Switching channels. Yesterday’s television theory– today. This year, television scholars celebrate the 30th anniversary of John Fiske’s seminal work Television Culture. Based on a thorough analysis of television programmes, Fiske uncovered the economic and societal implications of television as a cultural institution.

Martin Herbers

#### **Switching channels. Yesterday's television theory-- today.** {#switching-channels.-yesterdays-television-theory-today.}

This year, television scholars celebrate the 30^th^ anniversary of John
Fiske's seminal work *Television Culture*. Based on a thorough analysis
of television programmes, Fiske uncovered the economic and societal
implications of television as a *cultural institution*. For the first
time, his book brought together British, American and French scholarship
on television and combined them into an insightful analysis of
television in its cultural-historical context *of that time*.

Re-reading his work in 2017, let us ponder if his findings can be
applied to the changed landscape of television culture. During the
course of thirty years, television has been subject to *several
evolutions*: HD-images are clearer, Dolby-Surround-sounds are brighter
than ever and streaming services like *Netflix* provide entirely new
forms of distributing television content. Television *audiences* undergo
change as well. Gone are the days when people would stick together in
front of the TV screen, focussing on watching a single show. Nowadays,
the audience can no longer be regarded as an undifferentiated mass of
people, which needs to be informed and entertained. Audience members
come in all shapes and sizes and engage with television content in
individual ways. Some members even employ a second screen in order to
engage in various activities while the TV is running in the background.
Despite these rapid changes we are facing, academic reflection on these
alterations is lacking behind. Especially, *theoretical work* remains
scarce. Thus, television scholars inevitably turn to established
theories on television in order to explain recent phenomena. The view
back shows that these theories were written against the backdrop of a
certain technological and socio-cultural context in which television was
situated. Thus, we have to ask whether we can still apply these older
theories of television to current phenomena?

In this blog article, I would like to take you on a journey 30 (and
more) years back, and invite you to a take a second look at John Fiske's
theoretical works *Television Culture* (1987) and *Reading Television*
(1978, with John Hartley), as seminal works of television scholarship.
Summing up their main points of argumentation, I pick up on some of
their findings and re-think them in the light of using second screens by
television audience. *Can John Fiske's work help us understand one of
the most recent changes in watching television?*

#### **Television programmes between hegemony and subversion**

Published in 1987, John Fiske's *Television Culture* gave a *tour de
force* through television as a *cultural institution*. Taking a Marxist
stance towards his object of study, he regards Television as a
"bearer/provoker of meanings and pleasure" (p. 1), which constantly
produces new programmes. However, these programmes do not just simply
provide information and entertainment for an interested audience, they
are first and foremost commodities: Economic interests of powerful
television producers drive their production. Based on Marx, Fiske
regards this as *ideological work*, as television programmes provide a
hegemonic stance, leaving little room for interpretation or even
subversion (p. 13-14). Drawing from semiotics, John Fiske argues that
television producers tend to narrow down the potential plethora of
meanings into a single, dominant one -- in order to be economically
successful. Nevertheless, any form of television content is ripe with
potential meanings. Despite the hegemonic stance of the programmes,
individual audience members can interpret each programme differently,
resulting in so-called *texts*. A single programme can be transferred
into multiple texts, bearing several meanings for individual users.

#### **Did the audience take the bard's instrument?**

Backing the hegemonic line of argumentation, John Fiske and John Hartley
(1978, p. 85) state in their book *Reading Television* that television
as an institution functions like a *bard* for modern societies. These
traditional storytellers and music composers of medieval Gaelic and
British culture served a vital function for society: They brought people
from all walks of life together as an audience, entertained them with
songs and stories, reflected on current events and provided a sense of
sociability and hospitability. Bards were part of an oral culture, as
they gave verbal performances, drawing heavily from all aspects of
society. The bard acted as an interpreter of current events, as he
reflected on them and created relevance for the audience members by
making them entertaining. Bards also contextualized these events into
larger forms of cultural knowledge, such as myths and histories of that
given time (Fiske & Hartley, 1978, p. 88).

::: {#attachment_4189 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 311px"}
[![William Blake (1794): Illustration to the Poem The Song of the
Ancient
Bard](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Balke_Bard-301x450.jpg "William Blake (1794): Illustration to the Poem The Song of the Ancient Bard"){.wp-image-4189
.size-large loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4189" width="301" height="450"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Balke_Bard-301x450.jpg.webp 301w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Balke_Bard-201x300.jpg.webp 201w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Balke_Bard-94x140.jpg.webp 94w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Balke_Bard-768x1149.jpg 768w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Balke_Bard.jpg 802w"
sizes="(max-width: 301px) 100vw, 301px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Balke_Bard.jpg)

William Blake (1794): Illustration to the Poem *The Song of the Ancient
Bard*
:::

Despite describing it as a highly centralized and hegemonic cultural
form, John Fiske (1987) brightens the bleak outlook on television. He
places emphasis on the viewers and their powers to interpret or even
subvert given television programmes. Individual texts, based on
producer-defined programmes, can be seen as a "site of conflict between
the forces of production and modes of reception" (p. 14). Television
programmes are thus sites of struggle over meaning: Producers tend to
enforce their ideology on the viewers; the viewers in contrary try to
block out the hegemonic stance. As viewers interpret programmes as texts
by reading them against the backdrop of their own social situation, they
expand on the meaning of texts and take them to levels, which were not
intended by the producers.

