Viewers Like You? How Public TV Failed the People
Conservatives have branded public television as elitist, while  liberals decry its dependence on corporate sponsorship. As with  television itself, however, the issues are rarely black and  white. Seasoned writer/ producer Smith and Ouellette (media  studies, Rutgers) agree that public TV has failed miserably, but  they disagree on just what it has failed to do. Ouellette sees  in public broadcasting the potential to correct social  injustice. PBS, she argues, has historically projected the views  of the dominant (white, male) culture, while minorities, women,  and blue-collar workers have been either ignored entirely or  depicted as humorous or pitiable. She believes that public TV  should embrace mass culture rather than trying to rise above it.  Her ideas, though intriguing, are frequently obscured by social  science jargon ("The history of KTCA problematizes geographic  essentialism"), making the book appropriate for academic  libraries.   A refugee from the world of public broadcasting, Smith sees  public TV as an art form whose potential has been repeatedly  squelched by lawmakers and business executives. In sharp  contrast to Ouellette's pleas for cultural sensitivity, Smith  cites political correctness as a major obstacle to innovative  programming. The authors' divergent views are best illustrated  by their attitudes about the early-1970s program The Great  American Dream Machine: Ouellette complains that the show poked  fun at "the lowly, feminized masses," while Smith praises the  show's "verve, style and originality" and intimates that it was  dropped because of its controversial content. Smith envisions a  national production center that would develop programs with  backing from a national trust fund, unconstrained by government  oversight. Smith's opinionated rant is more fun to read than  Ouellette's work, but too much of the text has only marginal  relevance to his thesis. The extraneous diatribes against  affirmative action, local school boards, etc., make this an  optional purchase for public libraries, though it may be  appropriate for communications collections.Susan M. Colowick,  North Olympic Lib. Syst., Port Angeles, WACopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.