The Pleasure of Dynasty: The Weekly Reconstruction of Self-Confidence.

The Dynasty Project conducted an empirical analysis of the cross-cultural reception of the program for which it was named. Data were collected via two series of videotaped interviews which were carried out following a viewing of Dynasty episode 105 by a group of subjects together with the researchers. The subjects were 25 American viewers in Los Angeles and 16 Danish Dynasty regulars in the Copenhagen area. Specific findings are described in a qualitative fashion and analyzed from the following perspectives: (1) the interdisciplinary nature of the Dynasty Project; (2) the project's lack of sympathy for and cultural elitist attitudes toward commercial television fiction and toward popular culture in general; (3) television's function as the main forum for collective cultural processes; (4) liminal processes; (5) the "hegemonic effect" of television; (6) the theory of heteroglossia; (7) the reasons for audience addiction to Dynasty; (8) the extent of viewer involvement with the program; (9) the notion of distance; and (10) Dynasty as the interminable hermeneutic puzzle. (12 endnotes and 25 references) (CGD)