Little Players, Big Shows

This article highlights the role that aesthetics play in television's current convergence with mobile telephones and portable media players like the iPod. I contend that contemporary television style does not just constitute a response to the demands of technological convergence — it is rather an integral component of that which allows television to merge with new devices in the first place. When we engage with style as a precursor to these developments, important continuities emerge between the aesthetics of the small screen and those of the new smaller screens. These continuities underscore that convergence is at once a technical and aesthetic process that entails the hybridization of hardware and cultural forms.