Television as an electronic public sphere identifies the operation of television in the network era as it was explained by Horace Newcomb and Paul Hirsch’s cultural forum model, Todd Gitlin’s delineation of television’s ideological processes, or John Fiske and John Hartley’s notion of the medium’s bardic role.57 Drawing primarily on Newcomb and Hirsch, we might say that television operates as an electronic public sphere when it reaches a vast and heterogeneous audience and offers a shared experience or content that derives its importance from the scope of its reach, its ability to provide a space for the negotiation of ideological positions, and as a process-based system of representation and discourse. Now, however, television decreasingly operates in this way. When it does, it usually does so on unplanned occasions, except for a few remaining events such as the Super Bowl. At the same time, though, it is helpful to see the electronic public sphere as existing on a continuum. For example, in comparison with the network-era reach of television—when top shows were watched by 40 to 50 percent of television households—popular contemporary shows such as American Idol have a narrower scope—only 19.8 million out of a universe of 114 million homes watched it most weeks when it was at its peak.58 But even with only an average of 17 percent of U.S. television households watching the show, it was among the most widely viewed regular programs in a given year.
Television operates as subcultural forum when it reproduces a similar experience as the electronic public sphere, but among more narrow groups that share particular cultural affinities or tastes. MTV is likely to be the best example, in that the network provides the lingua franca for adolescents and operates as “must-see TV” in order for teens to achieve cultural competence. The key difference between the electronic public sphere and a subcultural forum (note the embedded “cultural forum” in the terminology) is that the latter is characteristic of television that reaches smaller and more like-minded audiences. For example, Fox News provides a version of daily news and events that serves viewers who choose to watch a news outlet with its particular sensibility. Importantly, when television operates as a subcultural forum, it is often integrated with the use of other media that similarly reflect subcultural tastes and sensibilities. Viewers incorporate a television network or set of programs into a broader set of media, reproducing particular silos of specific worldviews. Broadband distribution of television and aggregators such as YouTube channels now serve far more narrow subcultures than were possible with the television available throughout the multi-channel transition.
Post-network television also can function as a window onto other worlds. In some ways this is a corollary to its function as a subcultural forum, as the ubiquity and availability of television make it a convenient means for exposing oneself to programming targeted to a different audience—or to interlope. Television makes it easy to be a casual anthropologist and travel in worlds very different from one’s own, although by no means are all those worlds equally available. Viewers engage in television as a window onto other worlds when, as cultural interlopers, they view niche media not targeted to them. Parents trying to understand teen culture can gain glimpses into it on MTV—although understanding how teens receive the content or how any intended audience makes meaning of programming is another matter entirely. In leaving my own silo of information and taste culture, I have explored the excessive and regressive masculinity offered by Spike or the stories of masculinity in crisis aired on the FX shows Rescue Me and Nip/Tuck. Ever-expanding cable systems make available ever more worlds, including networks and content originating from outside the United States, although, again, all worlds and perspectives are far from equally available. Perhaps one of the most telling aspects of post-millennium U.S. culture emerges from the uncommon use of television as a window onto other worlds relative to television as a subcultural forum.
Finally, a fourth mode of television as a self-determined gated community has emerged particularly as a result of increasing flexibility in distribution and opportunities for viewers to access programming on demand. Here, television’s cultural role is even more specific than when it functions as a subcultural forum. This mode encompasses particular uses and personalized organizations of television, as well as individuals’ pursuit of specific content, including that which may be amateur-created. The operation of this more nascent mode can be observed in the videos submitted to aggregators such as YouTube or in those attached to social networking sites. Here self-created television becomes a forum of expression and a way for viewers to communicate—most likely with established peers—which they do by sharing their television. As television and web viewing become more integrated and convenient, viewers will also share recommendations, links, and viewing lineups that contribute to the personalization of television. Self-determined viewing behaviors include deliberately shifting among the variety of modes of use noted here and creating specialized viewing communities.
Certainly other modes may already exist that I have not included. The expanding fan cultures facilitated by social media perhaps suggest another distinct mode of television that might be labeled “television as cult conduit.” The point I wish to highlight is the variety and differences in just the few functions given here. Each mode features varied characteristics and leads to very different cultural outcomes—television “means” differently in each of these modes—and does so in ways that previous explorations of television have not considered. I do not intend these four modes to account for all of television viewing; rather, I hope that identifying them will encourage others to consider television in terms of specific contexts and uses, rather than thinking about television-related phenomena as characteristic of television at large.
Delimiting the different ways television functions leads us to foreground the multifaceted nature of television and the growing diversity of uses viewers may adopt. You use the television that you flip on in the background while making dinner differently from the way you use the set to record a show you reserve for a time when all other distractions can be avoided—and that content consequently has different meaning and importance. Likewise, the television you view on a portable device on a daily train commute or the videos you search out online also indicate still other relationships between content and use. Each of these examples illustrates fundamental distinctions among use, content, and audience. In each case, the viewer may be watching television, but to understand the behavior and its cultural function, we need to develop more precise frameworks to explain differentiation among types of television content—such as phenomenal television—and why viewers watch in particular ways.
Key Ideas for Thinking about Television’s Revolution
Finally, I turn to the key ideas and definitions particularly important for the reconsideration of television offered in the remaining pages. Most viewers remain unaware of the business of television, such as the intricate processes involved in deciding what shows to produce, selling them to networks, and finding advertisers, but understanding the business of television and how it is changing is crucial to comprehending why the industry produces certain shows and how to intervene in this system. Those who have sought changes in the cultural output of television—shifts in depictions of nondominant ethnic groups and women, for example—have been most successful when they have illustrated that their goal was a matter of “good business” for the industry, as has been the case for many social initiatives.59 The production of expressive forms like television shows is a challenging business, and no matter the extent of market research, many of the tools other sectors of business use to understand what their consumers want and to predict success are ineffective in the creation of cultural forms.
I closely examine many