Starring Mandela and Cosby
Subtitle: media and the end(s) of apartheid
By: Ron Krabill.
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 199
ISBN-13: 9780226451886; 9780226451893
Subjects: Cosby show (Television program : 1984-1992) -- Influence; Television broadcasting -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- History -- 20th century; Television and politics -- South Africa -- History -- 20th century; Television viewers -- South Africa -- Attitudes -- History -- 20th century; Whites -- South Africa -- Attitudes -- History -- 20th century; Mass media and race relations -- South Africa -- History -- 20th century; Apartheid -- South Africa; South Africa -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century
Description: During the worst years of apartheid, the most popular show on television in South Africa was " The Cosby Show". Why did people living under a system built on the idea that Black people were inferior and threatening flock to a show that portrayed African Americans as comfortably mainstream? The South African government maintained a ban on television until 1976. Weaving together South Africa's political history and a social history of television, Ron Krabill challenges conventional understandings of globalization, offering up new insights into the relationship between politics and the media.--[book cover].
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Media, democratization, and the end(s) of apartheid; title: Structured absences and communicative spaces; title: In the absence of television; title: "They stayed til the flag streamed"; title: Surfing into Zulu; title: Living with the Huxtables in a state of emergency; title: I may not be a freedom fighter, but I play one on TV; title: Television and the afterlife of apartheid.