Introduction: Trans TV as concept and intervention into contemporary television

Abstract

This dossier is the first of two to emerge out of the recent Trans TV conference held at the University of Westminster in September 2017. The focus of this specific dossier is in tracking the latest developments and emergent trends affecting contemporary television, especially as delivered via new online streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. The article and series of interventions within this dossier set out to challenge both popular and scholarly discourse around these contemporary transformations, pointing not only to technological shifts in television but also to changes in terms of branding, regional and transnational delivery of content, viewing practices, mobile consumption and ‘transfandom’, among other factors. The dossier poses the key questions that if television is undergoing a process of transformation as the title Trans TV suggests, what is television becoming and to what extent and in what aspects can we still recognise it as television? While there are a variety of answers to these questions within the dossier, there is a consensus that in the light of these multiple transformations of television, many of the key concepts and assumptions of television studies now require a thorough reconsideration.