What is Television? Comparing Media Systems in the Post-Broadcast Era

Abstract

This article emerges from the early stages of a large international study of the social, cultural and political role of television in the post-broadcast era where the convergence of media platforms has challenged conventional understandings of how the mass media work. Even though it might be premature to jump on the bandwagon which claims that national media systems are now irrelevant and that television, as the leading ‘old media’ format, is history, there is significant theoretical and empirical work to be done to adjust to the new, and highly contingent, environment — to find out what ‘television is’ today.

New digital realities and old public service broadcasting models – the case of public access and participation in Singapore’s televisual landscape

“…Existing scholarship on Singapore TV (Chan, 2012a; Lee, 2010; Tan, 2008; Tay and Turner, 2008) demonstrates how locally produced Singapore TV content has served the state’s paternalistic cultural and linguistic policies. Examples included encouraging themes of multiculturalism on its mass English-language TV channels while asserting the use of standard English language, simplified Mandarin Chinese for its Chinese-language channels, as well as ensuring Malay- and Tamil-language programming.…”

The Mediation and Remediation of Disaster: Hurricanes Katrina and Felix in/and the New Media Environment

“…Under such conditions, the changing landscapes of the world's diverse and complexly mediatized societies are increasingly disrupting the credibility of various official narratives of (national) consensus. In the current environment, “old” media such as newspapers, radio and television compete with “new”, including blogs, podcasts and a host of other so‐called Web 2.0 applications, while all media are transnationalized and dispersed across proliferating channels and multiple niche audiences (Tay and Turner ). Hence what Daniel Dayan (:20) recently called “central television”, which helped to focus “collective attention”, has given way to an expansion of “conflicting versions” of “the same situations” and a range of alternative media, so that “the activity of displaying has become a globally sensitive battlefield” to a greater degree than ever before.…”

Broadband transformation through improved support systems

“…Now the question is only how long will it be until walking to the mailbox to get a DVD is considered antiquarian. (Turner (2008) And in the long term too the existing hierarchy of release for film and movies may not be maintained: currently generally first theatrical, then hotels, DVD retail, subscription television within 45 days, then release on commercial over the air television. As well, the prospective new IPTV players, such as Telstra with its T-Box, Foxtel, and Fetch TV, are searching for their place in a changing media landscape.…”

“…Academic literature identifies these changes as a 'post-broadcast' regime, which disrupt the linear logics of a TV schedule with new media convergence and customisability -a transition from network to networked television (Palmer 2006; for detailed discussion, see Bennett and Strange 2010;Tay and Turner 2008;Ross 2008;Kenyon 2007;Olsson and Spigel 2004;Poniewozik 2009). This literature addresses both the political economy of the TV industry, as well as changes to the experience of television for audiences (eg.…”