ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 defines the place of the study in relation to current debates in television studies and research on TV series in the US as well as in Europe, specifically Germany, distancing it from normative discourses of “quality television” and polemic assumptions about the “end of television.” It establishes the premise of the book, deducing its pluralistic concept of “televisions” from today's multiple televisual offerings (linear vs. non-linear programs, free vs. pay TV, broadcasting channels vs. streaming platforms), and establishes serial paratexts as an analytical and theoretical tool for developing a polymorphous and multimodal concept of television.
