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ideological perspective. The approach includes selT'jotic and ideological analyses and a cultural
studies perspective.
Chapter Four examines the moment of production for Going Up III, investigating its different
policy moments and history by looking at its antecedents, Going Up I and II. Through
interviews with the production team it becomes apparent that GU III is a hybrid of comic
realism, allegoric mode, situation comedy, folk musical and African oral tradition, conceived to
meet the perceived needs of the local multilingual multicultural audience. With its
representational narrative, visual naturalism and its attention to the quotidian detail of a law
office in the Central Business District of Johannesburg, GU III plays for laughs, reproducing
comedy's subversive potential for creating divergent readings.
Chapter Five describes the reasons for the nine focus groups' responses to the ideological impact
on the construction of the television message for Suburban Bliss and explains how the
programmes mediate the producer/audience relationship making an important contribution to
the hegemonic process. This is the domination of one clan over another by political and
ideological means and is unlikely ever to be complete (Gramsci,1973). The balance between
coercion and consent varies in different societies and in the cross cultural reception studies
undertaken here, the interpretation of the text can be very different in the decoding from that
originally intended by the producer or encoder when creating the programme. According to
Carl Fischer, producer of SB, he had to attract blacks as an audience fur SB, and this chapter
investigates how the 'audience' responds to the 'political imperative' when the intentionality of
the production team, using humour as a catalyst, addresses sensitive social and cultural issues.
Chapter Six examines the way four focus groups interpret the two episodes from GU III to
arrive at the influences on their engagement in interpreting the programme. In GU III, the plot
centres around situations with which many South African viewers are familiar. The plots used
include attempting to find work and the reality of affirmative action in "A Case of the
Historically Advantages Pale Males" (HA.PMs). The subtext for mixing up video tapes in
"Flexible Asian Models" (FAM) jibes at government inefficiency and points out that adults
have access now to pornography. To participate in the discussion the viewers had to identify
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