Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: The Evolution of a Revolution
Chapter 2: Pioneering Efforts
Chapter 3: Mom ‘n’ Pop Business
Chapter 4: Abel Cable Goes to Washington
Chapter 5: Cable’s New Frontier
Chapter 6: The Wired Nation
Chapter 7: The Cable Fable
Chapter 8: The Phoenix
Chapter 9: Cablemania
Chapter 10: The Cable Boom
Chapter 11: The Cable Cosa Nostra
Chapter 12: 500 Channels
Chapter 13: “What’s Gonna Be Next?”
Appendices
The first complete history of cable television in the United States
Patrick R. Parsons is Don Davis Professor of Ethics, College of Communications, Penn State University. He is the co-author (with Robert Frieden) of The Cable and Satellite Television Industry. He is also the author of Cable Television and the First Amendment and co-editor (with Steve Knowlton) of The Journalist's Moral Compass.
"His links between cable pioneers and the chain of events that created the enterprise is fresh, and had been subject to speculation and guess work prior to this." William Davie, University of Louisiana at Lafayette "No one has written as compellingly about cable TV than Patrick Parsons in his definitive work on the cable industry, Blue Skies... With a sweeping narrative, replete with detail and explanation, Blue Skies illuminates the complex history of the industry that redefined mass communication in American society." Television Quarterly The German publication Medienwissenschaft, Issue 4, 2008: The review of Patrick Parson's Blue Skies was in German. "Patrick Parsons has written a superb, comprehensive history of cable TV in the United States. Blue Skies is a must read for media historians or anyone else curious about the origins of the local 'cable company.'... Blue Skies is well researched, rich in detail, and told by someone who obviously has been a longtime observer of this industry. He not only knows his subject well, he also has an instinct for telling a good story. Parsons has woven the multilayered history of cable's development into a remarkably workable (and readable) whole... Simply put, Blue Skies is one of the most important media history books to come along in many years. It should occupy a special place in every media historian's library." - The Journal of American History, December 2008 "Patrick Parsons has filled a gap in the history of technology with his comprehensive account of the U.S. Cable-television industry from its inceptions through 2005...One of the book's strengths is its exploration of antecedent technologies and regulatory frameworks that served as models in shaping beliefs about cable's place in the industrial, cultural, and political landscape... Parsons has written a definitive history of cable TV." Business History Review, Summer 2009
Ask a Question About this Product More... |