ABSTRACT
Work on postmodernism in discussing television has been part of a shift from structure to agency. Structure refers to the institutions, networks of relationships and professional practices that condition the ways that television is produced and broadcast. It includes theories of ideology and globalisation for example, which seek to explain audience responses and preferences, and also addresses the features of television programme texts, as the result of these structural conditions. Agency refers to a new value attributed to viewer choice, and the ways that audiences engage in negotiations with television texts and media structures in order to define themselves and empower themselves as individuals. Arguments about postmodernism address the political impact of the mass media.
