The radical expansion of television broadcasting in the post-war years and beyond both reflected and promoted a cultural revolution sweeping across British society. Reaching out to a mass audience for the first time, the new television industry made visible the transition from drab austerity and seeming cultural consensus to the brash, heady glitz and individualism of the new consumer age."Television and Consumer Culture" explores television's institutional, technological and programming developments during this period, revealing how genres as different as action adventure series, serious dramas, situation comedies and quiz and game shows simultaneously promoted both consumer culture and class conflict. Drawing on historical analysis and sociological theory, and looking at issues such as celebrity, scheduling, intimacy and sociability, Turnock argues that television during this era established and promoted itself as a culturally powerful force, a fact that has implications for the way that media power is understood to operate today.

Explores television's institutional, technological and programming developments during the post-war period, revealing how genres as different as action adventure series, serious dramas, situation comedies and quiz and game shows simultaneously promoted both consumer culture and class conflict.

About the Author
Rob Turnock is Senior Researcher in Television History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Interpreting Diana: Television Audiences and the Death of a Princess (2000) and co-editor, with Catherine Johnson, of ITV Cultures: Independent Television Over Fifty Years


Book Information
ISBN 9781845110796
Author Rob Turnock
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint I.B. Tauris
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC