Television and Consumer Culture: Britain and the Transformation of Modernity »

Rob Turnock is Lecturer in Media Theory at the Bournemouth Media School, Bournemouth University.

The radical expansion and dramatic changes in television broadcasting during the third quarter of the twentieth century reflected and promoted the development of a new form of consumer culture in Britain. Society was becoming marked by fragmentation, individualism and consumerism and at the same time, ITV, a new commercial service, was challenging the middle-class, public service BBC. This book's examination of television's novel intervention in and re-articulation of British culture over this period pinpoints a crucial moment in the development of consumer capitalism when television's novel metaphysical forms provided a model of consumption par excellence.

Acronyms and abbreviations     viii
Acknowledgements     xi
Introduction     1
Rationalization     14
Centralization     48
Technologies     75
Spaces     107
Consumer Culture     141
Consuming Television Culture     171
Conclusions: expansion, diversity, visibility and media power     193
Notes     208
References     225
Index     235