Timothy Havens, Global Television Marketplace

摘要

And here is yet another volume seeking to explore the global television market. This one, by Timothy Havens, takes an interesting approach by focusing on the mediators who operate within the international programme market. He begins by positioning his work in relation to past work, which has often taken one of two approaches, focusing either on the macro level, exploring the structural relationships between national systems, or on the micro level, studying the reception by audiences. Such approaches, he argues, offer only a limited understanding of what is happening. While those focusing on the macro level have little interest in the way audiences understand such programmes, those interested in the reception by audiences tend to grant too much freedom to the viewer with little regard to structural questions of dominance. He suggests that what is needed, as others have identified before, is a means of reconciling these seemingly conflicting viewpoints. What Havens therefore takes in this work is a middle-level approach, one that 'is situated between political economy and micro-situational reception studies' (Cunningham and Jacka, 1996: 22). Such an approach focuses on the mediators who sit between the flows of programmes and the reception by audiences at the national level, mediators that provide an insight into the complex processes at work in the programme market.