John Hartley 
Television Truths 
Forms of Knowledge in Popular Culture

Television Truths considers what we know about TV, whether
we love it or hate it, where TV is going, and whether viewers
should bother going along for the ride. This engaging volume,
written by one of television’s best known scholars, offers a new
take on the history of television and an up-to-date analysis of its
imaginative content and cultural uses.

* * Explores the pervasive, persuasive, and powerful nature of
television: among the most criticized phenomena of modern life, but
still the most popular pastime ever

* Written by John Hartley, one of television’s best known
scholars

* Considers how television reflects and shapes contemporary life
across the economic, political, social and cultural spectrum,
examining its influence from historical, political and aesthetic
perspectives

* Probes the nature of, and future for, television at a time of
unprecedented change in technologies and business plans

* Provides an up-to-date analysis of content and cultural uses,
from the television live event, to its global political influence,
through to the concept of the ‘TV citizen’

* Maps out a new paradigm for understanding television, for its
research and scholarship, and for the very future of the medium
itself

Table of Content

List of Figures.

List of Tables.

Acknowledgments.

1. Television Truths (Argumentation of TV).

Part I: Is TV True? (Epistemology of TV):.

2. The Value Chain of Meaning.

3. Public Address Systems: Time, Space, and Frequency.

4. Television and Globalization.

Part II: Is TV a Polity? (Ethics/Politics of TV):.

5. Television, Nation, and Indigenous Media.

6. A Television Republic?.

7. Reality and the Plebiscite.

Part III: Is TV Beautiful? (Aesthetics of TV):.

8. From a ‘Wandering Booby’ to a Field of Cows: The
Television Live Event.

9. Shakespeare, Big Brother, and the Taming of the Self.

10. Sync or Swim? Plebiscitary Sport and Synchronized
Voting.

Part IV: What Can TV Be? (Metaphysics of TV):.

11. ‘Laughs and Legends’ or the Furniture that
Glows? Television as History.

12. Television in Knowledge Paradigms.

References.

Index

About the author

John Hartley is a Distinguished Professor at Queensland University of Technology and Adjunct Professor of the Australian National University. Hartley is the author of 15 books, including Creative Industries, A Short History of Cultural Studies, and Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.