ABSTRACT
Traditionally media critics have taken the economic determination of program flow to suggest that the effects of TV flow and segmentation are clear cut and conservative. Modleski has taken this analysis of TV segmentation and flow perhaps furthest, in arguing for a space for play between sequenced genres (quiz/soap; soap/advertisement). This chapter examines segmentation and flow in terms of particular production practices. Robert C. Allen has pointed out that the transition from radio to television soap operas has led to the removal of the authoritative narrator. Current soap operas are able to ‘accommodate a far greater range of “negotiated” readings than other, more normatively dominant forms of Active narratives’ and hence are opposed to the ‘perspectival determinacy of its commercial messages’. At this point in the on-air transmission, the drama was dislocated by the first commercial break, and the advertisements immediately picked up the theme of ‘Australianness’, establishing a continuity between drama and advertisements.
