Sixties entertainment television and Cold War discourses

The purpose of this dissertation is to illustrate the ideological problematic (i.e., the range, parameters, and structure) of the Cold War/Vietnam issue on entertainment television during the 1960s and how delineation of this issue interacted with television producers and writers. Contrary to the findings of writers like J. Fred MacDonald, entertainment television did more than merely reinforce dominant assumptions of the Cold War. Television often questioned the assumptions that fueled the conflict.;Chapter 1 is an eclectic approach to television theory and methodology. This chapter first delineates the purpose and research questions of the dissertation. A review of pertinent academic television criticism follows. The chapter closes with the outline of a critical methodology which draws on: rhetorical criticism, genre theory, narrative theory, British Cultural Studies, and Symbolic Interaction theory. Chapter 2 is an overview of dominant and oppositional Cold War rhetoric from the end of World War II to the 1960s. Chapter 3 chronicles the political economy of entertainment television in the mid-1960s television and how the "Vast Wasteland" was made. Chapter 4, "Cartoons and Cold War Communication," examines The Bullwinkle Show for Cold War criticism. Chapter 5 discusses the "idealist" Cold War discourse of Get Smart. Chapter 6 looks at "F-Troop, the Cult of the Cavalry, and the Other." Chapter 7 concludes the dissertation and outlines "Some Notes on the Ideological Problematic of the Cold War and the Vietnam Conflict in Sixties Entertainment Television.".