Expectancy, value approach towards and evaluation of soap operas

 Course Project 1 Expectancy, value approach towards and evaluation of soap operas (criminal series, etc.). The research question of this research paper is what viewers expect from soap operas and do soap operas effect the people on thinking. The paper looks for a general meaning of soap opera in viewers’ lives, how they analyze it. The research topic is called ‘Expectancy, value approach towards and evaluation of soap operas (criminal series, etc.)’. It is theory-guided. Such kind of researches need surveys in books, Internet, oral or online interviews, and television. During my research I will mostly concentrate on Internet and television programs. The problem of a research question comes to finding the values of television series, as well as lacks. That will help to decide whether soaps need some changes later. Also this research is a good key for soap opera makers. In case to improve their series-making industry, it is good for them to know audience’s opinion, wishes, and also worldwide statistics on soap operas. The goal of this research paper is to develop a felicitous strategy of creating a superlative soap opera or other kinds of television series. Also to find out information on how to satisfy people’s needs of soap opera. The goal will come out of an analysis of soaps and viewers contemplation. The research object is expectations towards soap-operas and what audience would prefer to change in it. Soap operas are entertaining shows for the viewers. Therefore, basic research goal is to find their needs in this entertainment. The topic is useful because it is really important to keep in mind what viewers keep in value of soap operas. What is significant for them. By this research I want to compare nowadays soap operas to those, which audience would really like to watch. Analyze it’s strenght and weeknesses. Explore the showbusiness itself. The paper starts with the review of available general information on soap operas taken from Internet. Then it fluently switches to analyzing the audience, also to the small conspectus of different soaps’ percentage of popularity in Baltic States. According to that, afterwards I will analyze one of the most popular soap series, ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’. A few following pages are about soaps’ characters and the role of television in everyday life. It’s importance and why it is different from any other kind of media. Then, according to my survey, I will explain what do people think about soap operas. After all, I will conclude and analyze the strategy, which arose during the process of a research. The whole research paper has mostly theoretical approach. It is based on statistics and data on soap series. So the problem is basically researched through the general information on topic and individual opinion as well. It is pretty hard to say when was the first soap opera created. Probably by the same time as television and radio were established. “The serial narrative format of the early soap opera was almost certainly inspired by the primetime success of ‘Amos 'n' Andy’, the comic radio serial about "black" life on the south side of Chicago (the show was written and performed by two white men), which by 1930 was the most popular radio show to that time.” (Robert C. Allen) One thing is clear, that it was popular right from the beginning of its industry. Television and radio have a great value nowadays. Therefore, it is not a big deal to imagine what popularity it had those times. It was something new then. People are always interested in something new. “In the United States, the term "soap opera" has never been value-neutral. To call a film, novel, or play a "soap opera" is to label it as culturally and aesthetic inconsequential and unworthy.” (Robert C. Allen) Soap operas subsist like an independent individual. Like a human. They exist. They make a lot of speeches and gossips around itself. It is also probably the only one of television genres, which makes so many discourses. “The term ‘soap opera’ was coined by the American press in the 1930’s to denote the extraordinarily popular genre of serialized domestic radio dramas, which, by 1940, represented some 90% of all commercially-sponsored daytime broadcast hours.” (Robert C. Allen) The popularity of soap serials escalated. It became a social entertainment. “On the eve of World War II, listeners could choose from among sixty-four daytime serials broadcast each week.” (Robert C. Allen) Nowadays the term ‘soap opera’ raises only few questions about its definition. Everybody knows what is a talk about. “For example, when in the early 1990’s the fabric of domestic life amongst the British royal family began to unravel, the press around the world began to refer to the situation as a "royal soap opera," which immediately framed it as tawdry, sensational, and undignified.” (Robert C. Allen) Nevertheless, it had a prime meaning, which arose back in the 1930’s. “The ‘soap’ in soap opera alluded to their sponsorship by manufacturers of household cleaning products; while ‘opera’ suggested an ironic incongruity between the domestic narrative concerns of the daytime serial and the most elevated of dramatic forms.” (Robert C. Allen) Nevertheless, not all the serials were sponsored by ‘soap’ companies. “Such soap serials as ‘Abie’s Irish rose’ (sponsored by Special Drene shampoo), ‘Hotel for pets’ (sponsored by Puss ’n Boots Cat Food), and ‘The guiding light’ (sponsored by Procter & Gamble) were sponsored by NON-soap companies for at least part of their tenure.” (The Original Old Time Radio Page) Soap opera is a part of a movie industry, television, and storytelling. “The story of soap opera always deals with people, their life experiences, arranged in a dependable rhythm of crises.”