Download or read book Speaking of Soap Operas written by Robert Clyde Allen and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 1985 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 reexaminati
Download or read book Speaking of Soap Operas written by Robert Clyde Allen and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Survival of Soap Opera written by Sam Ford and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2010-11-03 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book To Be Continued written by Robert C. Allen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Be Continued... explores the world's most popular form of television drama; the soap opera. From Denver to Delhi, Moscow to Manchester, audiences eagerly await the next episode of As the World Turns, The Rich Also Weep or Eastenders. But the popularity of soap operas in Britain and the US pales in comparison to the role that they play in media cultures in other parts of the world. To Be Continued... investigates both the cultural specificity of television soap operas and their reception in other cultures, covering soap production and soap watching in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. The contributors consider the nature of soap as a media text, the history of the serial narrative as a form, and the role of the soap opera in the development of feminist media criticism. To Be Continued... presents the first scholarly examination of soap opera as global media phenomenon.
Download or read book Soap Operas What is a soap written by Andrea Rieger and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2002-01-23 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 1997 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: gut, University of Graz (Fachbereich Literaturwissenschaften), course: Soap Operas, language: English, abstract: A soap opera is a serialized drama which runs for 52 weeks of the year with continuous storylines dealing with domestic themes, personal or family relationships and a limited running characters. Soap operas or serials are open-ended ... Soap operas are one of the few genres where weddings, for instance, are not a happy ending but the beginning of a marriage that may be troubled or even doomed to failure. A dramatic program usually presented daily, with continuing characters and multiple plots. The action, which deals with contemporary problems and their solutions, continues from episode to episode called soap opera because many of the original sponsors were soap manufacturers. Also called daytime drama, soap, and soaper. Television soap operas are long-running serials concerned with everyday life. The serial is not to be confused with the series, in which the main characters and format remain the same from program to program but each episode is a self-contained plot. In a serial at least one storyline is carried over from one episode to the next. A series is advertised as having a specific number of episodes, but serials are potentially endless. These definitions can be seen as a sort of introduction to the whole field of soap operas. In the following chapters I will deal with this topic in detail.
Download or read book Soap Opera and Women s Talk written by Mary Ellen Brown and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1994-05-11 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can such an apparently trivial or even exploitative genre as soap opera be associated with the notion of empowerment for its viewers? Mary Ellen Brown argues that soap operas create and support a social network in which talk becomes a form of resistive pleasure. Undertaken as an ethnographic study in which the author is a member of the group, a fan and also a researcher, this book shows that engagement with soap operas creates an opening for women to serve as wedges into the dominant culture. This exploration into how hegemonic notions of feminity and womanhood are developed at one cultural site and how they can be accepted, resisted and negotiated in the process of consumption not only claims that hegemony is leaky, bu
Download or read book The Soap Opera Paradigm written by James H. Wittebols and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Soap Opera Paradigm is an engaging look at the pervasive use of daytime soap opera storytelling techniques in most television program genres, from prime time soap operas and reality shows to the nightly news, coverage of political campaigns, and sports programming. Drawing from a wealth of research, James Wittebols shows how programming techniques have changed over time and what roles media concentration and commercial influences have played in these changes. Visit our website for sample chapters!
Download or read book Her Stories written by Elana Levine and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the debut of These Are My Children in 1949, the daytime television soap opera has been foundational to the history of the medium as an economic, creative, technological, social, and cultural institution. In Her Stories, Elana Levine draws on archival research and her experience as a longtime soap fan to provide an in-depth history of the daytime television soap opera as a uniquely gendered cultural form and a central force in the economic and social influence of network television. Closely observing the production, promotion, reception, and narrative strategies of the soaps, Levine examines two intersecting developments: the role soap operas have played in shaping cultural understandings of gender and the rise and fall of broadcast network television as a culture industry. In so doing, she foregrounds how soap operas have revealed changing conceptions of gender and femininity as imagined by and reflected on the television screen.
Download or read book Soap Fans written by Carine Harrington and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dispute of the simplistic illusion of soap fans as bored housewives or losers.
Download or read book Worlds Without End written by Museum of Television and Radio (New York, N.Y.) and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 1997 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a special feature for this book, The Museum of Television & Radio conducted interviews with leading writers, producers, actors, and directors of soap operas. Dozens of revealing quotes from these interviews appear throughout the book - personal and professional comments by men and women who make their living in the field.
