Cultural class analysis and audience reception in American television’s ‘third golden age’

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This article applies the concept of cultural class to an analysis of contemporary television viewing. The proliferation of original programming on cable networks and the emergence of digital technologies have led many observers to claim that American TV is in the midst of its third ‘golden age’ (the first two are associated with the 1950s and 1980s, respectively). Based on qualitative interviews with 50 middle-class young adults (aged 18–34 years), this article claims that the significance of this ‘golden age’ varies with, but is not determined by, social location. For some middle-class young adults, engagement with post-network television includes the creation of symbolic boundaries in relation to the perceived quality of a given show’s ‘writing’, the use of culturally legitimated content as bonding capital, and the use of low-status content as bridging capital. For other middle-class young adults, engagement with post-network television is characterized by the irrelevance of emerging status hierarchies and the continuing significance of personal identification. In the theoretical context of cultural class analysis, the author argues that attitudes towards legitimated content in the post-network era are meaningful precisely because significant differences in reception practices are identified within the American middle class.</jats:p>