Humanities & Social Sciences
July 2026
Streaming privilege
How television teaches us to accept inequality
by Hanna Kuusela
Streaming Privilege examines how today's serial television plays a powerful role in legitimating the 'new Gilded Age' of extreme inequality. Through a sharp cultural analysis, the book reveals popular culture's obsession with wealth and dynastic families - and how it helps to sustain economic divides. Focusing on four major series - Downton Abbey, The Crown, Succession and Yellowstone - the book explores what today's most-watched television dramas reveal about contemporary attitudes toward wealth. At the heart of the book is a concern with the intersection of family, wealth and morality. As dynastic structures once again dominate economy, stories of wealthy families offer a cultural lens through which audiences make sense of economic disparities. The book shows how television does not merely reflect inequality but actively shapes our understandings of it. Streaming Privilege is essential reading for scholars and students in media studies, cultural studies and economic sociology - as well as for general readers interested in how popular culture influences our perceptions of inequality.
