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Discussion programmes, long dominated by the 'debate' model, were gradually superseded on French television in the mid-eighties by a new model known in professional and critical discourse by the generic term 'talk show'. This change can be imputed to a shift in the 'communicational imagination' of the professionals (presenters and producers) on whom the process of mediating these programmes depends. If we extend our investigation to include Europe and North America, we find that there are in fact several models, each fulfilling a different social function, which can broadly be described as 'talk shows'. The emergence and proliferation of such shows provides an effective indicator of a new relationship between television and its public, and of a new way of regulating programme schedules. It also makes possible a reconsideration of the elaboration of both internal and external communication contracts for studio performances in general.

This article offers a way of categorising viewers' involvement in Television by type of response, with particular reference to popular soap operas. It postulates four types of viewer engagement, each capable of further elaboration and of co-existing within the same person. The author also explores the ambivalence of viewer engagement and the relative effectiveness of its positive and negative aspects.

The present article examines the various modes of mutual involvement used by participants in videophonic interaction. It describes the different strategies implemented by users to adapt to the technical device and create an 'adequate' interactional frame. By means of a detailed analysis of videophonic calls the author highlights the intrinsic, locally produced organization of this mode of communication.

French television, which until recently was no more than an intermediary between the establishment and the general public, developed a new type of programme in the 1990s based on emotion, confession and individual messages. The 'television of intimacy' provoked strong criticism for its voyeuristic and exhibitionist aspects and for abusing its power by actively intervening in public life. In this conclusion to her book La Télévision de l'intimité, the author argues that the new programmes meet a need to express expectations, hopes and criticisms that the social fabric does not satisfy.

The television sitcom 'Hélène et les garçons' engendered a social phenomenon in France in the early nineties. Drawing on a questionnaire, interviews, observations and an analysis of fan mail, the author shows how the programme (a soap opera about college life) served as a medium for the definition of gender identity among pre-adolescents and adolescents. Reception of the series is characterized by a dual logic of intimate appropriation - based on emotional links with the characters - and collective negotiation of identities - based on interaction within peer groups and the family.

This article examines reactions to Menie Grégoire's radio confession programme (RTL, 1967-1981). The author argues that when biographical suffering is projected into the public sphere the listener's moral engagement needs to be questioned in a specific way, and that such questioning clarifies the different frameworks of participation contracted between the programme and its public. By studying a corpus of listener mail, three forms of engagement in the programme are identified: pity, appropriation and indignation. Each of these experiences introduces a particular way of representing personal problems in the public sphere (consolation, understanding and justice) and accompanies specific descriptions of ordinary uses of the programme. Hence, the question of social learning through the media cannot be understood independently of listeners' emotional involvement and justifications vis-à-vis the programme.

French national television channels in the 1980s felt they had to put out political programmes in mid-evening for reasons of prestige and because politicians wanted their opinions aired in time to catch the first editions of the daily papers. Unfortunately, most viewers were not interested in the clichéd studio format, which led programme makers to inject a note of showbusiness into their offerings. The authors show how one pioneering programme. Questions à domicile, tried to cater to a target audience by interviewing politicians in their homes, and explain why it failed.

There is a dimension of television that the compartmentalization of research into the relationship between children, television and school helps to conceal: its status as 'cognitive terminal', independent of programme content. This dimension is approached here in three ways: through the current perception of television as entertainment, which distorts judgments on its usefulness as a source of learning; through the cultural diversity of ways of watching television, which makes the 'TV effecť just as much a class phenomenon as other sources of social inequality; and through the cognitive modality peculiar to television, which contrasts the conventional monolithic model long propagated by the school system with a model of knowledge as an interpretive and relational process. In this sense, entertainment-oriented 'neotelevision' does not stand in opposition to the more didactic 'palaeotelevision' , but they do represent different educational models reflecting two types of society. Hence the need to 'make television less exotic', both in the classroom and in research into its cognitive effects.