ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a case study that has both implicit and explicit points of theoretical engagement. It shows the way in which the personal tastes and preferences experienced and articulated in the domestic context to which ethnography gives some access, while always being personal are always also profoundly social. Thus much of James Lull's work has been concerned to explore the way in which the television set is used within the familial domestic context. Ondina Fachel Leal uses the idea of the television "entourage" to discuss the customary decoration of the television set in Brazilian homes. However, unlike channel selection or program watching, which are activities performed in the privacy of the home, erecting a satellite dish is done outside the home. Cabling is the exception rather than the rule in Britain, and a different dish is necessary to receive British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB), the more upmarket satellite channel, which started broadcasting in May 1990.
