Based on the argument that (contrary to critical opinion) the musicians in the various bands associated with Bosstown Sound were indeed talented, cohesive individuals and that the bands' lack of renown was partially a result of ill-treatment by record companies and the press, this paper traces the development of the Bosstown Sound from its…

This paper is an edited transcript of a panel discussion which took place at an educational conference about the current state of popular culture studies at American colleges and universities. First touching on the number of university media departments being disbanded in general across the country, the discussion focuses on several questions:…

In opposition to popular disparaging of television as an artistic medium, television can be considered as having its own aesthetics and can be placed in the category of fine arts (as opposed to folk arts). Television art can and should be distinguished from video art and film art in the ways in which it imitates reality; program content and…

Even though television scholar Herbert Zettl singlehandedly created the term "television aesthetics" by proclaiming that TV is an art, television studies are still excluded from the respectable divisions and disciplines of knowledge. Television is considered the epitome of mass culture/kitsch, and the very idea of a TV…

The most extensive use of dream imagery in popular culture occurs in the visual arts, and in the past five years it has become evident that music video (a semi-narrative hybrid of film and television) is the most dreamlike media product of all. The rampant depiction and implication of dreams and media fantasies in music video are often strongly…

For a researcher with a serious interest in studying popular culture, the collective negligence of the entertainment industries, the scholarly community, and the government is a given, but some action to preserve American mass media artifacts can be undertaken. Contrary to the myth of unlimited access to information, certain regions of the public…

It is indeed a problem, perhaps even a crisis, that many Americans are ignorant of "The Tempest," the Civil War, the location of the Persian Gulf, the Constitution, or the chief justice of the Supreme Court. However, if conservative humanists continue to ostracize, scorn, and ignore both media studies and the media themselves, the result will not…

"Bosstown Sound" was a slogan used to promote several Boston (Massachusetts) rock bands in 1968. In theory, the Bosstown Sound was a logical development to follow the San Francisco "sound," which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and other Bay Area bands that had been commercially successful in 1967.…

The image of the family as a secure refuge against a threatening outside world has persisted in the television sitcom since its inception in the early 1950s. Although some television programs have dealt with major problems directly, most, including the sitcom, have completely ignored them. Harnessing hysteria over the possibility of a nuclear…

The novel "The Women's Room," by Marilyn French, deserves an audience both because of the timely feminist issues it addresses and because of its formal experimentation with points of view. An interpretive theatre version of the story was performed twice in 1982-83, using a script adapted from the novel, and a modified chamber theatre…

Although previous generations have by no means been disloyal to the popular music of their youth, the tenacious attachment of the Baby Boomers to the music of the 1960s seems unprecedented. Three main reasons account for this constantly widening musical reclamation project. First, the Baby Boomers have a clearer sense of generational identity that…

This paper is an analysis of the different aspects of the music video. Music video is defined as having three meanings: an individual clip, a format, or the "aesthetic" that describes what the clips and format look like. The paper examines interruptions, the dialectical tension and the organization of the work of art, shot-scene…

The conservative position on the crisis in the humanities is fundamentally antidemocratic and poses a danger to popular culture studies. This can be demonstrated by taking issue with conservatives' usage of the terms "crisis" and "politics." A crisis is an urgent problem, but by labeling something a crisis which is not,…

Rock videos have their antecedents in film and television images, although music in films is usually background music. Television made possible the live transmission of musical numbers with visuals. The musical television commercial is an amalgam of conventions, with background music suddenly erupting into text, unheard by the characters but…