Are soaps still womens television

Soap operas had their origins in the early American radio broadcasting back in the 1920s. It owes the name to the sponsorship of some of the programmes by major soap powder companies. Television soap operas are long- running serials concerned with everyday life. Christine Geraghty notes that ‘ the longer they run the more impossible it seems to imagine them ending’. When soaps came to television in the 1950s they tended to be aired during the day in the afternoon, with themes that appealed to those who were likely to be at home; namely mothers, carers and housewives. The early television soaps were, like the daytime radio serials, transmitted five times per week and were aimed at female audiences. This trend continued for a decade, with other soaps appearing in the 1960s. Soaps like Crossroads, which was viewed on ITV and another that followed among others was Coronation Street, which is the longest –running British TV soap that really proved the popularity of the genre. In the 1980s Channel Four, which was a new channel, aired Brookside. In the 1970s British soaps had a different atmosphere compared to American and Australian soaps. British soaps were ‘real’ and gritty, about â

Implicitly values and ideologies of the soaps construct a sense of community and people sticking together. However it can be argued that characters spend too much time together and that so many tragedies and events can happen in one street. That moves away from the image of reality that soaps like to portray. Coronation Street and Eastenders represent a close-knit community that hardly exists anymore, either in Manchester or in London’s East End. Explicitly they represent the working class and therefore set in an urban environment for example, Coronation Street- northern culture and Eastenders- east end life. Within these soaps there is a definite feeling of community. It shoes a high degree of social realism. Also stereotypical characters are common in soaps, for example most corner shops are owned by Asian characters. Also the typical hard man of the east end like Phil Mitchell is another example.

Looking at the active and passive audience of soaps, the active audience will presumably know that Eastenders does not really reflect east end life. Whereas the passive audience assume that what is shown in soaps reflect a certain place it is presenting as for example people from the east end will think that Coronation Street reflect northerners and northern life.

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