Remote Control Television, Audiences, and Cultural Power

The ways in which we watch television tell us much about our views of gender, the family and society. Bringing together the leading experts in the field of audience studies, this book investigates how viewers watch television, and what they think about the programmes they see. Originally published in 1989, the book is divided into two sections which discuss some of the theoretical issues at stake and then present case studies of a wide range of viewers: women office workers, Israeli watchers of Dallas, German families, the elderly, and American daytime soap fans. Contributors from Britain, the United States, Western Europe, Australia and Israel offer a wide range of perspectives, from feminism to post-modernism, and from semiotics to Marxism. ‘Together these essays constitute one of the best possible introductions to the leading edge of research into the phenomenon of television.’ Choice

Introduction Ellen Seiter, Hans Borchers, Gabriele Kreutzner, and Eva-Maria Warth 1. Changing Paradigms in Audience Studies David Morley 2. Bursting Bubbles: "Soap Opera," Audiences, and the Limits of Genre Robert C. Allen 3. Moments of Television: Neither the Text not the Audience John Fiske 4. Live Television and its Audiences: Challenges of Media Reality Claus-Dieter Rath 5. Wanted: Audiences. On the Politics of Empirical Audience Studies Ien Ang 6. Text and Audience Charlotte Brunsdon 7. Out of The Mainstream: Sexual Minorities and the Mass Media Larry Gross 8. Soap Operas at Work Dorothy Hobson 9. The Media in Everyday Family Life: Some Biographical and Typological Aspects Jan-Uwe Rogge 10. Approaching the Audience: The Elderly John Tulloch 11. On the Critical Abilities of Television Viewers Tamar Liebes and Elihu Katz 12. "Don’t Treat Us Like We’re So Stupid and Naïve: Towards an Ethnography of Soap Opera Viewers Ellen Seiter, Hans Borchers, Gabriele Kreutzner, and Eva-Maria Warth