Introduction: The Public Lives of TV  1

Part I. Histories and Institutions  

Rhetorics of TV Spectatorships Outside the Home  27

1. TV, Class, and Social Control in the 1940s Neighborhood Tavern  29

2. Gendered Fantasies of TV Shopping in the Postwar Department Store  63

3. Out-of-Home Networks in the 1990s  89

Part II. Places and Practices  

Reading TV Installations in Daily Life  115

4. Shaping Public and Private Space with TV Screens  117

5. Television and Consumption at the Point of Purchase  155

6. Television While You Wait  195

7. Terminal Thoughts on Art, Activism, and Video for Public Places  225

Notes  253

Works Cited  287

Index  305

“In lucid . . . prose and with a keen eye for historical detail and telling examples, McCarthy describes how televisions in 1950s taverns . . . evolved into more upscale sports bars in the late 1980s. . . . [Her] argument is fluent and convincing. Attuned to quirky and revealing juxtapositions . . . she astutely explains television’s function as a disseminator of information in places like doctors’ waiting rooms. . . . McCarthy’s eye-opening, scholarly work breathes new life into the debate over TV’s ubiquitous influence.”—Publishers Weekly

“[A] thoughtful, in-depth study. . . . This superbly researched work will be an excellent addition to academic and media libraries and of enormous value for university communications curricula.”—Library Journal

“Written in a lively style, this volume is strongly recommended . . . .”—M. J. Miller, Choice

“[A] timely exploration into the ‘pervasive phenomenon’ of the presence of television outside of the home . . . . [O]riginal and fascinating . . . . [W]ell researched and filled with perceptive observations and examples.”—Kate Douglas, M/C Reviews

“Ambient Television is a journey through the development and growth of television, of department stores, of advertising and the growth of consumerism from postwar America to the present. McCarthy presents a fascinating reading and account of the phenomenon.”—Elizabeth Delaney, Australasian Journal of American Studies

“[I]ntriguing illustrations of where and how sets are situated . . . . [U]seful and significant . . . .”—Felicia Hughes-Freeland, Current Anthropology

"McCarthy's book is an insightful and important treatment of the extensive and yet almost subliminal environmental presence that television has today achieved. . . . [R]eaders interested in television and cultural studies will find Ambient Television to be a rich and detailed exploration of a context with which television is not typically associated-public spaces outside the home-and of the ways that people and institutions negotiate the meaning of television and its functions therein." —Stephen Prince, Quarterly Review of Film and Video

"[A] groundbreaking work. . . . [A] terrific achievement. . . . [A] cultural study of the very best sort: specific and grounded in its analyses of actual sites, critically sophisticated and theoretically original in its attention to the power politics of the everyday, and provocative in its encouragement that readers thin through how its arguments apply to a multitude of other contexts, in other places, across time."—Victoria E. Johnson, Film Quarterly

“In lucid . . . prose and with a keen eye for historical detail and telling examples, McCarthy describes how televisions in 1950s taverns . . . evolved into more upscale sports bars in the late 1980s. . . . [Her] argument is fluent and convincing. Attuned to quirky and revealing juxtapositions . . . she astutely explains television’s function as a disseminator of information in places like doctors’ waiting rooms. . . . McCarthy’s eye-opening, scholarly work breathes new life into the debate over TV’s ubiquitous influence.”—Publishers Weekly

“[A] thoughtful, in-depth study. . . . This superbly researched work will be an excellent addition to academic and media libraries and of enormous value for university communications curricula.”—Library Journal

“Written in a lively style, this volume is strongly recommended . . . .”—M. J. Miller, Choice

“[A] timely exploration into the ‘pervasive phenomenon’ of the presence of television outside of the home . . . . [O]riginal and fascinating . . . . [W]ell researched and filled with perceptive observations and examples.”—Kate Douglas, M/C Reviews

“Ambient Television is a journey through the development and growth of television, of department stores, of advertising and the growth of consumerism from postwar America to the present. McCarthy presents a fascinating reading and account of the phenomenon.”—Elizabeth Delaney, Australasian Journal of American Studies

“[I]ntriguing illustrations of where and how sets are situated . . . . [U]seful and significant . . . .”—Felicia Hughes-Freeland, Current Anthropology

"McCarthy's book is an insightful and important treatment of the extensive and yet almost subliminal environmental presence that television has today achieved. . . . [R]eaders interested in television and cultural studies will find Ambient Television to be a rich and detailed exploration of a context with which television is not typically associated-public spaces outside the home-and of the ways that people and institutions negotiate the meaning of television and its functions therein." —Stephen Prince, Quarterly Review of Film and Video

"[A] groundbreaking work. . . . [A] terrific achievement. . . . [A] cultural study of the very best sort: specific and grounded in its analyses of actual sites, critically sophisticated and theoretically original in its attention to the power politics of the everyday, and provocative in its encouragement that readers thin through how its arguments apply to a multitude of other contexts, in other places, across time."—Victoria E. Johnson, Film Quarterly

“An entirely original book, Ambient Television is brilliantly conceived, researched, and argued. Scholars in material culture, media history, and television studies are likely to recognize this virtuoso treatment of TV outside the home as an instant classic.”—Andrew Ross

“Ambient Television offers a long overdue consideration of television spectatorship through a study of television's strategic positioning in a variety of public environments outside the home. Anna McCarthy's superb historical research has unearthed much fascinating material which will be of interest to artists and media critics. Anyone wishing to understand more fully our ever expanding media culture will benefit from McCarthy's astute analysis and historical insights into television's complex place in the public sphere.”—John Hanhardt, Guggenheim Museum

“An unusually rich, ambitious, and engaging work. McCarthy has produced a significant piece of scholarship that will have wide impact upon the way television is taken up in the academy and elsewhere.”—William Boddy, Baruch College

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