Reception of the soap opera Plus belle la vie

While most studies on the reception of TV series have focused on the most engaged viewers, this article analyses the “weak reception” of a daily serial, Plus Belle La Vie. Its very large audience, longevity and daily schedule represented an opportunity to interview a wide variety of viewers who watched the show quite regularly or more occasionally. The article examines the links between attention and attachment, by looking at the practical aspects of viewing, its modalities, and the different ways of engaging in a practice. The survey shows that a low level of attention does not preclude emotional investment in television fiction. For some of the respondents, this attachment develops when the viewing of the soap opera becomes a moment taken for themselves, i.e. a time out that allows them to release the tensions of daily life. For others, it is based on the conversations it generates and on the family relationships (and sometimes friendships) that watching the soap opera sustains. The analysis is based on collective research conducted from 2014 to 2016 with Plus Belle la Vie viewers, as part of a training workshop on sociological inquiry. The 29 interviews and 14 observations carried out allowed us to constitute a sample of individuals with varied profiles (regarding age, gender, and social class), and thus to articulate reception to its social embeddedness.