Public Television for Sale: Media, the Market, and the Public Sphere (Critical Studies in Communication and in the Cultural Industries)

The author takes a sociologist's look at the role of public television in the United States, and at the whole issue of the funding of television. His analysis of the forces that shape the public system leads him to ask questions about the increasing tendency towards privatization. Discussing the conservative campaign in 1992 to end federal funding, Hoynes explores the nature of public television funding structures and their impact on programming, the relationship between public television and the public that it is intended to serve, and the consequences of the absence of shared goals within public television.