“You Take Care of the Patients,We'll Take Care of their TV”

Abstract

This article examines how manufacturers marketed and advertised television's uses and benefits to a professional audience of hospital administrators and nurses. The article draws on a variety of archival materials, including advertisements from medical trade journals such as Modern Hospital and the American Journal of Nursing and analyses of healthcare architecture. Extending substantial theoretical work on the relationship between technology and gendered labor forms, it demonstrates that television's entrance into the nondomestic, institutional context of the hospital was contingent upon received notions about nurses' labor and patient comfort. Recognizing the possibilities of television as a new communication medium, the most significant challenge involved the integration of television into the daily operation of the hospital. This article shows that assumptions about the nature of nursing labor influenced the design and implementation of television and its technologies (such as the remote-control, pillow-speaker, and nurse-call features).

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