(Stanley Kaufmann) Most soap watchers consider that the story is a thing that brings the whole soap opera to life. “The best feature in the soap opera is its story which portrays the characters and you get involved with them. That makes you not miss even single episode.” (Kishen Paswan) The ending of the story is happy in most cases. The characters become friends to the viewers, so the ending must not let them down. “The story evokes an underlying confidence that we will be stimulated, but not torn. That there is an authority, a vicar for divinity, to ensure that things will come out well for most of the characters we care about.”(Stanley Kaufmann) Turning out the worst features of soap serials, it is mostly considered to be their similarity to each other. Most of them involve family problems, big number of ex-wives of a rich individual, etc. According to my research, other worst features are: low quality acting and scripts, predictable events, and slow progress of a story. “Soap operas can be also characterized as serial form which resists narrative closure.”(Brown) It is a dramatic part of characters’ lives, which ends when all the tragedies seen during the story have been solved. “In the soap operas there is always multiple characters and plot.”(Brown) It gives a variety in choosing your favorite character. “Soap opera is a genre containing many familiar characters whose personalities, for example, could be contrasted and compared by the audience.” (Sonia Livingstone) The narrativeness of soap opera, for sure, explains the great meaning of it’s story. Nevertheless, narrative can be also divided to some other parts. “Soap operas are of two basic narrative types: ‘open’ soap operas, in which there is no end point toward which the action of the narrative moves; and ‘closed’ soap operas, in which, no matter how attenuated the process, the narrative does eventually close.” (Robert C. Allen) That types lead to a better understanding of narrative, and also an easier analyzing. “Examples of the open soap opera would include all U.S. daytime serials ‘General Hospital’, ‘All My Children’, ‘The Guiding Light’, etc. The closed soap opera is more common in Latin America, where it dominates primetime programming from Mexico to Chile.” (Robert C. Allen) The story is always shown from the different aspects and points of view of characters. Significant part is showing characters trying to solve their problems. “Dialogues and intimate conversations are always the main hooks of the soap operas.”(Brown) Moreover, soap operas are sometimes compared with ballads. There are some similarities between them. “Both plots of soaps and ballads concern family relationships (especially fidelity); they turn on information versus deception; women and women's concerns are central; there is pleasure in the recognition of familiar plots and pleasure in variation from the familiar”(Brown and Barwick) On the other side soaps sometimes have same characteristics as a detective genre movie. “They involve a play between what the viewer/listener knows, what the character knows and what the addressee knows.”(Brown and Barwick) All statistics or believes of life are controversial here. “Male characters are sensitive men. Female characters are often professional and powerful in the world outside the home.”(Brown) The settings of all kinds of soap operas are almost the same. Most scenes happen in the one major place. “It is often a home, or some other place which functions as a home.”(Brown) Soaps are sometimes nearly connected to culture and society. The often reflect the real life. “Much of the subsequent development of soap operas as a narrative dramatic form has been shaped by the economies of the broadcasting media, but because of the responsiveness of the producers to the pleasure of the audience soap operas have maintained a much more direct link with the domestic sphere than have many other televisual forms. Women talk about the soap operas, too, and thereby incorporate them into their own networks of friendship with other women.”(Brown and Barwick) Soap operas like any other entertainment industry are closely connected to business. They are meant to keep audience in front of television set even during the commercials. “Soap operas are developed largely to provide an audience for soap ads.”(Brown and Barwick) Some of nowadays soaps are specially created to advertise the product. “Many American soap operas are still produced by advertising agencies for soap companies.”