Paddy Scannell 
Television and the Meaning of ‚Live‘ 
An Enquiry into the Human Situation

This book is about the question of existence, the meaning of
‚life‘. It is an enquiry into the contemporary human
situation as disclosed by television.

The elementary components of any real-world situation are place,
people and time. These are first examined as basic existential
phenomena drawing on Heidegger’s fundamental enquiry into the
human situation in Being and Time. They are then explored
through the technological and production care-structures of
broadcast television which, routinely and exceptionally, display
the situated experience of being alive and living in the world
today. It shows routinely in the live self-enactments of persons
being themselves and the liveness of their ordinary talk on
television. It shows exceptionally in television coverage of great
occasions and catastrophes as they unfold live and in real time.
Case studies reveal the existential role of television in salvaging
the possibility of genuine experience, and in revealing the
world-historical character of life today. To explore these
questions, the agenda of sociology – its concern with economic,
political and cultural life – is set aside. Being in the world is
not, in the first (or last) instance, a social but an existential
question, as an existential enquiry into television today
discovers.

Passionate and sweeping in scale, this new book from a leading
media scholar is a major contribution to our understanding of the
media today.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements vi

Preface viii

Part one: An introduction to the phenomenology of
television

Prologue: Heidegger’s teacup 3

1. What is phenomenology? 5

2. Available world 14

3. Available self 27

4. Available time 39

5. Turning on the TV set 60

6. Television and technology 78

Part two: Television and the meaning of live

7. The meaning of live 93

8. How to talk – on radio 107

9. How to talk – on television 128

10. The moment of the goal – on television 153

11. Being in the moment: the meaning of media events 177

12. Catastrophe – on television 191

13. Television and history 209

Notes 225

References 245

Index 253

Über den Autor

Paddy Scannell is professor in the department of communication studies at the University of Michigan. He was one of the early pioneers of media studies, and a founding editor of the journal Media, Culture and Society.