ABSTRACT
The last chapter argued two main propositions: that the television audience is composed of a wide variety of groups and is not a homogeneous mass; and that these groups actively read television in order to produce from it meanings that connect with their social experience. These propositions entail the corollary that the television text is a potential of meanings capable of being viewed with a variety of modes of attention by a variety of viewers. To be popular, then, television must be both polysemic and flexible. In this chapter I shall characterize the television text as a state of tension between forces of closure, which attempt to close down its potential of meanings in favor of its preferred ones, and forces of openness, which enable its variety of viewers to negotiate an appropriate variety of meanings. The last chapter drew attention to the social forces that worked to open the text up to this process of negotiation: in this one I shall explore the main textual devices that constitute this openness.