(Brown and Barwick) To be honest, ‘soap’ advertising appeared already in the times of World War II. “To illustrate, Procter and Gamble established its own radio soap opera production subsidiary in 1940, produced the first network television soap opera in 1950.” (Robert C. Allen) Therefore, it can be certainly said that television soap serials turned out from their ancestors radio serials. Some first television serials were simply remade from the radio ones. One of such remakes was ‘The First Hundred Years’. Whereas it was one of the first soap serials, it for sure had much instability. “It demonstrated some of the problems of transplanting the radio genre to television.” (Robert C. Allen) It was hard times for soap opera makers. They had to create new, unseen television genre. “Everything that was left to the listener's imagination in the radio soap had to be given visual form on television.” (Robert C. Allen) Moreover, the business side of it was inexperienced. It is basically the same as sponsoring a new food product. “Production costs were two to three times that of a radio serial.” (Robert C. Allen) Thereto, nobody knew if it ever be worse of it. It was really unclear and hard to measure the potential audience of soap serials on television. Therefore, it cast much doubts and disorientation. “One could listen to a radio soap while doing other things, even in another room; television soaps required some degree of visual attention.” (Robert C. Allen) Nevertheless, it has finally gained a respect and attention. It has become popular among various other entertainment media. “By the early 1960’s, the radio soap opera, along with most aspects of network radio more generally, was a thing of the past, and ‘soap opera’ in the United States now meant ‘television soap opera’.” (Robert C. Allen) It has even completely flushed out radio soap series. “The last network radio soap operas went off the air in November 1960.” (Robert C. Allen) Afterwards came tough competitions between broadcasting companies, single serials, and producers. “By the early 1970’s, head writers were under enormous pressure to attain the highest ratings possible. ‘Win’ the ratings race against the competition in the show's time slot, target the show's plots at the demographic group of most value to advertisers, take into account the production-budget implications, and maintain audience interest every week without pauses for summer hiatus or reruns” (Robert C. Allen) The question of why people watch soap operas can be answered in multiple ways. People accept and understand this kind of narrative story differently. “The best feature of soap opera is this effect of ‘to be continued’. It is always interesting what will be next.” (Sergei Bespalov) Nevertheless, there are always many people watching soap serials. “Even a long time ago, by the 1980’s some fifty million persons in the United States ‘followed’ one or more soap operas, including two-thirds of all women living in homes with televisions.” (Robert C. Allen) It is, it was and will always be a cultural phenomenon. It can be also compared to a phenomenon of ‘The Beatles’ in the 1960’s. “Ironically, soap opera viewing became the basis for a public fan culture in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s in part because more and more of the soap opera audience was unavailable during the day to watch.” (Robert C. Allen) For some it was a bad affair, but not for businessmen. According to this fanatism, they even found a new way of making money. “By 1982 ten new magazines had been launched that addressed the soap opera fan. They contained plot synopses of all current soaps. Sometimes they also featured profiles of soap opera actors, ‘behind-the-scenes’ articles on soap opera production, and letters-to-the-editor columns in which readers could respond to particular soap characters and plot developments.” (Robert C. Allen) One of such highly profitable magazines was ‘Soap opera digest.’ Which was launched from 1975’s. The study of people’s soap viewing helps us to understand different perspectives. “British soaps have developed within a public service broadcasting ethos and there remains in them with the determination to ‘inform, educate and entertain’.”(Sonia M. Livingstone) Some individuals compare television with a place of no worries. “Here they escape from their own problems. Escape to a world of glamour.”(Sonia M. Livingstone) According to my research, 33 % of people asked said depending on their opinion that the main reason why people watch serials is that it makes them move far away from the real world. Sometimes individuals like to compare soap opera characters’ lives with their own ones. For some people it helps to understand that your life is not so bad as you think. “Seeing Kosovan refuges helps you to reflect that maybe ‘things could be worse’.”(Sonia M. Livingstone) Some individuals even pretend to be the characters of soap operas. “While watching the serial you think you are a hero, like Don Pedro or Juan Charlos.” (Marina Drugakova) A few of this kind of watchers even imagine their life inside the ‘television set’, inside ‘the story’. It possibly helps them to create something new, unseen in their lives. “It helps my grandmother. She lives in those operas.” (Karolis Pelegrimas) Soap operas are also news bringers. Characters often discuss real life problems and ideas. “Television is a part of what’s going on in the world.”