"Television Families: Is Something Wrong in Suburbia?'

Douglas, William. Television Families: Is Something Wrong in Suburbia? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2003. Print.



Douglas examines the history of the television family from the early beginnings of programing including the Nelsons (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) and the Cleavers (Leave it to Beaver) to recent television families like the Taylors (Home Improvement) and the Huxtables (The Cosby Show). Douglas compares the real life family to that of the fictional family and how both are represented within the other.

Television programming continually mimmicks real life within the fictional content of a favorite show. This book shared several angles how program content has delivered an educational sceniro of social topics. Earlier days of television would not have considered exploring, for example, an individual's sexual orientation where today it's common in almost every program.

I liked this book. Most of the program's that Douglas used as examples were on TV when I was young. Growing up in a small Northern Idaho town, television was the only window to diversity and over the years my only means of exposure to the extended world.