The End of Television—Again! How TV Is Still Influenced by Cultural Factors in the Age of Digital Intermediaries

Abstract

This article discusses the impact of convergence and digital intermediaries for television as a medium, industry and political and cultural institution. There is currently widespread debate about the future of television and the impact of technological and market changes. Our argument is that the answer to what is happening to television cannot be adequately addressed on a general level; local and contextual factors are still important, and so is the position and strategic response of existing television institutions in each national context. Based on analyses of political documents, statistics, audience research and media coverage, as well as secondary literature, the article explores the current situation for Norwegian television and point to four contexts that each plays a part in constraining and enabling existing television operators: the European context, the public service context, the welfare state context and the media ecosystem context.

Twitter as arena for the authentic outsider: exploring the social media campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election

“…The third, more generally termed the digital era, is characterised by an intensified personalization of political advocacy and increased anti-elitism, popularisation and populism. I will suggest the label 'era of social media' for the current phase of political communication, not because social media has replaced television (or newspapers or radio, for that matter) but because it has changed it, and the way audiences watch it (Enli and Syvertsen 2016). Television is no longer a stand-alone medium for political communication, because its mainstream media presence currently exists only in tandem with social media, in the context of both multi-platform campaigns and multi-tasking users.…”

“…The ‘era of social media’ does however not imply that platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram has replaced television (or newspapers or radio, for that matter) but it has changed it and the way audiences watch it (Chadwick 2014; Enli and Syvertsen, 2016). TV is no longer a stand-alone medium for political communication, because its mainstream media presence currently exists in tandem with social media, in the context of both multi-platform campaigns and multi-tasking users.…”

The delay economy of “continuity” and the emerging impatience culture of the digital era

“…As suggested by Grainge and Johnson (2018), based on their analysis of the managerial discourse on the BBC iPlayer, understanding the development of the television industry in the digital era requires further discussions based on the findings from research on how the television industry is developing in media systems outside the US. Research needs to contextualize television development, as argued by Enli and Syvertsen (2016), to assess the balance between continuity and change in industrial development. In this connection, it is particularly important to consider the history and tradition of the elaborated cultural-political regulation, subsidies and well-funded public service television broadcasters in the North-Western European and Nordic countries.…”

Mapping the Convergence Trends of Television Broadcasting Media in Indonesia

“…The digitalisation process almost penetrates all fields including broadcasting (Briandana et al, 2020;Enli & Syvertsen, 2016) In the past, the technology was a design for instrumental action and so, it reduced uncertainty in the causal relationships for the desired achieving results. The technology has two components, i.e.…”