(Sonia M. Livingstone) Nevertheless, sometimes people find watching soaps as a waist of time. Some others think that it is not an intellectual show. “Most men and many women are discouraged from watching soap operas by the labeling of the form as trashy, banal, insignificant, and the characterization of the audience as besotted working-class housewives”(Brown and Barwick) It is thought that women are the major viewers of soap operas. “It basically attracts only the interest of unemployed women.” (Laurynas Ramuckis) Therefore housewives spend most of their time at home near the television sets. “Also it has been said that this is a ‘feminine’ genre, there is no dominant, linear, closed message; no orderly, authoritative meaning.” (Sonia Livingstone) “The soap opera reflects the pleasure that women get from talking: the orality of women's domestic culture.”(Brown and Barwick) Moreover, women are considered to liking gossips. “The soaps not only provide women pleasure in watching and listening but they also provide a source of gossip. Thus women watching soaps may feel in a privileged position as members of a group who in fact know a soap family well enough to gossip about it.”(Brown and Barwick) Soaps considered to be based on characters communicating rumors. “Soaps depend on dialogue, on people telling other people about other people, gives soaps the irresistible pull of gossip. In the gossips, new information constantly takes the plot backwards and reworks it. Often in soaps a character is kept in the dark while the audience knows the secret. ”(Brown and Barwick) There is no final truth in soap series. It is one more thing that makes it similar to rumors. “There is a lack of final judgment as to whose truth is 'really' true, is, like gossip, always open to further development. Furthermore, the source of any one statement in a gossip chain is frequently lost, so that the gossip becomes a collective discourse composed of nuances and additional speculation added on the way by one speaker or another.”(Brown and Barwick) “Internationally, the most conspicuous and important development in the soap opera genre over the past twenty years has not involved the production, reception, or export of American soap operas, but rather the extraordinary popularity of domestic television serials in Latin America, India, Great Britain, Australia, and other countries.” (Robert C. Allen) Close to that, soap operas are quite popular among the viewers of Baltic States. They are even considered to be ones of the most popular shows on Baltic Televisions. According to the Baltic Media Book 2000, in 1999 Estonian serial ‘Õnne 13’ (‘Happiness 13’) on Estonian national television has gathered 26,1 % of viewers. Latvian soap opera ‘Tiesibas milet’ (‘Truth loving’) has picked 16,8 % on Latvian national television. ‘Maria Isabele’ serial has collected 25,1 % of audience on Lithuanian TV3 channel. A soap opera ‘The bold and the beautiful’ is considered to be quite popular in Estonia and Latvia. It has got 10,8 % on Estonian TV3 and 7,9 % on Latvian LTV1. “Ironically, American producers never seriously exploited the international market possibilities for daytime soap operas until the export success of Latin American serials in the 1980s, and now find themselves following the lead of TV Globo and Venezuela's Radio Caracas. NBC's ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’, set in the fashion industry, is the first U.S. daytime soap to attract a substantial international following.” (Robert C. Allen) Just like any other soap opera, ‘The bold and the beautiful’ is a narrative story about some particular group of people. “Unlike episodic television programs, in which there is no narrative linkage between episodes, the viewer's understanding of and pleasure in any given serial installment is predicated, to some degree, upon his or her knowledge of what has happened in previous episodes.” (Robert C. Allen) Every single part of the whole serial can tell a lot to the viewer who hasn’t seen other parts. Nevertheless, the whole serial means a different thing. “The defining quality of the soap opera form is its seriality.” (Robert C. Allen) Acting is good in this soap opera. A look of an actress can tell much from previous parts. To illustrate, in a part where the narrative comes to a wedding of two persons in love, we can notice that mothers of both sides are in bad relationship between each other. But we can say nothing about a couple. In this part the main point is that they are in love. They care about nothing else now. We see how they are happy now. Here a soap opera shows real life once again. So that soap fans can compare it to their own lives. The characters of soap series are different from the characters of any other television genre. “In other genres, characters cannot undergo changes that transcend any given episode, and they seldom reference events from previous episodes.” (Robert C. Allen) Soap characters are created differently. They have their own, significant, special attributes. “They do change across episodes (they age and even die), and they possess both histories and memories.” (Robert C. Allen) Soap opera characters are, of course, different from movie characters. They act according to some soap opera rules. “They talk in clichés, they talk to themselves, they talk on the telephone, they lie, they dissemble, they encourage others to get it off their chests, to confess, to tell it like it is.”