Prime-Time Families provides a wide-ranging new look at television entertainment in the past four decades. Working within the interdisciplinary framework of cultural studies, Ella Taylor analyzes television as a constellation of social practices. Part popular culture analysis, part sociology, and part American history, Prime-Time Families is a rich and insightful work the sheds light on the way television shapes our lives.

“Taylor not only dissects the family images that have influenced our culture; she reveals a notion the television industry would rather we didn’t think about—namely, that changes in television are driven not by any notion of art of culture but by economics.”—Seattle Weekly

“Takes us on a tour of the living rooms of the situation comedies over the past 40 years.”—American Journal of Sociology