Download or read book Watching Daytime Soap Operas written by Louise Spence and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2005-07-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging, in-depth look at the myriad pleasures of the soap opera fan.
Download or read book Staying Tuned written by Suzanne Frentz and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Staying Tuned: Contemporary Soap Opera Criticism examines serials. Broadcast first in 1926 on radio and since 1956 on television Monday through Friday 52 weeks a year, soap operas provide a clear promise to continue for as long as mass medicated entertainment exists. Over the last sixty years, billions have happily suffered along with the gallant men and women of the afternoon. A growing body of scholarly literature exists now to provide insights and suggest answers to the question of why so many continually return to the routine tragedies of daytime drama. Each of our chapters explores an aspect of soap opera which contributes to the endurance of the genre.
Download or read book The Soap Opera written by Muriel G. Cantor and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1983-06 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive survey of the history, the means of production, the content and the impact on audiences of soap operas. A sociologist and a specialist in women's studies combine to review the content of soap operas, and the way in which they are produced. How have the themes of soap operas changed with social convention? How do these massively popular serials aimed at a female audience portray women at work and at home? The impact of soap opera on its audience, the different varieties of soap operas, and the differences in structure, content, and commercial purpose between soap operas and prime time television are also discussed. `Cantor and Pingree have performed an important service by bringing together and analyzing a va
Download or read book Soap Opera Confidential written by Elizabeth Searle and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soap operas have captured loyal, often lifelong viewers since the first American daytime serial debuted in 1949. In this collection of 29 new and five classic essays and recollections, authors and soap opera insiders delve into the passion for television melodrama that compels viewers to "tune in tomorrow." The contributors include iconic soap star Thorsten Kaye, journalist Leigh Montville, authors Elinor Lipman and Ann Hood, and editors of Soaps in Depth magazine. They explore the soap phenomenon from a range of perspectives and consider the appeal of a venerable genre in which, as novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard observes, "everyone's life was more depressing than mine."
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of American Radio Soap Operas written by Jim Cox and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2005-11-15 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The period from 1925 to 1960 was the heyday of the American Radio Soap Opera. In addition to being part of popular culture, the soap opera had important commercial aspects as well that were not only related to their production, but also to the desperate need to sell products or perish. Both sides of this story are traced in this comprehensive compendium. The dictionary section, made up of more than 500 cross-referenced entries, provides brief vignettes of the more popular and also less well-known 'soaps,' among them Back Stage Wife, Our Gal Sunday, Pepper Young's Family and The Guiding Light. Other entries evoke those who brought these programs to life: the actors, announcers, scriptwriters, networks, and even the sponsors. Nor are the basic themes, the stock characters and the gimmick, forgotten. The book's introduction defines the soap opera, examines the span of the radio serial, reviews its origins and its demise, and focuses on the character types that made up its denizens. The chronology outlines the period and the bibliography offers further reading. Together, these elements make a comprehensive reference work that researchers will find invaluable long into the future.
Download or read book Other Worlds written by Dorothy Anger and published by Peterborough, Ont. : Broadview Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this entertaining but probing inquiry into the nature, history, and significance of the soaps, anthropologist Dorothy Anger shows how they reflect and shape the ethos of particular nations.
Download or read book The Great Radio Soap Operas written by Jim Cox and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-06-14 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reference work contains exhaustive histories of 31 of network radio's most durable soap operas on the air between 1930 and 1960. The soap operas covered are Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories, Backstage Wife, Big Sister, The Brighter Day, David Harum, Front Page Farrell, The Guiding Light, Hilltop House, Just Plain Bill, Life Can Be Beautiful, The Light of the World, Lora Lawton, Lorenzo Jones, Ma Perkins, One Man's Family, Our Gal Sunday, Pepper Young's Family, Perry Mason, Portia Faces Life, The Right to Happiness, Road of Life, The Romance of Helen Trent, Rosemary, The Second Mrs. Burton, Stella Dallas, This Is Nora Drake, Today's Children, Wendy Warren and the News, When a Girl Marries, Young Doctor Malone, and Young Widder Brown. Included for each series are the drama's theme and story line, an in-depth focus on the major characters, and a listing of producers, directors, writers, announcers, casts, sponsors, ratings, and broadcast dates, times and networks. Profiles of 158 actors, actresses, creators and others who figured prominently in a serial's success are also provided.
