While much research into television has been historical, textual, or empirical, this volume approaches the topic from a sociocultural and feminist perspective, to address important questions from the viewpoint of the audience as well as from that of the industry. The contributors examine the ways in which the television industry seeks to deliver a female audience to its advertisers while inserting itself into women's lives, both at home and in the marketplace - hence the concept of a private screening in which the outside media world is brought into the personal space. The volume analyzes how television delivers "consumption" to its female audience by displaying commodities and lifestyles that attempt to engender an idealized sense of community and how audiences understand television programming and how these programs construct definitions of "femininity".

Contributions by: Denise Mann