Showing results by narrator "Patricia Shade" in All Categories

As television began to overtake the political landscape in the 1960s, network broadcast companies, bolstered by powerful lobbying interests, dominated screens across the nation. Yet over the next three decades, the expansion of a different technology, cable, changed all of this. 24/7 Politics tells the story of how the cable industry worked with political leaders to create an entirely new approach to television, one that tethered politics to profits.

This summer doesn’t just unearth the past—it threatens to unravel Sabrina’s life completely. Her alcoholic father is dying, she’s estranged from her family, and she’s only surviving motherhood thanks to bottomless cups of coffee and secret cigarettes. After years of trying to avoid her issues, she finally comes face-to-face with them on a reluctant journey back to Seaside, Massachusetts. And this time, she doesn’t run away.

Awkwardness discusses how we ostracize and punish those who fail to fit into existing social categories, how we all depend on-and are limited by-social scripts and norms for guidance, and how these norms frequently let us down when we need them.