, developments related to, and participation of minorities on and behind the screen. Covering five decades, this encyclopedia highlights how race has shaped television and how television has shaped society. Offering critical analysis of moments and themes throughout television history, Race in American Television shines a spotlight on key artists of color, prominent shows, and the debates that have defined television since the civil rights movement. This book also examines the ways in which television has been a site for both reproduction of stereotypes and resistance to them, providing a basis for discussion about racial issues in the United States. This set provides a significant resource for students and fans of television alike, not only educating but also empowering readers with the necessary tools to consume and watch the small screen and explore its impact on the evolution of racial and ethnic stereotypes in U.S. culture and beyond. Understanding the history of American television contributes to deeper knowledge and potentially helps us to better apprehend the plethora of diverse shows and programs on Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other platforms today.