Decoding the Cable Revolution: How 24/7 Politics Shaped a Generation and Our Democracy with Kathryn Cramer Brownell
The Not Old Better Show, Prevention Magazine Interview Series, October
Welcome back to another episode of The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series on radio and podcast. I’m Paul Vogelzang, and we’re broadcasting from just outside of Washington, D.C. Please check out our show notes today for more information about Smithsonian Associates and their wonderful programs. The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series fosters thoughtful dialogues on subjects that matter.
Today, we have a special guest, Smithsonian Associate Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell, an associate professor of history at Purdue University. She’s here to discuss her new book, “24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News.” Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell will be appearing at Smithsonian Associates coming up, so please check out our show notes today for specifics on Dr. Brownell’s presentation titled: “24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News.”
As television began to overtake the political landscape in the 1960s, network broadcast companies, bolstered by powerful lobbying interests, dominated screens across the nation. Yet over the next three decades, the expansion of a different technology, cable, changed all of this.
Drawing on her new book, 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News, Kathryn Cramer Brownell tells the story of how the cable industry worked with political leaders to create an entirely new approach to television, one that tethered politics to profits and divided and distracted Americans by feeding their appetite for entertainment—frequently at the expense of fostering responsible citizenship.
Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell argues today that cable television itself is not to blame for today’s rampant polarization and scandal politics: It’s the intentional restructuring of television as a political institution. She describes how cable innovations—from C-SPAN coverage of congressional debates in the 1980s to MTV’s foray into presidential politics in the 1990s—took on network broadcasting using market forces, giving rise to a more decentralized media world.
Brownell reveals to us how cable became an unstoppable medium for political communication that prioritized cult followings and loyalty to individual brands, fundamentally reshaped party politics, and, in the process, sowed the seeds of democratic upheaval. She also examines how cable created new possibilities for antiestablishment voices and opened a pathway to political prominence for seemingly unlikely figures like Donald Trump by playing to narrow audiences and cultivating division instead of common ground, but how people became tools to cable networks!
That, of course, is our guest today, Smithsonian Associate Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell, reading from her new book, 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News. Please join me in welcoming to The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series on radio and podcast Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell.
My thanks to Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell for joining today’s show. Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brown will be appearing at Smithsonian Associates coming up, and the title of her presentation is “24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News.” Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell has written the new book, available at Apple Books, 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News. My thanks, always, to the Smithsonian team for all they do to support the show and to you, my wonderful, wonderful Not Old Better Show audience on radio and podcast. Please be well, be safe, and let’s talk about better…The Not Old Better Show. Thanks, everybody, and we’ll see you next week. Check out Smithsonian Associates HERE: https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/cable-tv-upended-american-politics.
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