Outside and inside television: a dialogue on ‘value’

ABSTRACT

This is an exchange on questions of value from two distinct but overlapping perspectives on television. Among other things, it looks at the differences between academic and industry approaches to questions of quality and value and the way in which these approaches are changing. In what ways does the upsurge in production studies promise improved understanding and how is this growth connected with the traditions of textual and audience research? How is the steady transformation of television, as a multi-platform element of digital culture but also a sector of cultural production still framed by national as well as international policy contexts, shifting the way research relates to practice?

KEYWORDS:

• Production
• policy
• television studies
• value
• quality
• culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

John Corner is Visiting Professor in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds and Emeritus Professor of the University of Liverpool. He has researched and written on media issues for over 40 years and is currently working on themes within documentary studies and political communication. Key publications are indicated at www.johncorner.com.

Jane Roscoe is the Director and CEO of The London Film School. She was previously with SBS Television in Australia as Network Programmer, then Head of International Content. During her time in academia her research focused on documentary, audiences and factual television. She is co-author of Faking It: Mock-Documentary and the Subversion of Factuality (MUP, 2001).

Notes

1 Brunsdon (1990), Mulgan (1990), McCabe and Akass (2007).

2 Galvin (2005).

3 Sauter and Bruns (2014).

4 Cover (2013) and Price (2014). See also Nikunen (2016).

5 Born (2004) and Caldwell 2008). See also Mayer, Banks, and Caldwell (2009) and the exploration of combined research approaches in Meyer (2012), an introduction to a journal special issue.

6 Attitudes explored in Hill (2005 and 2007).

7 For instance, Gray and Bell (2012).