Toby Miller

I've just returned from Málaga and the [European Communication and
Research Association's Television Studies
section](http://ecrea.eu/divisions/section/id/19){target="_blank"}'s
annual conference. A mouthful to type, if you get my drift. It was ably
run by a team led by Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano, author of the
excellent history of regional television, [*El Encendido
Analógico*](https://www.casadellibro.com/ebook-el-encendido-analogico-ebook/9788478986040/2495660){target="_blank"}.
The three days featured brilliant exponents in the field---both those
who helped to create it, and those who are remaking it. I know very few
of them, which made it all the more exciting to be there.

[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-450x197.jpg){.alignleft
.size-large .wp-image-5013 loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="450"
height="197"
srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-450x197.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-300x131.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-140x61.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-768x336.jpg 768w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-1536x672.jpg.webp 1536w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-2048x896.jpg.webp 2048w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810-1080x473.jpg.webp 1080w"
sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tracy-thomas-56810.jpg)I
think it's the first scholarly event solely dedicated to TV that I've
attended since the late, lamented International Television Studies
Conference, whose last instalment was in 1991---to which one can only
say, "You need to get out more."

Some elements were similar---dominated by white folks; everyone had to
master English in order to speak; friendly and open; fun and smart
people; I want to be more like them and less like myself.

What I write below is not a comment on Málaga---these ideas emerged
before the conference. I was stimulated to produce a short meta-piece on
television studies because of the event, but not in reaction to it.

I wanted to reflect on the state of the field today, in part because I
am preparing a revised edition of [*Television: Critical Concepts in
Media and Cultural
Studies*](https://www.routledge.com/Television-Critical-Concepts-in-Media-and-Cultural-Studies/Miller-Miller/p/book/9780415255028){target="_blank"},
a multi-volume greatest hits of journal articles in English that
appeared as an anthology in 2003. £970.00 gets you over 2000 pages of
reading for the holiday season.

The things that seem different to me over the past twenty-five years,
the period between the two conferences, are twofold. Firstly, that TV
studies feels apolitical today in contrast with 1991. And secondly, that
many things seem to have sprung from bench science, AKA grant-getting.

Because I lived most of the time between then and now in the US, but
working outside the welfare-warfare nexus of Washington's grant system,
I'm unused to this sort of thing.

I'm familiar with big research projects, where people from around the
world write things that fascinate and animate them for political
reasons, and big, influential books are produced. I am less *au fait*
with the endless whirl of applying for grants, which has become almost
an end in itself for people working in Australia and western Europe.
Without these grants, many diligent, competent researchers would not
make a living; and others, in more secure employment, would not have the
time to study. But I see these people applying and
succeeding---nice---then doing the type of work that their funding
bodies want.

That's not the warfare-welfare nexus of US science and social science.
But it *is* the rather apolitical, administrative research of such
topics as: how a small population can develop a gaming industry; how to
use new technologies to engage people; what is the map of
co-productions; how much money 'y' country makes from overseas TV sales;
how executives of multinational corporations function; how do YouTube
stars emerge; and what are the difficulties faced by archivists?

Don't get me wrong---I appreciate the interest in all the above topics.
And they have important political aspects. But those elements are
largely silent in publications produced about them. I surmise that this
may be both because people diligently report on their sponsored research
largely in the terms under which they applied for funding (i.e., minus
politics) and because they structure their conclusions based on the need
for further research (i.e., minus politics).

There are some important exceptions to this concern---mostly to do with
the representation on- and off-screen of certain social identities. But
apart from that, I read little in television studies about the basic
political-economic exploitation of labor; the dominant structures of
ownership and control; the regulatory deals that privilege oligopolies;
the representational annihilation or distortion of minorities (think
Polish and Colombian residents' absence from British TV drama); the
exploitation of tax breaks by indolent local producers and eagle-eyed
Hollywood ones in search of free money (loans with no interest or
investment without equity); the social relations of technological
innovation; and the environmental impact of making, watching, and
disposing of television.

These are matters that you might find covered in *Screen International*,
*The Economist*, *Wired* magazine, *Hollywood Reporter*, *Television
Business International*, or the *Financial Times*---none of them exactly
claxons of socialism.

Am I right? I've not based these comments on looking through the
relevant scholarly journals or books in a systematic way---this is a
provocative impression. I'm happy to be proven wrong. It's just that
when I look at the current context, it feels very different from the
febrile commitment to social and cultural justice that dynamically
animated TV studies in its origins and growth.

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

**Toby Miller** is Emeritus Distinguished Professor at the University of
California, Riverside, the Sir Walter Murdoch Professor of Cultural
Policy Studies at Murdoch University, Profesor Invitado at the
Universidad del Norte, Professor of Journalism, Media and Cultural
Studies at Cardiff University/Prifysgol Caerdydd and Director of the
Institute for Media & Creative Industries at Loughborough University in
London. His adventures can be scrutinized
at [www.tobymiller.org](http://www.tobymiller.org/){.stylish-link
target="_blank"}.


I’ve just returned from Málaga and the European Communication and Research Association’s Television Studies section’s annual conference. A mouthful to type, if you get my drift.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

CLAXONS OF SOCIALISM