Women`s Interpretations and Decoding of Television Soap Opera Case Study ;Women of Ilam and Faseleha Soap Opera

Abstract

This research is an attempt to study the interpretations and decodings of a soap opera called Faseleha by women of Elam. The theoretical approach of this research is that which has been developed in cultural studies to study television audiences. The main question is this: which ideas and values are dominant and taken for granted in Faseleha, and how do audiences (here, women of Elam) interpret and decode the preferred reading of the text and which discourses are available for them and inform them in this process. In the first section, we have used semiology to to illuminate the preferred reading of the text and, in the second section, we have studied women readings by way of focused group interview. The findings showed that the audiences read Faseleha very differently and actively, they are not passive consumers.

Keywords

• active audiences
• decoding
• discourse
• encoding
• organic ideology
• preferred readings