Soap Operas

Soap operas have been around a long time and are watched by millions of people from a very wide range of age and society backgrounds. The term soap opera comes from the fact that when the TV serials first came out, they were sponsored by the major soap producing companies. In this informative essay, I intend to provide you with a brief introduction to the features involved in most soap operas, including characterization and the structure of soaps. In addition I will look into why soaps have become so popular and how the soap producers make sure they remain popular through different skills of marketing and target audience.

There are a number of features that are common to most soap operas. They all have a serial structure and are generally broadcast daily or three or four times weekly, a good example is “East Enders” which is shown every weekday evening. Almost all soaps are based on family themes with several stories developing at the same time, such as “Neighbours” or “Coronation Street”. This is often to create a contrast between the lighthearted stories and the more serious one. All soaps are set in a small community or country, for example, “East Enders” is set in a London residential area whilst “Neighbours” is set in an Australian town or village. Furthermore, there is often a bar or café where all the characters can meet, gossip and socialize. Usually, in most soap operas the same characters will be caste episode after episode and along with the community background, as the soap matures, a sense of history is created. For example, some character have been with “East Enders” for as long as forty years and those characters have virtually lived out their lives in “East Enders”. Finally, to increase viewer numbers and create publicity for a soap opera, most soaps try to entice their viewer by ending their episode in cliff hangers, and on certain days of the year, such as Christmas, the cliffhangers will be even more dramatic so the best effect can be achieved.

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All soaps are targeted at a wide range of audience and certain techniques are used by the programme makers to reach these people. These is firstly achieved by having a wide appeal, because several story lines are developing at the same time, the viewer can at least identify with one of the stories no matter what age or background he or she comes from. Secondly, on certain days of the year, story lines generally gets more and more dramatic as tension builds up to something big happening, this will dramatically increase the number of people who will watch soaps. ...

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