ABSTRACT
Ideological criticism, cultural studies, fan studies, production studies, political economy, feminism, queer theory, race, and ethnic studies all attempt to connect television research with broader social concerns such as homophobia, the exploitation of women, or the functioning of economic systems. Political economists contend that the market-driven concentration of media ownership endangers the diversity of discourse available on the television screens. Some researchers look at television texts and identify oppositional discourses in them. When television programs and other cultural texts circulate from one country to another, they can sometimes replace or repress the culture of another country, which is referred to as cultural imperialism. Ideological critics' key assumption is that US culture as it appears on television is middle-class, male-dominated, white, and heterosexual—and that needs to change. Feminist television criticism since the 1980s has evolved in a variety of directions that transcend the image-of-women approach.
