Television - The Housewife's Choice? the 1949 Mass Observation Television Directive, Reluctance and Revision

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article considers the responses of women, many of whom describe themselves as housewives, in the 1949 Mass Observation Television Directive, in order to interrogate some of the broader assumptions around television's relationship with the housewife as key to its success. Against the backcloth of social histories revising ideas about gender, modernity and suburbia in the post-war period, this article considers some of the ways in which initial reluctance towards television was recorded and negotiated. It presents three themes around tensions between home and leisure, the domestication of entertainment and going out, and the appreciation of particular genre, which suggest that the adoption of television as mass entertainment by women might not have been as smooth a process as we have come to understand.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)342-359
JournalMedia History
Volume21
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Jul 2015

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Television - The Housewife's Choice? the 1949 Mass Observation Television Directive, Reluctance and Revision'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this