If Raymond Williams' concept of flow challenges the idea of the discrete television text, then convergence destabilizes the notion of television as a discrete object. From viral videos on You
Tube to mobile television on smart phones and beyond, TV has overflowed its boundaries.
Flow TV examines television in an age of technological, economic, and cultural convergence. Seeking to frame a new set of concerns for television studies in the 21st century, this collection of
all new essays establishes television's continued importance in a shifting media culture. In order to make sense of television and new media not just as technical devices, but as social
technologies, the essays in this anthology insist we must turn our attention to the social, political, and cultural practices that surround and inform those devices' use. The collection
examines television through a range of critical approaches from formal and industrial analysis to critical technology studies, reception studies, political economy, and critiques of
television's transnational flows. This volume grows out of the critical community formed around the popular online journal Flow: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture (flowtv.org).
