Television aesthetics: Stylistic analysis and beyond

'Television aesthetics’ has become shorthand for a thoughtful, reflective and respectful consideration of texts’ stylistic qualities. Further, in an important sense, the term functions as a signifier of difference and distinctiveness within the field of television studies, wherein approaches that focus on sociological, ideological and broader cultural matters, but which neglect stylistic analysis and reject artistic evaluation, have been historically dominant. To situate one’s work within ‘television aesthetics’ is to distinguish that work from those previous approaches. The term takes on a declarative function.

However, there is greater potential contained within the term. What else might ‘television aesthetics’ include, beyond close textual/stylistic analysis? What investigations might be undertaken which could allow useful reflection upon the modes and purposes of close analysis in the specific case of television? What other matters are raised by the particular association of ‘aesthetics’ with television? This paper aims to tackle such questions, examining particularly the notion of ‘aesthetic experience’, which has been much discussed in philosophical aesthetics, but not at all within television studies. This article explores some of the most presssing questions for the field of television aesthetics, and raises some possible avenues for further exploration.