The previous chapter examined some of the contexts from which the broadcast quiz show emerged, but this chapter is more concerned with the quiz show as it appears on screen. This involves asking questions about how we approach the analysis of the quiz show text, and what the purpose of this analysis might be. What critical and theoretical approaches can be used to analyse the quiz show, and what does their application reveal about its generic conventions, aesthetic construction, cultural politics?

In studying the quiz show, we have at our disposal a range of approaches which are used more widely in television studies. For example, the present chapter outlines how perspectives on quiz shows and ‘power’ have been influenced by changing approaches to ideology in television and cultural studies. Equally, Chapter 1 has explored the relationship between the quiz and game show and genre theory, as well as the branch of study interested in format adaptation. Chapter 2 has examined how the genre can be illuminated by historical, archival research and a focus on the institutional contexts of broadcasting, while Chapter 6 explores how work on fandom can be applied to the quiz show. But there are also critical approaches which can be applied to the quiz show, and which are arguably more specific to the genre. In this regard, we can point to anthropological and cultural studies of play offered by Johan Huizinga (Homo Ludens (‘Man the Player’) (1938)) and Roger Caillois (Les Jeux et les Hommes (‘Man, Play and Games’) (1958)).