Lost in Space: Television’s Missing Publics

Abstract

Television today is a multi-headed hydra, a medium with multiple lives and diverse modes of connection with its viewers — it is a medium in perpetual transition. As broadcast TV it offers news, entertainment and advertising in a magazine format. As Cable TV it offers thematic or genre-based product flows. As Internet TV it offers pay per view and program downloads, chat and other interactive options. As mobile tv it offers program alerts, mobisodes, TV program highlight downloads and special offers from program sponsors. While the digital platforms have been slow to develop original content modes, those now being developed are shaped by a convergence process that is changing fundamentally the nature of the tacit ‘contract’ between audiences and entertainment. This change, the change from free-to-air services to pay-services that involve multiple contractual arrangements between clients and providers, means that television’s capacity to communicate the public sphere to the masses can no longer be taken for granted.