Soap Opera Genre –

Target Audience

Name: Adam FoxCandidate Number: Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic SchoolCenter Number: 64135

OCR Media Studies – A2 Level

Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio

Stereotypical Target AudienceHartley’s 7 Subjectivities - The target audience is stereotypically likely to be females because of the different personalities of the characters. This will stereotypically appeal more to women because they are more sympathetic towards peoples dilemmas and the genre does tend to focus on “the home, domestic tribulations and strong women, and as such, it has been long since said to appeal to the female audience” (Rebeca Feasey – 2007). This is proven in the screenshot (right), which was taken from EastEnders, which depicts thewoman cradling the girl after she breaks down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdHEgNIoKmM Socio-Economic Needs – The stereotypicalviewer of a soap is likely to be in the C2-E categories as they demand more social realism that they can affiliate to. This is evidenced by the broadcasting and scheduling times of popular soap opras. For example ‘EastEnders’ is on at 19:30, ‘Emmerdale’ is on at 20:00 and ‘Hollyoaks’ is on at 18:30. This connotes that the program is aimed at a younger audience as the content is suitable for young people. These scheduling slots are with in the prime time in the TV schedules as people will be watching TV after work. This implies that soap opras are aimed at a mass audiences as the timing ensures maximum number of viewers. These audiences are unlikely to watch highly complex political dramas as they have no relation to the situations displayed, for example ‘House of Cards’.

Stereotypical Target Audience

Psychographics - The stereotypical audience of soap operas are ‘mainstreamers’ as they are likely to follow the conventional social trends this is the case because much of the content of soap operas reflects to this lifestyle, for example the characters all wear casual clothing and there is little brand and product placement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70vVmZ7qDYw This connotes that materialism is not as important to the audience as the themes & issues and characters in the narrative. This also reflects the ‘personal relationship’ factor that is used by Katz to explain our attachment to a television series.

Katz’ Uses & Gratifications theory - Using Katz’ theories the stereotypical audience is use the genre as ‘Excitation transfer’ which that people feel worried about bad things happen to the characters that hey perceive as ‘good’ and good thin happening to ‘bad’ people.Another application of the theory comes from Richard Kilborn (1992:75-84) who argues that soap operas are used for as “a launch pad for social and personal interaction”. However, he also notes that is used to endure and inforce loneliness on the person. This means that soaps make the home life of some people more bearable as it gives them a secure event in their life outside of work, which is proven by the regular running times. Also, the plot in soap operas have a central core that makes people want to watch the entire series, for example the battle between Robert and Cain in Emmerdale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC5KYf8kgaQ