Watching While Black Rebooted!
The Television and Digitality of Black Audiences

Beretta E. Smith-Shomade (Edited by), Herman S. Gray (Foreword by), Eric Pierson (Contributions by), Christine Acham (Contributions by), Michael Boyce Gillespie (Contributions by), Felicia D Henderson (Contributions by), TreaAndrea M. Russworm (Contributions by), Nghana Lewis (Contributions by), Adrien Sebro (Contributions by), Alfred L Martin (Contributions by), Briana Barner (Contributions by), Shelleen Greene (Contributions by), Brandy Monk-Payton (Contributions by), Beretta E. Smith-Shomade (Contributions by), Jacqueline Johnson (Contributions by)

9781978830035

Hardback, published 10 November 2023

252 pages, 28 B-W images
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.458 kg

"Beretta E. Smith-Shomade distinguishes herself, once again, as the premier television studies showrunner with Watching While Black Rebooted!  This collection of essays demonstrates that the 'reboot' can be as innovative, probing, and insightful as the original. The rich new chapters-ranging in topics and critical approaches-center Black television and digital culture, reframing our understanding of the racial, social, cultural, and political dynamics that shape Black televisual representation and reception in our contemporary media landscape. A must-read for must-watch Black TV." - Samantha N. Sheppard (author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen)

Watching While Black Rebooted: The Television and Digitality of Black Audiences examines what watching while Black means in an expanded U.S. televisual landscape. In this updated edition, media scholars return to television and digital spaces to think anew about what engages and captures Black audiences and users and why it matters. Contributors traverse programs and platforms to wrestle with a changing television industry that has exploded and included Black audiences as a new and central target of its visioning. The book illuminates history, care, monetization, and affect. Within these frames, the chapters run the gamut from transmediation, regional relevance, and superhuman visioning to historical traumas and progress, queer possibilities, and how televisual programming can make viewers feel Black. Mostly, the work tackles what the future looks like now for a changing televisual industry, Black media makers, and Black audiences.

Chapters rethink such historically significant programs as Roots and Underground, such seemingly innocuous programs as Soul Food, and such contemporary and culturally complicated programs as Being Mary Jane and Atlanta. The book makes a case for the centrality of these programs while always recognizing the racial dynamics that continue to shape Black representation on the small screen. Painting a decidedly introspective portrait across forty years of Black television, Watching While Black Rebooted sheds much-needed light on under examined demographics, broadens common audience considerations, and gives deference to the preferences of audiences and producers of Black-targeted programming.