introducing a collection of essays that consider various aspects of the wide-ranging transitions that occurred by the beginning of the twenty-first century, Lynn Spigel reflects on the title of the anthology—Television after TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition. “Indeed,” she notes, “if TV refers to the technologies, industrial formations, government policies, and practices of looking that were associated with the medium in its classical public service and three-network age, it appears we are now entering a new phase of television—the phase that comes after ‘TV.’”32 Although the title of the collection is eye-catching and provocative, it suggests a far more absolute rupture than that which occurred; it is also arbitrary in affording the norms of the network era such eminence as determinant of the medium. Still, attention to transition and uncertainty about the present status and likely future of television evident in the anthology and its title were not uncommon by late in the multi-channel transition. The title of another important article queries, “What is the ‘television’ of television studies?”—a question that similarly asserts concern about ambiguity regarding the fundamental attributes of television.33 Those who write about television have never adequately addressed which of the “technologies, industrial formations, government policies, and practices of looking,” to borrow from Spigel, might particularly establish the ontological boundaries of the medium—the things that make television “television.” We err in allowing those norms established first to “determine” the medium; they are as arbitrary as any subsequent formation.34
Thinking about Network-Era Television
Scholars in fields as diverse as literature, film studies, political science, sociology, psychology, and communication developed different ways of thinking about television and its role in culture. Those in the area of “media studies” have attended most closely to the ways programs, audiences, industries, and sociocultural contexts intertwine in the creation and circulation of television, and their ideas are most relevant here. Scholars of media studies—and critical television studies in particular—have developed detailed theories and empirical studies that examine the multifaceted nature of cultural production common to television. But in the network era, there was no need for esoteric discussions of what television is, as it was assumed to be a simple technology whose variation spanned little more than screen size and color or black and white.35 Much television theory continues to presume network-era norms in explaining the cultural and institutional functions of television, and draws from distinctive national experiences with the medium. This book and the conditions of the post-network era call many of these assumptions into question.
Foundational understandings of television view it as a—if not the—central communicative and cultural force in society. Its centrality derived from its availability and ubiquity; as early as 1960 more than 87 percent of U.S. households had televisions, and the technology increasingly was available in spaces outside the home, such as taverns and hospitals.36 The accessibility of television was in many ways enabled by the low cost of acquiring its programming. Either as a result of advertising support in the United States or public funding in most other countries, viewing television programs did not require the same type of per-use fee associated with most other entertainment and informational media such as films, newspapers, and magazines. To be sure, commercial media “cost” societies in ways obscured by simple presumptions that proclaimed that network-era television was “free”; nonetheless, it was reasonable to assert that television’s low barriers to access greatly contributed to its cultural importance in the network era.
During that time, the medium gained its status as a primary cultural institution precisely because network-era programming could and did reach such vast audiences. Television derived its significance from its capacity to broadly share information and ideas and facilitate an “electronic public sphere” of sorts.37 Its stories and ideas reached a mass audience that some have argued enabled television programs to negotiate contradictory and contested social ideas, while others have proposed that this reach allowed television to enforce a dominant way of thinking.38 Significantly, both perspectives ascribed importance to television because of its pervasiveness.39 Viewers’ lack of control over the medium and the limited choice at this time aided its ability to function as both forum and ideological enforcer. Network-era norms imposed the synchronousness of linear viewing, and television earned its status as an instigator of “watercooler conversation” by providing shared content for discussion. Coworkers and neighbors chose from the same limited range of programs each night, and thus were likely to have viewed the same program.
Assessments of television that consider how it contributes to the sharing and negotiation of ideas understand it to operate as a “cultural institution”—that is, as a social conduit that participates in communicating values and ideas within a culture by telling stories and conveying information that reflects, challenges, and responds to shared debates and concerns. Educational systems, clubs and societal orders, and religious organizations are also cultural institutions, although we may more readily identify and accept the influence of these sites on how we know and understand the world around us.40 At the same time television functions as a cultural institution, however, it is also a “cultural industry.” That is, in a context such as the United States, the television industry operates as a commercial enterprise that primarily seeks to maximize profits, while nonetheless producing programs that are important creative and cultural forms that communicate social values and beliefs. Industry workers may primarily make decisions based on what types of programming they perceive to be most profitable, yet these decisions still have important cultural implications for what stories are told, by whom, and how society comes to understand the worlds that television presents. Remembering the commercial mandate of television—again, particularly in the United States—is imperative: in the cultural industry of television, business and culture operate concurrently and are inextricable in every aspect.
Studies that explain the economic and industrial norms of television in the network era are particularly relevant to the focus here upon television as a cultural industry. Until recently, few attempted to bridge the chasm between humanities-inflected theories about the operation of media in culture and political economy research that emphasizes economics and industrial operations.41 This history of avoidance, and at times hostility, between approaches is increasingly being corrected by theories and methods that deliberately merge aspects of culture and economics or explore quotidian industrial processes to better understand the agents, organizations, and processes involved in cultural production—as I attempt here.42
As is the case of dominant cultural theories about television, most political economy work assumes television to be a mass medium and attributes much of its importance to this characteristic. The notion of mass media and the scale of such businesses are important to political economy approaches examining the assemblage and distribution of labor and capital, while the mass audience was crucial to cultural approaches because of the necessity for programs to be widely shared within the culture. In both cases, the breadth of the audience reached by network-era programming allowed television to circulate ideas in a way that asserted and reinforced existing power structures and dominant ways of thinking within a society.
In many cases, the changed industrial context has not negated the value of theoretical tools provided by these perspectives, but some require reconsideration and adjustment. For example, Horace Newcomb and Paul Hirsch’s argument that television programs provide a cultural forum to negotiate ideas within society makes sense insofar as television continued to facilitate this cultural role after the network era on certain occasions; however, broad and heterogeneous audiences now rarely share individual programs in the manner that could be assumed in the network era. Television might continue to provide a cultural forum for those who tune in to a particular show, but it has become increasingly unlikely that television functions as a space for the negotiation of contested beliefs among diverse groups simply because audiences are now more narrow and specialized.43
Other theories, such as Raymond Williams’s network-era theory of “flow,” require more significant
