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of Dallas (Liebes & Katz, 1993). The Israeli groups, ten from each of the four communities,
were assembled and asked to invite two other couples to view an episode. The serial was
subtitled in Hebrew and Arabic, and notes were made on the interaction during the viewing and
the one hour post-viewing discussion. Interviews were conducted covering four weekly
episodes and ethnic homogeneity was achieved for each group through the neighbourhoods and
friendships. len Ang's famous cross-cultural study on Dallas (Ang, 1985) was based on replies
to advertisements from the fans of the programme.
Ellen Seiter, Hans Borchers, Gabrielle and Eva-Maria Warth conducted twenty six ethnographic
interviews with viewers in western Oregon on soap opera, and based their research design on
Radway's (1984) and Morley's (1980) "Nationwide" research. Two of Seiter' s research team
interviewed fifteen white women viewers and fifteen men (Seiter et al,1989). There were sixty
four participants solicited through the help-wanted advertisements; no men or women of colour
applied but many applicants were working class and unemployed. The interviews took place at
one informant's home in the company of friends and family members whom the research team
had chosen for the purpose in seemingly similar methodology to the ' snowball' sample described
,/. earlier for the Liebes and Katz reception analysis. In the research undertaken by Mary Field
Beienk'Y et at (1986) she and three colleagues explored, with their female interviewees, problems
women had experienced as learners and knowers. The researchers evaluated the women's
changing ideas of self image, and relationships with others. Tne sample included niIlety students,
plus forty-five women from family agencies, through which clients asked for help with parenting.
Diversity of age, circumstance and outlook permitted the researchers an opportunity to see the
corr.mon ground women share, regardless of different ethnic, economic, social or educational
background. This tact was encouraging since I was concerned that, initially, multicuiturai
women of different class and background might have difficulty in articulating their thoughts.
Paulo Freire's contention that literacy can develop women's consciousness of their rights and
tlleir ability to criticize events in the real world was incorporated as an important dimension of
my research (Freire, 1985).
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