Includes bibliographical references and index.

Making sense of blackness on television / Darnell M. Hunt -- The news media and the disorders : Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders -- Encoding and decoding in the television discourse / Stuart Hall -- Television and black consciousness / Molefi Kete Asante -- Television and the black audience : cultivating moderate perspectives on racial integration / Paula W. Matabane -- White responses : the emergence of "enlightened" racism / Sut Jhally, Justin Lewis -- Hearing Anita Hill (and viewing Bill Cosby) / John Fiske -- A myth of assimilation : "enlightened" racism and the news / Christopher P. Campbell -- The politics of representation in network television / Herman Gray -- Ralph Farquhar's South Central and Pearl's place to play : why they failed before Moesha hit / Kristal Brent Zook -- Body and soul : physicality, disciplinarity, and the overdetermination of blackness / C. Richard King, Charles Fruehling Springwood -- "Where my girls at?" : negotiating black womanhood in music videos / Rana A. Emerson -- The spectacular consumption of "true" African American culture : "whassup" with the Budweiser guys? / Eric King Watts, Mark P. Orbe -- "In a crisis we must have a sense of drama" : civil rights and televisual information / Sasha Torres -- Black content, white control / Darnell M. Hunt.