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In the past three decades, side-by-side with the growing precariousness of the global television industry, a distinction between "quality" TV and "trashy," commercial TV has been established in many Western TV production fields. As a result, television creators – writers, producers, and directors – confront multi-faceted moral, financial, and professional dilemmas as well as struggles over positions and prestige. Taking the Israeli TV field as a case study, this article aims to study the set of social justifications employed by television creators vis-à-vis the above dilemmas. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot's concepts of social justification and the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this article finds that in trying to resolve ideological contradictions between commerce and notions of artistry, Israeli television creators assume the position of professionals with social responsibility and artistic conviction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the properties of ‘quality television’ as constructed within the field of television production. It does so by analyzing the discourse of television creators and critics in two countries, Israel and Flanders, taking a theoretical approach based in part on Bourdieusian theory. Most academic work about ‘quality television’ concentrates on Anglo-American television drama series. In this paper we offer a different perspective by focusing on two small but prosperous television markets outside of the Anglo-American world. Our findings suggest that the quality discourse in both countries contains autonomous-artistic alongside heteronomous-capitalist ideological elements, apparently under the influence of the Anglo-American discourse of quality. Our findings also suggest that both ideological elements contribute to the cultural legitimation of the television drama series in both countries, though the capitalist discourse plays a more evident role among creators than among critics. Finally, we also discuss the differences between the Flemish and the Israeli discourses of ‘quality television.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]