Unstable platforms: TV in the digital age

This essay compares our current experience of technological and cultural disruption with ‘the network era’ (1946–2000), American TV’s first great age. I argue that the relative stability of the medium over this half-century enabled an evolution that helps to explain its cultural centrality as well as its narrative art. The essay suggests that the ongoing instability of post-network television – its welter of platforms, devices and viewing choices, its economic and technological churn – has no counterpart in older TV. My central question: will our experience of continuous transition ever moderate? Even so, the argument concludes, a sense, however vestigial, of continuities remains essential