A Usable History for the Study of Television

This article examines the ways in which television is usually studied, and finds them wanting. The usual approach of putting television in opposition to film, while useful, contains numerous aporias and leads to particular types of questions. Additionally, it works best with American media and poorly with those in other countries. Finally, television's historical ties to film are often most appreciated when they highlight the tragedy of Hollywood's passing. In the case of Canada, the study of television has been hampered by its absorption into the narrative of cultural defence and into the rationale of the policy apparatus justified by that narrative. The article proposes, therefore, three avenues for the reform of television studies. The first is to attend to actual audience behaviour through theoretically informed empirical study. The second is to attend to the historical forms of the institutionalization of television within its specific contexts. The third is to abandon the narrative of cultural defence with its attendant focus on the policy apparatus in favour of a more nuanced evaluation of the entire constellation of discourses which make up the television institution

Aesthetics · Art · Hollywood · Institutionalisation · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Opposition (politics · Political science · Sociology · Television studies · History · Law · Media Studies and Communication

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