First published in 1990

This book is the first specifically about television drama from within a cultural studies perspective and as such examines the active agency of both viewers and media practitioners. The author examines dominant and counter-myths as they circulate in popular culture, discussing soap opera, science fiction, sitcom, cop series and authored drama among its examples.

It works within an ethnographic framework, he looks in detail at both the production and reception of TV drama. The overall aim of the book is to examine television representation as part of an historically positioned and differentiated social formation in which knowledgeable actors work in every institutional arena (whether media industry, academia or domestic household) to make their meanings.