The Soap Opera
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The Survival of Soap Opera
Author: Sam Ford
language: en
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Release Date: 2010-11-03
The soap opera, one of U.S. television's longest-running and most influential formats, is on the brink. Declining ratings have been attributed to an increasing number of women working outside the home and to an intensifying competition for viewers' attention from cable and the Internet. Yet, soaps' influence has expanded, with serial narratives becoming commonplace on most prime time TV programs. The Survival of Soap Opera investigates the causes of their dwindling popularity, describes their impact on TV and new media culture, and gleans lessons from their complex history for twenty-first-century media industries. The book contains contributions from established soap scholars such as Robert C. Allen, Louise Spence, Nancy Baym, and Horace Newcomb, along with essays and interviews by emerging scholars, fans and Web site moderators, and soap opera producers, writers, and actors from ABC's General Hospital, CBS's The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, and other shows. This diverse group of voices seeks to intervene in the discussion about the fate of soap operas at a critical juncture, and speaks to longtime soap viewers, television studies scholars, and media professionals alike.
Soap Opera History
Author: Mary Ann Copeland
language: en
Publisher: Bdd Promotional Book Company
Release Date: 1991-01-01
An introduction to the slow-moving world of soap operas includes reviews of major storylines, histories of how each show began, cast lists, and other information on both daytime and evening serials
Speaking of Soap Operas
From "Ma Perkins" and "One Man's Family" in the 1930s to "All My Children" in the 1980s, the soap opera has capture the imagination of millions of American men and women of all ages. In Speaking of Soap Operas, Robert Allen undertakes a reexamination of the production and consumption of soap operas through the use of a unique investigatory model based on contemporary poetics and reader-response theory. Although a considerable amount of research has been conducted on these programs, Allen argues that soap operas remain a phenomenon about which much is said but little is known. Soap operas are different from most other media programming -- they appear formless, refuse to end, require little work on the part of the viewer, and bear no recognizable marks of authorship. For these and other reasons, soap operas resist explanation from both traditional aesthetic and empiricist social science perspectives. The daytime dramatic serials generate nearly a billion dollars in revenue each year for the three commercial networks. Allen discusses in detail the economic and institutional functions of these programs in addition to the context of their production. He also considers the historical development of the soap opera as advertising vehicle, narrative structure and "women's fiction." Speaking of Soap Operas is based on the author's own experiences as a soap opera viewer; extensive interviews with soap opera writers, producers, and actors; and the papers of Irna Phillips, creator of dozens of successful ratio and television soap operas. Drawing also upon trade publications, popular periodicals, and broadcast archives, this work is an important contribution to the field of mass communication.