by Heather Hendershot
about Heather Hendershot
Heather Hendershot is Professor of Film and Media at MIT. She is the editor of Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America’s Only TV Channel for Kids and the author of Saturday Morning Censors: Television Regulation before the V-Chip, Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture, What’s Fair on the Air? Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest, and Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line.
Parks and Recreation
Abstract: Throughout its history as a mass medium, network television strove for wide appeal, while also occasionally courting controversy. In this look at the recent sitcom Parks and Recreation, Heather Hendershot considers how television might still function as a site for negotiating controversial topics and modeling civic engagement, even in an era of niche programming when there seems to be less and less shared culture.