Television: Polysemy and popularity

Abstract

This essay argues that the television audience is composed of a wide variety of groups or subcultures, and that in order to be popular a television program must be polysemic so that different subcultures can find in it different meanings that correspond to their differing social relations. The dominant ideology is structured into the text as into the social system, but the structure of both text and society allows space for resistance and negotiation. A close analysis of two scenes from Hart to Hart demonstrates the textual devices which bear the dominant ideology and those which offer opportunities for resistance to it. To understand the popularity of television with its diverse audiences, the critic must look for contradictions and openness in the television text, not unity and closure.