ABSTRACT
The first chapter sketches out the topics of study and critical approaches which can be found in academic Television Studies, noting its significant emphases and exclusions. Television Studies in Britain and the USA, for example, most usually addresses broadcast television in the English-speaking world. One dominant strand is the detailed textual analysis of programmes, with a preference for popular programmes in serial and series form, concentrating on dramatic, documentary and news programmes. This derives from the tradition in academic work of studying content and form in detail. It also reflects the dominance of English-language programmes in the world television market. There are other kinds of television to mention, however, which stimulate thinking about what television can include: trailers, commercials and channel idents, for instance. Television can now be viewed on computer screens, competing with games or text, and is viewed in a different position and often in a different room from the traditional household television set. This chapter considers different understandings of what television is, and how Television Studies approaches are based on assumptions about the television text, the form of its transmission and who is watching where and when. The chapter includes a case study comparing and contrasting representations of television viewing in the 1950s and the 2000s, showing how the medium has been thought about in different ways at different times.
