Tatort

The academic study of television, as a subdivision of the study of popular culture, is rife with dissension over both television's character and its impact. Is it merely the epitome of manipulative mass culture? Is it the locus of subversive reception strategies?1 Or is it somehow a combination of the above: the contested site for the formation of public consciousness?2 No matter where critics place television, it seems no one feels completely comfortable dealing with the subject, and virtually all of them are mired explicitly or implicitly in the struggle to legitimize their area of study. The expression of such discomfort can assume myriad aspects: from the wholesale condemnation of television production and reception as the pernicious vehicle of mass subjugation and disempowerment, to overly eager readings of television (and/or all venues of

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