| This dissertation addresses the question of how cultural institutions such as television interpret social issues and circulate ideas about them within particular historical and institutional contexts. In particular, this study considers how the cycle of police dramas on American television between 1981 and 2000 engaged in a broad and dynamic dialog about issues of crime, community, and citizenship.;The theoretical basis of this dissertation is Horace Newcomb and Paul Hirsch's argument that television acts as a "cultural forum": an arena for different ideological positions, where a broad range of sometime contradictory ideas are presented for examination. This project addresses formal, institutional, and social questions through a range of methods, from close textual analysis of individual series and episodes to broader political economy of media institutions and historical analyses of social policies toward crime.;In the end, this dissertation argues that the police dramas produced between 1981 and 2000 comprised a complex and varied forum for ideas about crime, community, and citizenship. This conclusion complicates the traditional criticism that police dramas are an inherently conservative form. More broadly, my analysis opens up possibilities for moving beyond narrow ideological readings in general by accounting for the range of social and institutional factors that influence the industrial production of culture. |
