‘Beyond the Box: Television & the Internet’ Book Review | How the Web Influences TV’s Future

RobM — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:58:28 +0000

Beyond the Box: Television and the Internet explores the complex relationship between television and the internet in today’s society, and what this means for viewers today and what the blending of these two will mean into the future.

The Internet and How it Changes Television Viewing

Author Sharon Marie Ross proposes that things are radically changing in terms of television viewing across the country. From texting votes for ‘American Idol’ to online forums and sites dedicated to programs like ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, the internet is changing the very nature of television viewing and how the television industry responds to the public.

Whereas, in the past, a limited selection of programs would have a niche market of fans appealing to networks via letter-writing campaigns, the internet has now brought the interaction of the public, via the internet, into the mainstream.

The Internet & Moving Television Beyond

Ross presents an excellent overview of the online shift of the television viewing audience and how the internet has given a much more dynamic voice to fandom and participation into the nature of television programs via means of tele-participation.

There was once a point in time when it was only cult programs like ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Doctor Who’ that garnered fanatical and vocal fan bases, but now due to the proliferation of access to the internet, viewers of programs of virtually any genre could find sites, forums, fanzines, conventions, etc, related to their favorite program (’Scarecrow and Mrs. King’, anyone?)

The Next Generation of Television Viewers

Its also interesting how ‘Beyond the Box’ examines how today younger teenage viewers know only the world of the internet, and how the television industry needs to take into account the strong online ties of younger generations in relation to television programming of today.

Its fascinating to me personally, having lived my teenage years at a time when there was no internet to coincide with television viewing (I even remember the pre-remote control days of the UHF band), that today the web places such a primary factor in determining so much of the nature of what happens on television, all the way down to texting for favorite artists on ‘American Idol’.

The Future of the Internet and Television

‘Beyond the Box’ continues with more insights into the future of television and the internet and the intertwining of these two forces, and how television will continue to be influenced in a large degree by viewers via internet participation, perhaps even to the eventual point where both are blurred as one.

Television is no longer just a static entity, and the internet and growth of online users will continue to change how television programs are made and consumed by viewers. Its exciting to see this direction unfold, and Ross’ text makes for a fascinating primer into the current online-influenced direction of television.

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