Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation

Taking the soap opera as a case study, this book explores the "parasocial interaction" people engage in with television programs. It looks at the nature of the "active viewer" and the role of the text in social psychology. It also investigates the existing theoretical models offered by social psychology and other discourses. This second edition takes into account recent research work and theoretical developments in fields such as narrative psychology, social representation theory and ethnographic work on audiences, and looks at the developing role of audience research.