Television’s scalar play: Invitations to scalar thinking across the intimate and the global

This article examines how contemporary television engages with scale, arguing that the medium routinely prompts viewers to navigate conceptually between micro and macro perspectives. Bringing television studies into dialogue with scale theory, the article demonstrates how diverse programmes – using The Last of Us (2023–present), Familier som vores [ Families Like Ours ] (2024), Eurovision Song Contest (1956–present) and UEFA Champions League (1956–present) as case studies – mobilise narrative, thematic and visual strategies of scalar play that invite the viewer to conduct scalar thinking across individual experiences, collective formations and planetary frameworks. Aerial views, long shots emphasising size differences, glocal address and repeated returns to life-sized close-ups invite audiences to consider their position within networks that extend beyond the human. While television often re-centres anthropocentric perspectives through its grammar of intimacy, these scalar dynamics still encourage meaningful shifts in perception. The article argues that television’s routine engagements with scale cultivate everyday multi-scalar awareness.