Television Format as Cultural Negotiation: Studying Format Appropriation through a Synthesizing Approach

Abstract

Despite the growing number of publications on television formats, specific theorisations regarding formats and format adaptation, in particular, are still rare. In this article, I introduce a synthesizing approach for studying format appropriation. Drawing on format study, media industry research and structuration theory, I suggest that television formats should be understood and studied as a process of cultural negotiation in which global influences and local elements amalgamate on various levels of television culture (i.e., production, text, and reception); every level includes several sites of symbolic or actual negotiation. These sites emerge in the duality of structure and human agency.