View/Open - ResearchSpace

from socially constructed 'subjects' to socially situated 'people' who attempt to explain what
role television plays in their lives (Hammersley & Atkinson,1993: 125).
The reception studies for Suburban Bliss (SB) and Going Up III (GU III) began after the 1994
democratic election in South Africa; the researcher used a flexible methodology - any method
which had the potential for securing relevant data. Focus groups, interviews with production
teams, transcripts, audiotapes, demographic data and a six-month course in conversational Zulu
to improve communication with Zulu groups were all potential resources. In this research an
ethnographic discourse analysis traces the forms of discussion through which accounts of their
reality were constituted by Zulu, Afrikaans and English-speaking women (Hammersley &
Atkinson, 1993: 126). The women's accounts interpreted their culture and identity by discussing
their thoughts and feelings after viewing the situation comedies. Discussion was infused with
their analysis of identity at different levels of society within the boundaries of the particular
culture from which the group emanated. The extent to which laughter was stimulated by the
sitcom in specific incidences was recorded on a laughter table (Appendix I) . Power relationships
in the family of the participants were examined and women's position in South African society
was interpreted according to the values inherent in the terms of the new Constitution in the Bill
of Rights (1996, Section 16, 1 band 1 c) of South Africa. The multicultural group interviews
were not intended to be representative of the entire South African society but as indicators of
how the women perceived their situation since the democratic election of 1994. In the meeting
between the focus groups and the text, another discourse emerged, created by the groups'
differing cultural education and institutional practices. The responses of the groups illustrated
how the micro-processes of viewing a television programme engage with the macro-structures
of South African media and South African society.
Influence of African research on the project
In Zambia, in the early 1960s after independence, in the town ofLuanshya on the Copperbelt
in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia as it is known today) an American anthropologist, Hortense
Powdermaker investigated the effects of media on the local population. Since her study was
exploratory she used a f1exible methodology - any method which had potential for securing
relevant data (Powdermaker. 1962:xv). She stressed it was always necessary to have the consent
2