Investigating the Practice of Television Branding: An Afterword on Methodology

Abstract

In this afterword the editor of Networking Knowledge concludes the current issue by considering some of the methodological questions, problems and innovations that are raised by the preceding articles. With a view to provoking further thought and contributions on the complex and fast-developing subject of television branding, it describes two fundamental methodological requirements. Firstly, it argues that branding itself must be treated as a collaborative and fluidly defined industrial practice that is reliant on a relational network of various companies, professions and individual workers. Secondly, given that no television brand exists solely on television a fundamentally transmedia scope of analysis is necessary, not just for effective critical analysis of the ‘finished’ brand text, but to properly understand that underlying practice. By discussing some of the author’s (more and less successful) experiences of trying, as a junior academic, to get to grips with the practice of television branding, this piece considers the practical and epistemological obstacles and opportunities presented by engagement with industrial professionals on the level of their everyday work and self-identity.