Television is unique in its ability to produce so much pleasure and so many meanings for such a wide variety of people. In this book, John Fiske looks at television's role as an agent of popular culture, and goes on to consider the relationship between this cultural dimension and television's status as a commodity of the cultural industries that are deeply inscribed with capitalism. He makes use of detailed textual analysis and audience studies to show how television is absorbed into social experience, and thus made into popular culture. Audiences, Fiske argues, are productive, discriminating, and televisually literate.

Television Culture provides a comprehensive introduction for students to an integral topic on all communication and media studies courses.