What is television in the current day and age? In his 2004 article, "Convergence-Television," Cladwell noted that "Of the three industries, television is more effectively mastering e-entertainment than either the film or high tech worlds" (50). Sixteen years later, we can attest to the truth that streaming content somehow has managed to be called "television," by distributing programs that used to be available only on TV and by creating its own content which is reminiscent of TV's formats. TV renews itself. Getting ever further from what it initially was, but latching onto enough of its identity to remain true to itself.
Caldwell describes television as the "one persistent nagging bridge between old media and new media" (70). Somehow television, via all sorts of ancillary channels, merchandise, websites, through multiplexing and convergence, TV is able to funnel and network our attention and psyche. Sometimes I feel like TV has been integrated by modern man as a bodily organ, if not essential, at least very much tied to our functionality in the world.
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