Soap Opera Poster Research

Because it was so difficult finding a billboard advertising a soap opera, I used an image of a Hollyoaks poster found on the internet. I have made annotations and analysed the poster in terms of fonts, images, words and colours.

Soap Opera Magazine Cover Research

To understand what attracts audiences to soap opera events and storylines, I have purchased 'Soaplife' magazine and analysed the front cover. I have made annotations on what stands out and the effect this has on the consumer.

Soap Opera Trailers Showing Times

I've noted down the times of the soap opera trailers I saw while watching TV, as well as the channel, the programmes they were shown between and the soap names. This contributes towards my research as it gives me an insight into the logic of soap operas advertising at a certain time on a certain channel.

Saturday - 27/08/11

• On BBC 1 after Doctor Who, an Eastenders trailer was shown at 8:00pm
• On BBC 1 after the BBC News, an Eastenders trailer was shown at 10:00pm
• On E4 in the break for The Inbetweeners Countdown, a Hollyoaks trailer was shown at 10:45pm

Thursday - 01/09/11

• On BBC 1 after Watchdog, an Eastenders trailer was shown at 9:00pm

Noticeably, all of the Eastenders trailers were shown in the evening. This is likely to be because Eastenders shows at 7:30pm or 8:00pm, and is trying to attract new audiences that watch television at a similar time.

Hollyoaks normally comes on between late afternoon and early evening. One reason why it may have advertised at 10:45pm is so it can advertise more content that may not be allowed to air before the watershed. This would attract a younger, more lively audience as young people tend to stay up and watch television until late at night.

Both soap operas have advertised on their home channels. This shows that they are trying to attract existing viewers of that channel to their soap. This may be because they are trying to make it more convenient for the viewer to simply stay on the channel they watch regularly, or because they will associate the soap opera with that channel and remember it in the future.

Soap Opera Episodes Analysis

As a part of my research, I have analysed 4 different soap opera episodes to get a clearer understanding of what they may contain and what kind of patterns and similarities soaps share. I will be looking at the characters, the setting, the number of scenes, the evident story lines and the representation of sexuality, ethnicity, social class and gender.

Findings

The main similarity between all 4 soaps is that they are all set in domestic locations that tend to be common in lots of cities, towns and villages. By using characters that visit popular domestic locations, such as pubs and cafes, the audience can relate to the location and engage with the characters.

Another shared similarity is the mix of Caucasian and ethnic characters. Although there are some mixed race characters in each soap, the majority of the characters are Caucasian. This suggests that soaps tend to use tokenism to broaden their range of audiences, and create a sense of verisimilitude by including members of society from other ethnic backgrounds.

The final significant similarity is the number of storylines portrayed. The fewest storylines found in an episode is 4, while the most found is 8 storylines. This shows that soaps are consistently moving and developing storylines to keep their audience tuned in.

When creating our soap opera trailer, we will follow these conventions by:

• Filming in locations that are domestic and typically found in existing soap operas
• Including characters of different ethnic backgrounds
• Keeping several storylines going at once to keep our viewers' attention