The aim of this paper is to outline a pragmatic and semiotic approach to the phenomenon of television. It intends to extend its scope beyond the purely descriptive boundaries of semiotics by reflecting on the political, sociological and psychological contexts from within Information Theory itself. In this sense there is a confrontation benveen the "universal" functions which the traditional publicist attributes to television, and the mediating function benveen the State (Referend) and the farnily as the receptor unit. Thus, if the State is represented on television as the unification of divergent social interests, then the farnily guarantees that unity in the face of the disintegrating drive of pleasure by converting it, by means of "leisure time" into a pure viewing enjoyment
