21. Taste and Television
Jason Mittell (Middlebury College); participants: Roberta Pearson (University of Nottingham), Ronald Becker (Miami University), Greg Smith (Georgia State University), Matt Sienkiewicz (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Louisa Stein (San Diego State University), moderator: Julia Baron (University of Texas at Austin)

Question: What is the place of taste within television studies? Is taste something that exists only as a removed object of study (i.e. other people's taste), or can the scholar's taste inform our academic and pedagogic practices? How do technologies impact the practice of taste, like collaborative filtering/recommendation systems, or the collective intelligence of sites like Television without Pity or TV.com? How might scholarly taste feedback into the television industry? And how does the study of television differ from other media and forms concerning the role of scholarly taste?

Ronald Becker's Response

Louisa Stein's Response

Jason Mittell's Response

Jeffrey Sconce's Response

Matt Sienkiewicz's Response

Greg Smith's Response

Roberta Pearson's Response