Dancing in the Distraction Factory

Writing on music television has, until now, tended toward one of two poles: journalistic writing that understands the links between television and the music industry, but ignores issues of politics and textuality, or, at the other extreme, academic texts that use film theory to analyze music television as if it were solely visual text, with no grounding in the history and practices of the music industry. "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" combines textual analysis of music videos with a comprehensive understanding of music television as a cultural industry.