ABSTRACT
IIn this substantial, useful and provocative book aimed at undergraduates John Fiske surveys contemporary theory and research on the analysis of television texts and fashions a general thesis about the nature of texts and the power of television in contemporary ‘Western’ cultures. He concentrates on popular television programmes, which, like the theory and research are mostly from Australia, Britain and the USA. His approach ‘derives from particular inflections of Marxism, semiotics, post-structuralism and ethnography’ and is “viewer centred’, which is to say that his interest is in how the texts are likely to be read by viewers and he draws on empirical audience research whenever possible. He insists throughout that viewers have power over texts and that different viewers can get different meanings and pleasures from the same texts.
