ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter examines how to conceptualise television as a medium in a period of increased convergence between television and the internet. It argues that growth in access to high-speed broadband and 4G, and ownership of smartphones, tablets and internet-connected television sets creates the conditions for a new internet era of television to emerge. In this era, the internet is both competing with and transforming television as a medium for delivering audiovisual content. The chapter sets out a new conceptual model for television that enables analysis of change over time. Expanding on Raymond Williams’ theorisation of television as technology and cultural form, it argues that television as a medium for delivering audiovisual content can be understood as being composed of technological infrastructures and devices, and cultural services, content and frames. Tracing the development of television from the broadcast to the internet era, the chapter argues that over time each component of television has multiplied, but that these changes have been additive rather than substitutive. Newer iterations of television, such as video on demand, coexist with linear forms first developed in the broadcast era. The chapter concludes that rather than seeing the internet as a replacement for or even a rival to television, we need to understand television and the internet as interconnected, but in volatile ways.
