Page 95 - Communication Theory and Research

McQuail(EJC)-3281-06.qxd 8/16/2005 11:59 AM Page 81

A Comparative Analysis of the Reception of Domestic and US Fiction 81

TABLE 6.2 REFERENTIAL VS. META-LINGUISTIC STATEMENTS: PROPORTIONAL (%) AND
ABSOLUTE NUMBER
American Sitcom Domestic Sitcom
Referential 51.9% 55%
Statements
109 126
Meta-linguistic 48% 45%
Statements
101 104

When I watch She’s the Sheriff, I think: ‘It must be very cheap to produce
this type of programme.’ Everything happens in a studio, always with the
same decor. You can see that everything in this production is made quickly.
(interview 23A)

Using this analytical category it became clear that the recipients discussed both
series in a mixed referential and meta-linguistic frame. Analysing all interview
statements showed that the overall ratio was in both cases about 1:1. Still, as
indicated in Table 6.2, there are some slight differences between decodings of the
domestic and American dramas. Although the difference between the coding of
De Kollega’s (55 percent referential versus 45 percent meta-linguistic, a difference
of 10 percent) and of She’s the Sheriff (51.9 percent referential versus 48 percent
meta-linguistic, a difference of 3.9 percent) looks small, it seems that the viewers
are somewhat more involved and more likely to view the domestic programme
as applicable to real-life events.

Personal, Normative Involvement

More important however for the analysis of these statements is their value
orientations. In their Dallas study Liebes and Katz consider value-free and norma-
tive statements (1986: 163–4). Utterances can carry explicit personal judgements or
evaluations, based on specific value-systems (i.e., normative). Interpretative state-
ments, not characterized by such personal judgements, were called ‘value-free’.
Data on the value orientations of the statements indicate the need of the recipients
to take a personal view on different aspects of the programme.
Analysing the statements this way made clear that the proportion of norma-
tive statements is far higher in response to the indigenous programme than to
the American programme (see Table 6.3). Comments about formal and technical
aspects of the domestic programme especially were nearly always (79.8%) norma-
tively loaded. As indicated in an interview with a 23-year-old female student, it
seems that talking in a meta-linguistic frame in relation to the domestic programme
involves strong approval or disapproval: