ABSTRACT
The drama series Boys from the Blackstuff, transmitted in the autumn of 1982 with wide-ranging effect, is particularly pertinent to the general study of the influence of television. The series dealt with the impact of unemployment on a group of Liverpool men and their families, focusing on male anxieties and the undermining of traditional notions of masculinity, and gave rise to a range of public effects greater than can be accounted for by the relevance of the subject to Britain in the 1980s. Looking at the series as a text, as a media event, as a production and as a basis for audience association, how did this come about and why did the series pass so rapidly and successfully into the national culture in so many different ways.
