How a religious issue of concern to Christians has been dealt with in a TV soap opera.

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Elaine Mealey 11C1

Religion and the Media: RS coursework – part 2

How a religious issue of concern to Christians has been dealt with in a TV soap opera

Religious issues can be indirectly dealt with in soap operas, but they are often not covered because they are too sensitive and may offend some viewers.

The majority of the population including 6 million children (4-14years) watch, one of the many soap operas that are broadcasted on the terrestrial channels.  Soaps dramatise real life with a tendency to normalise rare events, bringing a great source of entertainment and raising many discussions.  As with any programme the channel owner is only interesting in getting high ratings and the most viewers, so soaps have to ‘heighten reality’, or they would get boring.  Many people feel that issues are only raised to boost ratings.

As soaps have so many viewers, they influence and have effect on a number of people.  Soap writers are criticised in every way and are often considered responsible for making youngsters grow up to fast, as it has been proven that people often copy those in soaps, for example when someone committed suicide in a soap opera, the number of suicides that week went up.  But, the writers argue that they have to show bad in order to show good.  They have to show ‘the journey’ of learning wrong in order to do right.   Many viewers feel the government should dictate story lines to tackle issue of concern, but the BBC objects to this as they say there is the danger of propaganda.

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A ‘phone in’ on the ‘Heaven and Earth show’ though proved that 90% of viewers saw soaps as positive as they are generally good on personal relationship issues and the majority of 16-18year olds learnt about issues such as HIV from them.  They considered soaps to be more responsible and progressive in they way they handle issues than in ‘teen magazines’.  Also they considered soaps to be a ‘moral universe’, as they do provide support lines and back up when it is needed.  The other 10% of viewers considered soaps to negative as they don’t cover general issues and ...

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