Friends, Lovers, Co-Workers, and Community

Mary Erickson is visiting assistant professor of communication studies at Western Washington University.Deborah A. Macey is lecturer at the University of Washington Tacoma.Kathleen M. Ryan is associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.Noah J. Springer is independent scholar.

• IntroductionMary EricksonChapter 1: All I Want for Christmas is You: ’Tis the Season for Holiday RomanceDavid Staton and Kathleen M. RyanChapter 2: “HBIC”: I Love New York, Dominant Ideology, and African American Women’s RelationshipsSiobhan E. SmithChapter 3: “There’s an app for that”: Teens Using Technology to Control Gender Behavior in the Disney Channel Original Movies Zapped and How to Build a Better BoySabrina K. PasztorChapter 4: “The Man Inside Me”: A Freudian Analysis of Familial Relationships in Arrested DevelopmentNoah J. SpringerChapter 5: Fatherhood, Fidelity, and Friendship: Owen Thoreau Jr. and Men of a Certain AgeJan WhittChapter 6: “The Suitcase” and “The Strategy”: The Pro-Family Feminist Bond Between Mad Men Protagonists Don Draper and Peggy OlsonJane Marcellus and Erika EngstromChapter 7: The Primetime Drama and the Centrality of Hegemonic Masculinity in Rape NarrativesTeri Del Rosso and Lauren BratslavskyChapter 8: A Rhetorical Vision of Tolerance: Teaching Tolerance through Post-9/11 TV DramasWilliam Hart and Fran HassencahlChapter 9: Television, Sports and Twitter: Building Soccer Communities Around the WorldJohn ShraderChapter 10: Something To Look Forward To: Understanding the Appeal of Ritualistic Television Coviewing EventsElizabeth L. Cohen & Alexander L. Lancaster Chapter 11: Kickstarting Veronica Mars: Rekindling a Parasocial RelationshipKathryn L. Lookadoo and Norman C. H. Wong

Bringing together a diverse group of scholars, Friends, Lovers, Co-Workers, and Community explores the various ways that television shapes our many relationships in life. Taking seriously the role that television (and television-like content) plays in our life, the authors make nuanced and careful arguments about love and romance, family and friends, identity and culture, and fandom and community. From Christmas television movies to Veronica Mars, from Arrested Development to Mad Men, the range of topics are as diverse as the television content analyzed. For those with even a passing interest in the development of contemporary television content, this is must-read scholarship!