The Morley article takes the passover seder as an illustration of the concept of the hugeness of an audience being transposed into an intimate register. Ryan and Katz imply that, in the same fashion, disperesed TV audiences are reunited in the home by means of diasporic ceremony, whereby attendance takes place in small groups.
I can see how this holds in terms of the transmission of a top down message. But I see a core limit to this comparison.
A Passover seder is a matter of tell the same millennial story every single year and to discuss how its lessons and values are relevant at the present moment. I think that's the complete opposite of the idea of gathering to absorb new content on TV, which aims at bringing new, exciting, current entertainment to audiences. By "new" I mean "already optimized for its current audience." The audience is exposed to a message that is buried in layers of current-day communication trappings in. In other words, the "new"content, whether it vehicles new or time-old ideas, packaged in an optimized and attractive manner, reflects its emitter (which/who has a targeted agenda).
The Passover seder is the opposite paradigm: it consists in taking a time-old message (unattractive, seemingly passe' etc) and in discussing how it is relevant in the present moment.
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