Studying digital television: Two divergent approaches

Abstract

Reviews the books, Reinventing Public Service Television for the Digital Future by Mary Debrett (2010) and Flow TV: Television in the Age of Media Convergence edited by Michael Kackman, Marine Binfield, Matthew Thomas Payne, Allison Perlman, and Bryan Sebok (2011). These books provide excellent examples of these two theoretical perspectives updated for the digital era. While both volumes have a good deal to recommend them to scholars and students of new media, together they demonstrate - in their conceptualizations of their objects of study, their assessments of the current era, and their bibliographies - the continuing gulf between popular culture and democratic approaches to studying media. While such diversity is undoubtedly good if it leads to engagement and debate, as these volumes make clear, the discussion among cultural studies approaches and those rooted in critical and democratic theory has largely gone dark. Flow TV, edited by Michael Kackman et al., by contrast, is specifically invested in updating our practical and theoretical understanding of popular television in the digital age. By alluding to Raymond Williams's concept of 'flow' in the title, the anthology clearly aligns itself with the British Cultural Studies tradition of television studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).