There is no denying that television viewing is not what it used to be. Multichannel choice, the alternatives offered by downloads and streaming video on the internet and, last but not least, the opportunity to make one's own television. High definition video cameras are available at reasonable prices; montage software can be downloaded for free. Any amateur who wishes to make television can do so. This has led optimists to argue that we are heading towards ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins 2006) and a world in which media content production is no longer the prerogative of media corporations. Clearly, then, we are in need of evaluating what television is about and, perhaps also, of updating our theoretical framework to understand the medium.

In this chapter I will argue that most thinking about television implicitly or explicitly refers to ‘the mass communication paradigm’. The mass communication paradigm consists of historically located theories and practices around television as the medium developed from the 1950s onwards. These theories and practices are often in discord. They share the notion that television is typically the medium of mass societies and that there is a centralized source and a multitude of dispersed viewers. In Western Europe, moreover, the state is understood as television's most important guardian and financier, with television a strong means for the nation state to reach entire populations (Gripsrud 1998). Debate in this paradigm often underscores the double nature of all mass media: they can work for the good, and present strong role models or empower citizens, but they can also corrupt (Jensen 1990). That makes the possible effects of television a contentious issue, as well as the medium's social responsibility. All of these elements – mass media, the nation state, effect thinking and social responsibility – coalesce in the mass communication paradigm.

Recent developments certainly seem to warrant a new or extended framework to understand television, but is this true for everyday talk of television? Reservations may well be in order when theorizing how audiences make sense of television. Existing frameworks might still be useful there. Although practices of use are changing, how television is understood may not be changing, or for that matter need to change, at the same rate or speed. While the utopian energy of, e.g. the ‘2.0’ paradigm in media studies (see Gauntlett 2007; Merrin 2009) is unlocking new ways of understanding audiencehood as such.