MAKING HISTORY TODAY: Media and U.S. Politics - Kathryn Cramer Brownell on Showbiz Politics

Making History Today, produced by the History program at Fitchburg State University, connects the classroom to historians working in their fields. In these conversations, students discuss works assigned in class and develop questions for the authors, which are then posed in these episodes. 

The first series of conversations emerges from Prof. Katherine Jewell's graduate course in Fitchburg State's online Master's program in History in summer 2023 on Media and U.S. Politics.

In this episode, Professor Jewell talks with Kathryn Cramer Brownell of Purdue University about her first book, Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life.Dr. Brownell received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. from Boston University. Her research and teaching focus on the relationships between media, politics, and popular culture, with an emphasis on the American presidency.

Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life, (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) explores the institutionalization of Hollywood in American politics. This book traces the key personal relationships, institutions, and government policies that established the foundation for a celebrity political culture and made entertainment a central feature of American politics. 

Her second book, released just after the conclusion of the graduate course, 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News, (Princeton University Press, 2023), explores the political battle over cable television from the 1960s through today, excavating how the American political process became tethered to the business interests of a corporate cable television industry. 

She also serves as Senior Editor for the Made By History column at TIME Magazine: https://time.com/author/made-by-history/.

Episode transcript can be found here.

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This episode was edited and sound mixed by Adam Fournier, a member of the Perseverantia staff and a student in the Communications Media department.

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