Talk shows on radio and TV have become a kind of electronic surrogate for the town common. But what of the content? Susan Douglas says that it's more than just guys and right-wing blondes shouting at one another. Underneath the rhetoric are layers of misogyny, homophobia, race and class bias. The backlash against feminism has never stopped. The trumpeting of "family values" is code for the restoration of patriarchy. Interview.

Susan Douglas
Susan Douglas, Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan, one of America's foremost media critics, is prominent in the effort to break down conventional representations of women. Her articles appear in The Progressive, The Nation, Ms. and other publications. She is the author of Where The Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media and Listening In: Radio & the American Imagination.