Programming Our Lives: Television And American Identity

In this timely examination of television and American identity, Cummins and Gordon take readers on an informed walk through the changes that TV has already wrought-and those still likely to confront us. Commercial television in America is less than 60 years old, yet it has had an enormous impact on what we like, what we do, what we know, and how we think. A family transplanted from the 1940s to the present day would certainly be stunned by a fundamentally different world: instead of gathering in the living room for a shared evening of radio, they would be scattered around the house to indulge their individual interests on one of a hundred cable channels; instead of a society with rigid racial and ethnic divisions, they would see people of different ethnicities in passionate embraces; and certainly they would see very different sets of values reflected across the board. They would, in short, find themselves in an unrecognizable America, one both reflected in and shaped by television, a medium that has been shown to have an unprecedented influence on our lives both for better and for worse.

Walter Cummins is Professor Emeritus of English at Farleigh Dickinson University's College at Florham, and Editor Emeritus forThe Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing. He is the co-author ofThe Literary Traveler with Thomas E. Kennedy, and the author of the story collectionsWitness and Where We Live. He serves on the editorial boards of Web Del Sol,Tiferet magazine, and the Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

George Gordon has pursued a distinguished career as a partner of Hay Management Consultants, and president of its Research for Management Division. He was also a member of the faculty of Rutgers University, and a board member of a number of organizations. Over 50 of his articles and speeches have appeared in numerous business magazines, professional publications and books. These span such publications asAcademy of Management Review, Directors and Boards, Research-Technology Management, andInternational Journal of Business. His previous book, Managing Management Climate, was co- authored with Walter Cummins.