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Popular Culture Review
^ http://www.peabody.uga.edu. Accessed April 4 ,2 0 0 5 .
Issues o f identity in Northern Exposure are explored in two academic studies. Michael
Hecht and his colleagues studied die portrayal o f Jewish-American identity in Northern
Exposure. They concluded that the series fairly accurately represents the complexities o f
Jewish-American identity in America. See M chael Hecht, et al., “Looking Through
Northern Exposure at Jewish American Identity and the Communication Theory o f
Identity,” Journal o f Communication 52, no 4 (2002): 852-869. An earlier study explores
how Native Americans felt about the depiction o f Native Americans in film and
television. Several respondents mentioned “Northern Exposure” positively, but the study
does not discuss the series, nor does it draw any conclusions about it. See Debra Merskin,
“Sending up Signals: A Survey o f Native American Media U se and Representation in the
Mass Media,” Howard Journal o f Communications 9, no. 4 (1998): 313-326.
Pinsker, “Academic Exposure,” 14,16.
John Thornton Caldwell, Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American
Television (N ew Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 253.