ABSTRACT

For over half a century, television has been the most central medium in Western democracies – the political, social and cultural centrepiece of the public sphere. Television has therefore rarely been studied in isolation from its socio-cultural and political context; there is always something important at stake when the forms and functions of television are on the agenda. The digitisation of television concerns the production, contents, distribution and reception of the medium, but also its position in the overall, largely digitised media system and public sphere where the internet plays a decisive role.

The articles in this comprehensive collection are written by some of the world’s most prominent scholars in the field of media, communication and cultural studies, including critical film and television studies.

Relocating Television offers readers an insight into studying television alongside the internet, participatory media and other technocultural phenomena such as DVDs, user-generated content and everyday digital media production. It also focuses on more specific programmes and phenomena, including The Wire, MSN, amateur footage in TV news, Bollywoodization of TV news, YouTube, fan sites tied to e.g. Grey's Anatomy and X Factor. Relocating Television will be highly beneficial to both students and academics across a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses including media, communication and cultural studies, and television and film studies.

part I|60 pages

The Medium of Television

chapter 2|14 pages

Tv as Time Machine

Television's changing heterochronic regimes and the production of history

chapter 4|6 pages

Msn, Interface

part II|78 pages

Changing Genres

chapter 5|13 pages

Bingeing on Box-Sets

The national and the digital in television crime drama

chapter 6|12 pages

Forward to the past

The strange case of The Wire

chapter 9|12 pages

A New Space for Democracy?

Online media, factual genres and the transformation of traditional mass media

part III|66 pages

Reception

chapter 12|12 pages

The Grey Area. a Rough Guide

Television fans, internet forums, and the cultural public sphere

chapter 13|13 pages

X Factor Viewers

Debate on an internet forum

chapter 14|11 pages

The Digitally Enhanced Audience

New attitudes to factual footage

part IV|65 pages

Critical Perspectives

chapter 17|13 pages

Networking the Commons

Convergence culture and the public interest

chapter 18|17 pages

Smart Homes

Digital lifestyles practiced and imagined

chapter 19|13 pages

Television as a M Eans of Transport

Digital teletechnologies and transmodal systems