"Black Television Travels provides a detailed and insightful view of the
roots and routes of the televisual representations of blackness on the
transnational media landscape. By following the circulation of black
cultural products and their institutionalized discourses--including
industry lore, taste cultures, and the multiple stories of black
experiences that have and have not made it onto the small screen--Havens
complicates discussions of racial representation and exposes
possibilities for more expansive representations of blackness while
recognizing the limitations of the seemingly liberatory spaces created
by globalization."
--Bambi Haggins, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at
Arizona State University
"A major achievement that makes important contributions to the analysis
of race, identity, global media, nation, and television production
cultures. Discussions of race and television are too often constricted
within national boundaries, yet this fantastic book offers a strong,
compelling, and utterly refreshing corrective. Read it, assign it, use
it."
--Jonathan Gray, author of Television Entertainment, Television Studies,
and Show Sold Separately
Black Television Travels explores the globalization of African American
television and the way in which foreign markets, programming strategies,
and viewer preferences have influenced portrayals of African Americans
on the small screen. Television executives have been notoriously slow to
recognize the potential popularity of black characters and themes, both
at home and abroad. As American television brokers increasingly seek
revenues abroad, their assumptions about saleability and audience
perceptions directly influence the global circulation of these programs,
as well as their content. Black Television Travels aims to reclaim the
history of African American television circulation in an effort to
correct and counteract this predominant industry lore.
Based on interviews with television executives and programmers from
around the world, as well as producers in the United States, Havens
traces the shift from an era when national television networks often
blocked African American television from traveling abroad to the
transnational, post-network era of today. While globalization has helped
to expand diversity in African American television, particularly in
regard to genre, it has also resulted in restrictions, such as in the
limited portrayal of African American women in favor of attracting young
male demographics across racial and national boundaries. Havens
underscores the importance of examining boardroom politics as part of
racial discourse in the late modern era, when transnational cultural
industries like television are the primary sources for dominant
representations of blackness.
