On the authenticity of televisual experience: A critical exploration of para‐social closure

This essay argues that critics are caught in the dialectical tension between “technology” and “art” in the study of television. The polar extremes of the dialectic are examined in order to discern how this dialectic informs and constrains examination of television. The claim is made that television critics should draw inferences from practical consideration of everyday televisual experience. To support that claim, “rhetorical aesthetics” is presented as the preferred perspective in the emerging field of television criticism, as it allows for understanding of “television as art” in practice. To illustrate the utility of the preferred perspective, concluding episodes of long‐running American television series broadcast from 1975 to 1985 are analyzed.