television — Bunk History

Neil Postman in front of a collage of the cover of "Amusing Ourselves to Death."

The One Book That Explains Our Current Era Was Written 40 Years Ago

NYT pundits and NBA writers alike can't stop recommending this four-decade-old book.

by Laura J. Miller via Slate on March 25, 2025

How Entertainment Mangled Public Discourse

Neil Postman’s jeremiad against TV seems rather quaint today—and not just because he was shouting into the wind and knew it.

by Katha Pollitt via The New Republic on November 20, 2024

Three men using the large UNIVAC computer to predict the 1952 election, with two reading a printed readout and one using a phone.

The Year Election Night First Became a TV Event

In 1952, news stations combined two new technologies—the TV and the computer—to forever transform how voters experience election night.

by Jordan Friedman via HISTORY on October 28, 2024

The title card for Little House of a Prairie on a green hill.

50 Years Ago: America Loved a Little House

The beloved family show left a lasting legacy.

by Troy Brownfield via The Saturday Evening Post on September 11, 2024

Harris on a tv screen.

TV Still Runs Politics

Just about every major development in the current presidential campaign started as a television event.

by Paul Farhi via The Atlantic on August 22, 2024

Gold Dust on the Air: Television Anthology Drama and Midcentury American Culture by Molly A. Schneider. University of Texas Press. 238 pages.

The Myth America Show

The anthology drama provided a venue for discourses on American national identity during the massive cultural, economic, and political changes occurring at midcentury.

by Josie Torres Barth via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 13, 2024

Censored stills of a naked man running.

The Decline of Streaking

Naked runners used to disrupt events seemingly all the time. Why’d they stop?

by Michael Waters via The Atlantic on June 13, 2024

A drawing of a television screen between the fingers of someone framing an image of barbed wire.

The Problem With TV's New Holocaust Obsession

From 'The Tattooist of Auschwitz' to 'We Were the Lucky Ones,' a new wave of Holocaust dramas feel surprisingly shallow.

by Judy Berman via TIME on May 8, 2024

Harold "Red" Grange, one of the biggest stars of the early NFL.

NFL Television Broadcasting and the Federal Courts

The NFL's control over entertainment.

by Jake Kobrick via Federal Judicial Center on January 24, 2023

Frank Shakespeare in 1968.

Frank Shakespeare, Nixon TV Guru Who Redefined Political Ads, Dies At 97

Mr. Shakespeare's team oversaw ads and on-air events that reflected the rising power of television as a political tool.

by Brian Murphy via Washington Post on December 17, 2022

A man is lying on his side in a hospital bed; Mesha Irizarry sits beside him, a hand on his shoulder.

Deconstructing HIV and AIDS on "Designing Women"

Shows from "Mr. Belvedere" to "Grace Under Fire" fought ignorance and prejudice with more care and passion than many who had been elected to public office

by Nels Highberg via Nursing Clio on September 29, 2022

Vintage photograph of two little girls sitting on a mid-century television set.

The Lost Art of Striking a Pose With Your TV Set

In midcentury America, the machine itself became a character.

by Lynn Spigel via Slate on August 14, 2022

TV's Rural Craze & The Civil Rights Movement

At the same time that MLK was using TV to brand Southern sheriffs as obstacles to progress, a Southern sheriff was one of the medium's most beloved characters.

by Bijan Bayne via RogerEbert.com on June 21, 2022

Screen frame from the television program Home Improvement, depicting parents chastising their teenage son.

In the ‘90s the U.S. Government Paid TV Networks to Weave “Anti-Drug” Messaging Into Their Plot Lines

These storylines portrayed those addicted to drugs and alcohol as lunatics whose only cure can come from punitive measures, abstinence, and “tough love.”

by Gabe Levine-Drizin via The Column on December 27, 2021

The full chart of television genres from 1945 to present.

Television Genres Over Time

Here’s how the distribution of genres has changed since 1945 up to present.

by Nathan Yau via FlowingData on October 26, 2021

The cover of the book Her Stories by Elana Levine

Guiding Lights: On “Her Stories: Daytime Soap Opera and US Television History”

Annie Berke reviews Elana Levine's book on a pivotal genre and its diverse fandom.

by Annie Berke via Los Angeles Review of Books on October 19, 2021

Two characters from “Grey’s Anatomy" sit against a wall.

How TV Lied About Abortion

For decades, dramatized plot lines about unwanted and unexpected pregnancies helped create our real-world abortion discourse.

by Tanya Melendez via Vox on October 14, 2021

Book cover of "Kathy Fiscus: A Tragedy That Transfixed the Nation"

Wellspring

The classic story of the child down the well played out in Southern California at the dawn of television.

by Jeffrey Burbank via Los Angeles Review of Books on September 13, 2021

CNN studio with monitor in the foreground and anchor at desk in the background.

From TV News Tickers to Homeland: The Ways TV Was Affected By 9/11

There is a long list of ways America was transformed by the terrorist attacks. But the question of how TV itself was changed is more complicated.

by Eric Deggans via NPR on September 10, 2021

An astronaut on the moon with the MTV flag planted.

Watch the First Two Hours of MTV’s Inaugural Broadcast

MTV's 1981 broadcast was advertised to be as important as the moon landing.

by Ted Mills via Open Culture on August 6, 2021

A women in a newsroom covering the election

Good TV Demands Results on Election Night, but That’s Bad for Democracy

The history of tuning in to televised election returns.

by Kathryn Cramer Brownell via Made By History on November 3, 2020

The Mod Squad, Kojak, Real-Life Cops, and Me

What I relearned (about well-meaning liberalism, race, my late father, and my young gay self) rewatching the TV cop shows of my 1970s youth.

by Mark Edward Harris via Vulture on September 8, 2020

From left, actors Bernnadette Stanis, John Amos and Ja'Net Dubois accept the Impact Award for “Good Times” at the 2006 TV Land Awards in Santa Monica, Calif. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Television Is Already Moving to Address Racism — But Will the Effort Last?

Past network efforts to address racism faded as uprisings stopped dominating headlines.

by Kate L. Flach via Made By History on June 11, 2020

Come On and Zoom-Zoom

The original “Zoom” burst joyfully out of Boston in the 1970s, and is still beloved by older members of Generation X.

by David Kamp via The New Yorker on May 11, 2020

How Local TV Made “Bad” Movies a Thing

Weekly shows on local TV stations helped make the ironic viewing of bad movies into a national pastime.

by John B. King, Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on November 21, 2019

Trump through a television camera.

How TV Paved America’s Road to Trump

“A brand mascot that jumped off the cereal box”: a TV critic explains the multimedia character Trump created.

by Sean Illing, James Poniewozik via Vox on November 7, 2019

The Definitive Oral History of TiVo

How the original DVR paved the way for Netflix and the cord-cutter movement.

by Tom Roston via OneZero on April 2, 2019

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success

With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency.

by Patrick Radden Keefe via The New Yorker on December 27, 2018

When Televisions Were Radioactive

Anxieties about the effects of screens on human health are hardly new, but the way the public addresses the problems has changed.

by Susan Murray via The Atlantic on September 23, 2018

A man alone among the rubble of a city

TV and the Bomb

During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were a frequent plot point on television shows. Fearful depictions in the 1950's became more darkly comedic in the 1960s.

by Reba A. Wissner via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on August 13, 2018

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