Soap Opera Genre - Target Audience

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Soap Opera Genre – Target Audience Name: Zakary Winsall Candidate Number: 2144 Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic School Center Number: 64135 OCR Media Studies – A2 Level Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio

Transcript of Soap Opera Genre - Target Audience

Page 1: Soap Opera Genre - Target Audience

Soap Opera Genre –

Target Audience

Name: Zakary WinsallCandidate Number: 2144 Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic SchoolCenter Number: 64135

OCR Media Studies – A2 Level

Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio

Page 2: Soap Opera Genre - Target Audience

Hartley’s 7 Subjectivities - The stereotypical target audience for soap operas according to Hartley would be females, from the ages of 16+. This is because females may become more emotionally attached with the drama in the soap opera, which is not stereotypical of the male gender, which is possibly why they are not so interested in soap operas. However the male gender is also drawn to watch soap operas because of family life, however they may also be drawn in to relate to the tough male characters present in the soap. It’s common that in the evening’s a family will sit down together to watch a soap, and this is the reason why men can be drawn into watching them. According to Rebecca Feasey’s ‘Masculinity and Popular Television’ (2007) she states how the genre focuses on “The home, the family, domestic tribulations and the strong women, and as such, it has been long been said to appeal to a female viewer”, she believes in this case that the female gender are the stereotypical audience for a soap opera genre. This was supported by research by Dr. Aaliya Ahmed from Kashmir University, India, who stated that “soaps in general have a predominately female audience” (http://www.ijsrp.org/research_paper_jun2012/ijsrp-June-2012-47.pdf).

Socio-Economic Needs - According to the socio-economic needs, the stereotypical audience for a soap opera is most likely people who are in the social grading of B-D. This because the issues that are raised in these soap operas are consistent to what is actually found in the real world. Therefore the viewers are able to relate better to these issues, because they are technically directly involved. As the intended audience is British, we like to see the realism and struggle that comes with everyday life, and the class that possibly struggles the most is grade D because they are the working class, the manual labourers and unskilled workers.

Stereotypical Target Audience

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Katz’s Uses and Gratifications Theory – According to Katz, the stereotypical audience may ‘personally identify’ with the issues raised within the soap. This may cause them to want to become like the characters who are portrayed or may realise that they do not want to be like them at all and steer clear of those personalities and characteristics.However I can also be argued that the audience may watch soaps for pure ‘entertainment’. They want their time in the evening to simply just relax and to escape for the real world, and their real problems to instead watch the problems of the characters in the soap that they are watching.

Psychographics – The stereotypical lifestyle of the audience of soap operas according to the lifestyle scale is most likely a ‘reformer’ because they are the people who have the awareness of the general community and normal, everyday life. The audience is going to have a very mundane, and normal life because they are normal people. They will most likely be in school or at work. Due to watching these soap operas, they may feel the need or be pressured into making similar lifestyle choices as shown in the soap.These soap operas are usually scheduled between the times of 7pm and 9pm, this is the prime time TV because the watershed is at 9pm where more violence and usage of profanity can be used as by this time most children would have gone to bed. (http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/television/watershed).