Negotiation of Cultural Themes in Malayalam Serials: A Study of Kalyani

Culture has a decisive say in people’s lives, attitudes, lifestyles and beliefs. The cultural components are transmitted through interactions between individuals. Mass media also play an important role in preserving and passing along cultural characteristics from one generation to the other. The focus of the study was the negotiation of cultural themes in Malayalam television serials, namely Kalyani. Negotiation is a complex cognitive process wherein the audience tends to understand and interpret the meaning of the text based on their frames of reference. The data generated from the sample was analysed to assess the manner of reading of Kalyani text based on the triadic (dominant, negotiated and oppositional) reading of a media text proposed by Stuart Hall. The audience of Kalyani largely made a dominant reading, that is, they subscribed to the intended meaning of the producers in terms of the frames of reference/the central themes of the serial.

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