Maggie Andrews is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Worcester, UK.

Using case studies and analytical overviews this book explores the relationship between broadcasting and the intimate domestic sphere into which it is broadcast. It focuses on the period from the 1920s, when broadcasting was established in the UK, to the present day when both domesticity and broadcasting have become areas of anxiety and contestation. The entry of the 'wireless', and later television, into the home changed men and women's experience of domesticity, offering education and reducing isolation. But broadcasting did not merely change domestic leisure patterns, it actively intervened in constructing domesticity. The supposedly natural relationship between femininity and domesticity has structured the nature of broadcasting, and also the discourses which have emerged concerning the consumption of broadcast media. Contemporary broadcasting continues to be obsessed by domesticity, both in an idealised sense as well as portraying the domestic world as one of turmoil and crisis. This volume demonstrates that the relationship between broadcasting and domesticity is a key, and often neglected, feature of the cultural history of Britain in the last 100 years.

Introduction \ 1. Domesticating the Airwaves \ 2. Early Domestic Goddesses: Competing Discourses of Domestic Expertise \ 3. The Gardener and the Chef: Broadcasting Celebrities 1930s Style \ 4. Domesticity Under Fire: Fractured and Extended \ 5. From Austerity to Consumer Wonderland: Post-War Domesticities \ 6. Broadening Domestic Realities: Soaps, Documentaries, and Working Class Domesticities in the 1960s and 1970s \ 7. The Personal Becomes Political: Domesticity in Turmoil and As a Political Object \ 8. Still Contesting and Idealising Domesticity \ Afterword: An Uncertain Future for Domesticity and Broadcast Media \ Bibliography \ Index.