With the advent of second screens, "bards", i.e. television as an
institution, have changed their tunes. They no longer serve as a single,
*central* hub for society, as highly fragmented and specialized
audiences are no longer an undifferentiated mass of people that remain
seated and silent during a performance. Instead, audience members are
active and -- with the use of second screens -- quite chatty as well. On
the scale of the media system, too many media channels fight for the
audiences' attention and on the scale of television as an institution,
too many programmes are lining up to be watched. These programmes,
however, bring together *smaller communities of audience members*, which
gather in order to watch certain shows (e.g. famed television series or
sports events), they engage with these programmes based on their own
preferences and socio-cultural backdrop.

Audience members have become powerful. Technological change, such as
time-shifted television or streaming services, enable audience members
to overcome time restrictions of the bard's performance. They can call
him to the stage at their own convenience. The classical set-up of the
stage -- that is the living room with a television set in a central
position with an arena-like arrangement of seating around -- is no
longer expectable, as television content can be watched on any screen --
a television set, a laptop, a smartphone -- which overcomes spatial
settings. And talking about screens, some audience members tend to use
more than one screen while watching television content -- a second
screen, such as a smartphone, enables them to perform other activities,
playing games, checking emails or following up on the latest news. These
days, everyone can become a critic, as audience members now are in a
position to comment on television content through the use of social
network sites on the second screen. Nevertheless, a more nuanced view on
audience members and their activities has to be developed. From a
social-cultural perspective, we observe generational differences in
activities, which audience members perform through the second screen
(for a deeper discussion see my [previous blog
article](https://cstonline.net/lets-talk-about-television-television-watching-and-the-second-screen-by-martin-r-herbers/){target="_blank"}).
From a psychological perspective, we have to look at audience members'
actions and experiences during their use of the second screen and on how
they focus their attention. Using the second screen suggests that
viewers direct their attention at multiple screens, which necessarily
leads to interruptions in the flow of watching television. This further
implies that viewers only *glance* at content on various screens.
Accordingly, Fiske's idea of television as a *central bard* for society
needs to be re-aligned with regard to audience members' social positions
and individual actions.

::: {#attachment_4190 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 460px"}
[![The new bards' instruments: Social
Media](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media-450x300.jpg "The new bards’ instruments"){.wp-image-4190
.size-large loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4190" width="450" height="300"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media-450x300.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media-300x200.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media-140x93.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media-1080x720.jpg.webp 1080w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media.jpg 1400w"
sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Social-Media.jpg)

The new bards' instruments
:::

As television's position in society alters, *audience members* in some
ways, become *the new bards*. Using their smartphones as an instrument,
they become performers on the stages of *Twitter and YouTube*, gathering
followers as an audience to listen to their stories. Based on Fiske and
Hartley, audience members articulate the main line of events, implicate
the consequences for other individual members of the audiences, assure
them of their cultural belonging by referring to underlying myths and
stories and thus transmit cultural membership for their audiences --
only on a smaller scale.

#### **Re-Reading Fiske with a second screen.** {#re-reading-fiske-with-a-second-screen.}

From this point of view, John Fiske's (and John Hartley's) broad ideas
on television as a cultural form and on the power of audiences still
hold up in today's media environment. The recent use of second screens
easily fits into their theoretical frameworks and presents a modern take
on the idea of an active and talkative audience. Nevertheless, readers
of these seminal works on television theory should take a critical eye
on the political-economic perspectives given in these books. Placing the
focus on individual television users and their actions, as Nick Couldry
(2012) suggests, can give a more detailed view on the processes of
subversion that John Fiske is interested in. A second screen -- or a
second book -- could provide valuable additions as we adapt television
theory to recent problems and phenomena.

##### **Literature**

Couldry, N. (2012). *Media, Society, World. Social Theory and Digital
Media Practice*. Oxford: Polity.

Fiske, J. (1987). *Television Culture*. London, New York: Routledge.

Fiske, J., &Hartley, J. (1978). *Reading Television*. London, New York:
Routledge.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Dr. Martin R. Herbers** works at [Zeppelin
Universität](http://www.zu.de){target="_blank"} in Friedrichshafen,
Germany. Other than getting a great view over Lake Constance, he spends
a lot of time watching television, especially comedy. His research
interests are in the fields of political entertainment media and their
contribution to the public sphere. You can follow him on
[Twitter](https://twitter.com/MR_Herbers){target="_blank"}.


<strong>
 <strong>
  Switching channels.
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Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

WOULD JOHN FISKE USE A SECOND SCREEN? RE-READING TELEVISION CULTURE AND READING TELEVISION IN THE NEW MEDIA ENVIRONMENT OF 2017