The Cosby Show: Audiences, Impact, and Implications

(Hardback)

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Description

This volume chronicles the phenomenon of a television programme that has commanded first place since its premier in September 1984. Each week in the United States it has consistently drawn a loyal audience of more than 60 million people, breaking all records for ratings and shares. The show is credited with lifting a third-place network into commanding leadership, advancing the image of black families, being the object of the greatest syndication barter deal in history, and regenerating the sitcom genre. Approached from a systems-theoretical perspective, this book considers "The Cosby Show" historically, economically, politically, legally, and socioculturally. The book provides detailed examination of the show's production, audience profiles, and international reviews and reactions to it. Fuller includes the results of a survey conducted by her and translated into appropriate languages for more than 800 responses from a dozen countries. Media scholars continue to call for future research on acculturation effects of television and for research on complete contextual studies of specific television genres. "The Cosby Show: Audiences, Impact and Implications" attempts to fill those gaps.

Reviews

Several helpful appendixes, useful chapter notes, and an excellent bibliography make this a worthwhile research tool. A fine descriptive study of Cosby for undergraduates on up. * Choice *
The author has gathered together, and analyzed, a vast amount of material on The Cosby Show, and I am sure there is much here that will fascinate those involved in the scholarly study of the television medium. * Classic Images *
[B]oth rigorous and readable, this book could have a wide appeal among many of the millions of people who watched the show every week. It could also provide valuable supplementary reading in both undergraduate an graduate classes. * Journal of Popular Culture *

Author Bio

Linda K. Fuller, PhD, is professor of communications at Worcester State College. She is the author/(co-)editor of more than 20 books, including The Cosby Show (1992), Community TV in the U.S. (1994), and Dictionary of Quotations in Communications (1997). Awarded Fulbright scholarships to teach in Singapore in 1996 and do AIDS research Senegal in 2002, she has also been a Visiting Scholar at Northeastern University.