(Brown and Barwick) Voice over is used in ‘The bold and the beautiful’ too. For instance, in the same part about marriage, it is used to show how does a wife feel about her husband. Along with the main idea of a particular part there is parallel things going on. For example, during the wedding, some other people talk about it somewhere else. Their talk is based on psychoanalysis of marring couple relationship’s meaning. So that we can say that this part not only explains, but also shows us some rational explanation of this kind of life situation. In most cases each of the series has 2 or more acts going on at the same moment. The editing is parallel. The sequence of those acts goes one after another. Family psychology takes place in every single part of the soap opera. Also there is always someone with some logical ideas and explanations of the current situation. Family love is one of the most represented things here. But even if everything is completely alright in family relations, there is always someone to spoil the peace. For instance, in one of the series, a divorced couple has just reformed their bad relationship. They could not decide who would keep their child before. After they have decided friendly, a jealous woman has kidnapped the baby. Feelings of love in ‘The bold and the beautiful’ are shown in words. One part of the couple always talks a lot, explaining his or her emotions. To illustrate, Ridge Forrester (played by Ronn Moss) talking to his wife Taylor Hayes Forrester (played by Hunter Tylo). “Silence represents something sacred to me. My commitment to you. Last time I was here, I was on a mission. I never really done anything like that before. Chasing a woman thousands of miles to give her my heart, my soul. To give her the rest of my life. I want to do that again. Because I think you deserve it.” (Ridge Forrester) ‘The bold and the beautiful’ has also used some ways of filming an action movie. A suspense manner is used here too. To illustrate, in one of the series we listen to the talk of two ladies about a child who has died. If we have seen no previous series, we would understand it, as he was a child of one of those talking ladies. After some other talks, we understand that that same lady is responsible for the death of that child. But he is not her child. As the action goes further, we perceive the same fact with the statistics of our first meaning of the situation. In the end of most series, all acts get closer to each other and then finally cross. For instance, one of the actions is about family talk between mother and two sons. Another action is women talking at some industrial fabric. The connection between these two acts appears when one of those men asks where is other’s wife. He answers that she is at the fabric with some business. The floor of the filming takes place in a big house in most cases. That’s why scenes, which are meant to be outside the house are often not really good and realistic. To illustrate, a scene, in which the family is on the plane to some island, is shot in an ordinary room. That’s why it does not look realistic. Only talks or voice-overs let us know where the scene takes place. Endings of the series are mostly with some suspense or otherwise with some explanations of the feelings or the whole meaning of the scene. “Moreover, each serial episode always leaves narrative loose ends for the next episode to take up.” (Robert C. Allen) Nowadays television has become a major medium for people to get information of any kind. “In it people ordinarily share experiences of the same complex, social ‘messages’.” (Sonia Livingstone) It is a message board for receiving, sending, arguing and solving current affairs, shows and news. “Moreover, mass media is seen as a source of biased messages, as a convenient and apparently neutral sample of believes and attitudes in society, or as a channel of social influence which simply supplements or overrides face-to-face influence, assuming that they appear at all.” (Sonia Livingstone) What makes it different from other media is that it consists of all of them. To illustrate, it contains audio, video, text and voice over files. It means that television has all that from radio, newspapers and photo images. “In soap opera, there is no simple speaker-hearer relationship although nor is the relationship simply one of passive reception: viewers are engaged in ‘parasocial interactions’, as if engaging with real people, they participate without passive identification. They blur boundaries between viewing and living by endless 'what happened then' discussions and by bringing their everyday experience to judge the drama.” (Sonia Livingstone) ‘Message’ in television, or especially in soap operas, is one of unstable statistics. It means the conclusion of all the show. “What makes it unstable, is that a ‘message’ is inevitably made plural, open to interpretation.” (Sonia Livingstone) Television watching from day to day becomes more important part of our lives. It is a great teacher for us. “Nevertheless, watching television has often been seen as a passive process. The viewer is seen as passively receptive and mindless.” (Sonia Livingstone) But all that is just an old facts and opinions about television. “This simplicity is illusory.” (Sonia Livingstone) This is a false imagination and untrue statistics. “Nowadays people’s