Cultural Diversity as Brand Management in Cable Television

This article explores the strategic use of cultural diversity as brand management tool in cable television via the case study of The Fosters, a prime-time soap on ABC Family. Specifically, I examine three interrelated facets of The Fosters and its industrial context, namely the program's representation of meaningful cultural diversity, how this meaningful diversity functions as a strategy for ABC Family's brand of "A New Kind of Family," and how media scholars can make sense of a discourse of diversity imbricated in corporate brand management. Instead of dismissing branded diversity, I argue that we should closely examine it to recognize the possibilities and constraints of culturally diverse representations emerging out of and enabled by television brand management.