In democratic societies television is neither an institution nor a market, but a mediated public space in which symbolic representations of the world, society and identities are configured, each reflecting the intensity of cultural conflicts. Thus, the production, use and representations of television are simply different stages in the same configuring mediation of social relations: production is televisual translation of debates in the public sphere; reception constitutes links in a continuum between spectatorial experience and the configuring actions of mediated representations in the culture industries and public sphere; and, lastly, television representations are the situated expression of identity compromises of each national society.