role in such communications must be understood as knowledgeable, skilled, motivated, and diverse.” (Sonia Livingstone) It doesn’t matter if anyone says that television will never be a real substitute for books or teachers. Most individuals think so. “Nevertheless, television has come to dominate the hours in our day. The organization of our living rooms. The topics of our conversations. Our conceptions of pleasure. The things to which we look forward. The way we amuse and occupy our children, and the way we discover the world we live in.” (Sonia Livingstone) We also would probably never be bored in front of a television set. It gives us a portion of a day’s communication. “Moreover, we often do not remember whether we learnt of a certain fact from a friend or television.” (Sonia Livingstone) Both these communication ways are rather similar. “Both face-to-face and mediated interactions can be seen as providing people with texts to be interpreted, and in both situations, people are the readers, whether they read the concerns of their actual family, for example, or those of the situation comedy family.” (Sonia Livingstone) Television plays a huge role in children’s lives. “Children are using a common knowledge base to understand both television and everyday life.” (Sonia Livingstone) Most children’s knowledge comes from parents as well as television. For example, non-English speaking children’s watching of American cartoons leads to the understanding of the language. The topic is important for managing the film. In this research project there is a sense to make an index here. It will be a formula for a good soap opera. An index of what a best soap-opera consist of. Therefore, here is an example of such formula: Profitable soap-opera = Film + Drama + Values + Satisfied expectations. Here we can see some kind of a ‘shopping list’ for a soap-opera to make. One of the most important things is to give audience what do they expect. The validity is external in this research, because the results are significant not only in the Baltic States (where the research has been made), but also all around the globe. According to the thing that it is important in film making, no matter where it is supposed to be made. The economical and business side of soap opera making is highly profitable. “Derided by critics and disdained by social commentators from the 1930’s to the 1990’s, the soap opera is nevertheless the most effective and enduring broadcast-advertising vehicle ever devised.” (Robert C. Allen) It has left a huge, noticeable line in the history of television genres after itself. “It is the most popular genre of television drama in the world today and probably in the history of world broadcasting: no other form of television fiction has attracted more viewers in more countries over a longer period of time.” (Robert C. Allen) To conclude, in this research we have analyzed the television series. We have found out it’s business parts, it’s history, and it’s sponsorship. What else can be added, is that soap serials are still in development. Just like any other industry, it is never done completely successful. It always needs some changes according to the expectations and times changing. Out of the formula, which rose from the analysis, it is possible to get a clue which parts of this industry need most changes. They are values and expectations. Soap opera makers must always base their serial on a good, interesting, thrilling plot. Nevertheless, the story should always be unseen, different from any other television show, especially soap operas. It also should never let expectations down. Moreover, plot’s events should always be unpredictable. That is actually a big lack of nowadays television soap serials. Therefore, soap opera creators should make the story narrative unguessable, but at the same time it should not end with something completely different. It can be said that the story has to be mixed and riddled. The ending should give audience a surprise. Something more than they were expecting. Nevertheless, scripts and actors should be improved too. Otherwise, soap serials are still middle class television shows. Outside the house scenes also need some progress. They are still not really realistic. According to the thing that television is a huge influence-making phenomenon, soap serials should also be improved in parts of teaching and news bringing. Serials makers should not leave without attention it’s relations to current affairs and world learning. The last thing, that according to the research should be changed or improved is characters. In soap operas there is a huge variety of characters. Viewers have a great possibility and variety to choose from. To the point of making it more exciting, and also for gathering a bigger audience, people responsible for this show business industry should make characters more interesting. Each individual should be something special. Therefore, it would not ever be left without attention. Hereof, television soap serials have gathered a big attention of television audience. But like any other industry or products, it always needs improvements to stay alive in a great strife among other companies and competitors. Works cited: Allen, Robert C. Soap Opera. 15 Apr. 2002

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