The Export of Meaning: Cross Cultural Readings Dallas

Bol Partner

This is a new paperback edition of a book originally published (by OUP) in 1990. It includes a new Introduction by the authors. It is on many reading lists already, so the paperback should be bought by students. The book is a path-breaking study of how TV viewers interpret popular TV programmes - in this case, Dallas . Is there really a global village out there? It may be true that the whole world watches Dallas and Dynasty, but is everyone seeing the same story? It is a fashionable worry among academics, critics and politicians that American hit programmes are agents of cultural imperialism. But nobody knows what message, if any, the viewers are actually getting and what critical capabilities they command. In this path-breaking book, now available in paperback, Liebes and Katz analyse conversations about Dallas among groups of families and friends in different sub-cultures: in Israel (where the programme was an all-time best-seller), in Japan (where it was rejected), and in the US (the original target audience). The authors propose that there is a process of negotiation between these quintessentially American stories and what the viewers bring to them: their life experiences, the ‘texts’ of their culture, and their expectations from the genres of family drama. Through a detailed study of how individuals in different contexts interpret popular TV fiction, Liebes and Katz show that viewers possess a good deal more critical ability than they are commonly given credit for. The Export of Meaning has already established itself as a classic text in media studies, cultural studies and communications. The paperback edition, which includes a new Introduction by the authors, will be widely recommended to students. In the new paperback edition of this classic text, Liebes and Katz examine how television viewers around the world respond differently to popular television programmes, particularly Dallas. Analszing conversations among viewers in Israel, Japan and the U. S., they show that viewers possess a good deal more critical ability than they are commonly given credit for.

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Pages: 200, Edition: 1, Paperback, Polity