Papers presented at an international conference held April 12-14m 1988 at the Center for Twentieth Century Studies.

Banality in cultural studies / Meaghan Morris -- Playing at being American : games and tactics / John Caughie -- Television : aesthetics and audiences / Charlotte Brunsdon -- Television in the family circle : the popular reception of a new medium / Lynn Spigel -- The Seven Dwarfs and the money grubbers : the public relations crisis of US television in the late 1950s / William Boddy -- Why we don't count : the commodity audience / Eileen R. Meehan -- Techno-ethics and tele-ethics : three lives in the day of Max Headroom / Andrew Ross -- Critical and textual hypermasculinity / Lynne Joyrich -- Superman and the protective strength of the trademark / Jane Gaines -- An ontology of everyday distraction : the freeway, the mall, and television / Margaret Morse -- Information, crisis, catastrophe / Mary Ann Doane -- TV time and catastrophe, or Beyond the pleasure principle of television / Patricia Mellencamp -- Representing television / Stephen Heath.