Scholars as Audiences, Symbolic Boundaries, and Culturally Legitimated Prime-Time Cable Drama

Authors

  • Michael L. Wayne University of Virginia

Keywords:

post-network television, audience, critical reception

Abstract

This article addresses Jason Mittell's controversial essay “On Disliking Mad Men” (2010) in the cultural context of post-network television. The author uses 72 critical reviews of five HBO series to place Mittell's argument alongside other rhetorical strategies that resist the prestige associated with high-status prime-time cable dramas. In relation to these rhetorical strategies, the troubled publication history of and negative scholarly reactions to Mittell's essay are understood as indicative of elite post-network television audiences policing the symbolic boundaries surrounding culturally legitimated texts.

Author Biography

Michael L. Wayne, University of Virginia

Michael L. Wayne is a graduate instructor in the Department of Media Studies and an advanced doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Virginia. In the fall of 2015, he will be joining the Department of Communication at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as a post-doctoral scholar at the LINKS Research Center.

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Published

2015-07-18

How to Cite

Wayne, M. (2015). Scholars as Audiences, Symbolic Boundaries, and Culturally Legitimated Prime-Time Cable Drama. Global Media Journal - German Edition, 5(1). Retrieved from https://globalmediajournal.de/index.php/gmj/article/view/64