Push–Pull Dynamics

Abstract

This article explores push–pull dynamics in television drama production and reception. Push–pull dynamics are understood as complicated power relations in the transactions between television industries and audiences. The research is underpinned by qualitative data, drawing on more than 170 participants in interviews, focus groups, and participant observations, with producers and audiences from Northern Europe and North and South America. A case study of The Bridge (FX, 2013–2014) crime drama and its adaptations is used to think through the idea of push–pull dynamics. A key question concerns how power is performed in television itself, referring to work in cultural studies and Williams’s notion of the television experience. The Bridge crime drama and its adaptations underscore the particularities of power for television industries and audiences: this is not a tale of surrender to global industrial forces; rather, this is a story of the reality of power and the struggle over how producers and audiences make sense of global television.