TV snapshots : an archive of everyday life

Summary: "In TV Snapshots, Lynn Spigel explores snapshots of people posing in front of their television sets in the 1950s through the early 1970s. Like today's selfies, TV snapshots were a popular photographic practice through which people visualized their lives in an increasingly mediated culture. Drawing on her collection of over 5,000 TV snapshots, Spigel shows that people did not just watch TV: women used the TV set as a backdrop for fashion and glamour poses; people dressed in drag in front of the screen; and, in pinup poses, people even turned the TV setting into a space for erotic display. While the TV industry promoted on-screen images of white nuclear families in suburban homes, the snapshots depict a broad range of people across racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds that do not always conform to the reigning middle-class nuclear family ideal. Showing how the television set became a central presence in the home that exceeded its mass entertainment function, Spigel highlights how TV snapshots complicate understandings of the significance of TV in everyday life"--

Record details

ISBN: 1478018283
ISBN: 9781478018285
ISBN: 1478015640
ISBN: 9781478015642
Physical Description: x, 315 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm
print
Publisher: Durham : Duke University Press, 2022.
Copyright: ©2022

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	TV portraits : picturing families and household things -- TV performers : a theater of everyday life -- TV dress-up : fashion poses and everyday glamour -- TV pinups : sex and the single TV -- TV memories : snapshots in digital times.