Broadcasting rights
Even as it grew in popularity in the postwar years, relatively few scholars studied television: Full of dismal middlebrow fare, from lightweight sitcoms to hokey soap operas, it was seen as far less worthy of critical appraisal than film. Even so, the immense popularity and apparent power of television made it ripe for analysis blending an examination of shows themselves with the political and economic components of the medium. Enter Heather Hendershot, who since the 1990s has been a prolific author of books and papers about television and politics — work that has helped to decipher our cultural past, and its politics. Heather Hendershot Photo: Bryce Vickmark Hendershot’s three books, many papers, and an edited volume have covered topics from censorship of children’s programming to, more recently, in-depth studies of conservative political broadcasts. In unmatched detail, she has traced right-wing media from some of its overtly partisan founders in...