{"product_id":"what-was-mtv-ethan-thompson-9780820380773","title":"What Was Mtv?: Music Television from Launch to Reality","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat did people really mean when they said, \"I want my MTV\"? Long before music videos were instantly searchable online, MTV offered something very different: a nonstop, unpredictable flow of images, sounds, and personalities that reshaped how audiences experienced music, television, and youth culture. \u003ci\u003eWhat Was MTV? \u003c\/i\u003etells the story of how MTV emerged in 1981 and evolved through 1992, tracing its transformation from a risky experiment in round-the-clock music videos into a powerful cultural force--and by the early 1990s, a pioneer of modern reality television. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing on new interviews with MTV's creators and producers, trade and popular press coverage, archival collections, and more than one hundred hours of off -the-air recordings preserved by viewers, Ethan Thompson reconstructs what MTV actually was--not just what we remember it to have been. Moving across MTV's key formats, moments, and experiments--including \u003ci\u003eYo! MTV Raps\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e120 Minutes\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRemote Control\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Real World\u003c\/i\u003e--the book also features \"MTV by the Hour\" chapters that re-create a single hour of MTV for each year of its early history. Together, these vivid reconstructions reveal how creative ambition, commercial pressure, and cultural change combined to reinvent television in real time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ethan Thompson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0820380776\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780820380773\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Georgia Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/01\/2027\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 328\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Ethan Thompson","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49002100883711,"sku":"9780820380773","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/what-was-mtv-ethan-thompson-9780820380773","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}