Dutch television studies and the reinvention of television as a medium in practice

Abstract

Dutch research communities were introduced to anglophone Media and Cultural Studies via internationally renowned, pioneering studies in television theory and research on television series. Het Geval Dallas [Watching Dallas] (1982) by cultural scholar Ien Ang was notably ground-breaking because of its use of an active audiences research approach which sought out participant viewers by placing an advertisement in the Dutch women's magazine Viva. Ang analysed viewers' experiences of watching the U.S. TV serial Dallas (1978Dallas ( -1991 and offered key understandings of how television operated as a popular culture medium, and of its social, political and cultural roles. Ang's work was a foundational text in the move towards understanding television in a particular way that is still influencing Television Studies today.This review article offers a provisional mapping of Television Studies as conducted in the Netherlands with a main focus on the Dutch media industry, on the 'reinvention' of the medium in practice -across media, cultures and industries -and on how this has been reflected in Television Studies research conducted in the Netherlands. It brings together what I have observed as three strands of doing media research in the Netherlands over the last decade. It will look, first, at how television is seen to operate as a platform for cultural identity, ranging from historical perspectives on what is called the 'pillarisation' of Dutch public service broadcasting (PSB) to comparative and cross-cultural research on media, diversity and representation. It will secondly turn to the question of how television and streaming media are discussed in contemporary Television Studies in terms of cross-media culture and storytelling. Third, and finally, it will discuss how television is situated as audio-visual heritage, focusing on (digital) preservation practices