I’m Dreaming of a TV Christmas: Calendrical Experience and Collective Narratives from Dickens to Netflix

Author

Max Romanowski, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

5-1-2024

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Mass Communication and Media Arts

First Advisor

Metz, Walter

Abstract

Over the past seventy-five years, television and, of all holidays, Christmas have functioned as staples of civilization in the United States. Despite vast social changes, neither has lost cultural staying power. In the 21st century, the two discursive systems continue to organize and regulate time and experience. The linkages between Christmas and television are central to understanding how and why America’s media landscape changes, yet never quite transforms into something new.My dissertation emerges from the observation that television viewers of the 21st century more frequently access content via streaming services, and that on these platforms, there has been a considerable decrease in the number of new episodes of serialized television that focus on Christmas. And yet, Christmas persists, particularly in the way streaming services re-play and re-use the literary, cinematic, and televisual legacy that constructed what I term the “calendrical experience” of American social life. Both Christmas and television rely heavily on this calendrical experience through collective narratives consumed together as a nation, whether that be together in the same place at the same time, or individually and yet still simultaneously. Using textual, economic, and industrial analytic tools, I explore the evolution of television’s depiction of Christmas via close readings of how media companies released, and people in the United States viewed, specific episodes. Christmas serves as my interpretive lens through which to understand television’s ever transforming, yet persistent and central role in the United States over the past seventy-five years.