Abstract EN:

Based primarily on case studies of regular program viewers, this research initially explores the ways in which the viewer's reception of the tv program, considered as an "affective" experience , is strongly conditioned by social, institutional and textual determinations. However, the research also demonstrates that social differentiation, as it occurs within the relationship between viewers and tv programs, cannot be reduced to a mechanical process of reproduction. Social differentiation is a process which is subtile, complex and not always predictible. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of this process and of the singularities in the individual viewer's tv consumption, as well as the progressive influence of the theoretical interactionist perspective, leads us finally to consider the experience of the ritual viewing of a tv program as a specific form of socialization. This form of socialization can be defined as the dynamic interplay between the tv viewer's subjective awareness, as it relates in particular to his affective experience, and the network of determinations which condition tv consumption. From this perspective, the tv viewing ritual can be seen as an intentional act of reproduction and not just as a blind and mechanical behaviour. This intentional act is not limited to the desire of conformity. The tv viewing ritual as an intentional act is motivated by the expectation of affective and or symbolic benefits (such as pleasure, meanings or personal solutions) and, in some cases, by the expectation of the social benefit of integration within the collectivity.