Analyzing Eastenders For my GCSE media coursework I have been asked to write about and analyse a television soap or series. During the course of the assignment I will be explaining the following; Definitions of soaps and series, Marketing, Merchandising, Audience, Timings, Plot/Issues, Sub - plot, Characters. I have chosen to write about the popular soap, Eastenders. Eastenders is a fictional drama soap about a small community living in East London. A soap is
Discussion of Eastenders ‘Switch that rubbish off!’ this is often a sign that the younger generation of a household are gathered to watch the next instalment of the UK’s most highly viewed soap opera ‘Eastenders’. In my experience, I always knew when one of the many soap opera’s was about to begin as I would hear that exact instruction, (or one of similar meaning), being aimed, towards my sisters as they switch on the television between the hours of seven and nine o’ clock of most weekday
Religion Theme of Concern in EastEnders Soap Opera Recently, in the hit soap opera EastEnders, the scriptwriters have presented a religious and moral issue. The issue concerns the controversial topic of euthanasia, and involves two main characters. At the outset, one of the characters, Ethel, was suffering from a terminal illness and was in severe pain. Therefore she asked one of her best friends, Dot Cotton, to end her life. At this stage, Dot faced a real dilemma, as she was in fact
audience, for example, the viewing figures for the 'Eastenders' story line, "Who Shot Phil Mitchell", was greatly influenced by newspaper speculation of the culprit. It has been known to have been taken too far, for example well known booking offices were taking bets on who had shot Phil... ... middle of paper ... ...do in our society. I feel that out of the two soap operas I have analysed, 'Emmerdale' is more convincing, but 'Eastenders' is more imaginative for these reasons. 'Emmerdale'
the audience. The two soaps I will be looking at are 'Coronation Street' and 'EastEnders'. 'EastEnders' is a soap created by the BBC for BBC 1. It has been running since 19th February 1985, it was originally shown twice a week at a peak viewing time and gradually increased to four with a two our omnibus on Sunday. The show is targeted at all ages as everybody has a character they can identify to. 'EastEnders' is set in the fictional East London town of Walford; it deals with real-life
of time, and most of the action takes place. For example The Queen Vic in Eastenders, or The Rover's Return in Coronation Street. The name soap opera comes from the first soaps produced in America in the forties. They were sponsored by advertisers, most commonly soap powder companies. Nowadays all sorts of things, including chocolate brands, sponsor soaps. Some of the most popular soaps in England are: Eastenders, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks and The Archers. Soap operas are made and imported
British soap operas are, of course, overly dramatic. In nearly every soap opera, including the Eastenders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and The Archers—the characters constantly discuss money and drink excessively. Of course, these shows are not made to be taken literally—they are mindless entertainment, not serious social commentary. However, behind the drama, they raise subtle questions about the nature of Britain today: the clashes between cultures and religions, upper and lower classes, and
people, issues, places, values and experiences etc. If we consider the level of reality portrayed in contemporary soaps, such as Eastenders and Coronation Street, we will find many signifiers of reality, such as local slang and costume, but there is also an element which stops being reality, such as a plane crashing into Emmerdale, and Dirty Den's murder in Eastenders. Murder does occur in our
second soap, following “The Groves”. It began in 1960 and is set in Weatherfield, Manchester. It is a successful soap that has been running for over 40 years. “Eastenders” is a more recent addition to the genre that first started in Britain in 1982 and is set in Albert Square, London. Both “Coronation Street” and “Eastenders” soaps are about day-to-day life in the city for working class citizens. They refer to real life issues but are very overdramatic and plots are exaggerated. These
ethnicity and gender in order to determine the pleasures of soap opera viewing and will briefly look at their international appeal. My discussion will comprise aspects of the British soaps, for example, Brookside, Coronation Street, Crossroads and Eastenders, the American super soaps such as Dallas and Dynasty and the Australian soap Home and Away. Dorothy Hobson conduced a set of interviews between February 2nd & 7th 1987, to establish how far the soap operas fit into the working environment
the audience that day (e.g. Going to work or having a family feud) although some episodes are quite exaggerated compared to audiences real life. There are ways that soaps show ‘real time’: they have the same days (e.g. In Tuesday’s episode of Eastenders you may hear Alfie talking about what he is going to do in the pub Wednesday) having special events at the same time (e.g. Bank holiday, New Year, Christmas etc) also the episodes take place in continuous real time – life goes on a daily basis
British TV Drama To what extent has British television drama contributed to a public discourse on major political and social issues, both in the recent past and during the 1960s. Please draw on specific examples in presenting your argument. In this essay I will discuss how political and social issues have been raised in British television drama and also how they relate to public discourse in Britain. I will discuss TV dramas such as Our Friends in the North, Talking to a Stranger, Cathy Come
attract another different type of viewer, which would boost their ratings. Storylines. All soaps have multiple and continuous storylines, that usually intertwine which each other. Many storylines don't have resolutions, for example Marc in Eastenders has Aids and the story always pops into episodes, where he goes to get new drugs, has to tell his partners about it and recently he has been
Religion and the Media In the world we live in today people have revolutionized the image of religion, so that it is now regarded as a pastime instead of it solely being about God. In today's world media has evolved to be much more powerful than religion, and therefore some say that media is taken more seriously. After observation of the TV channels broadcasting specific religious programmes, I saw that all terrestrial TV channels had at least one hour a week of religious programmes
Realism in British Soap Opera Using a media text as a key example, evaluate selected techniques of fictional production which contribute to a sense of realism consistent with genre or format used. Many have defined the term realism but these definitions by Watt and Williams can be easily applied to my choice of media text, which is the British soap opera. Fiske writes that Watt and Williams “….tend to define it by its content. Watt traces its origins to the rise of the novel in the seventeenth
How Soaps Attract Their Target Audience I n this essay, I am going to compare Eastenders and Neighbours. I will identify the key ingredients shared by different soaps and examine ways in which such key ingredients differ from one soap to another. The key ingredients to soaps are that they last for years. The soaps are usually serial and are set in a specific location e.g. Albert square in Eastenders. In soaps, they all have characters, which appeal to a specific audience. Here are
watching the episode, then they will be approached by another first for, but this time, covering all British soaps not just a few. I'm talking about the fact that they don't just have scenery in the title sequence. Each of the other main soaps, Eastenders, Coronation Street and when it was on Brookside, they all use scenery, to introduce the surroundings instead of the characters. Yes, it does have scenery but this is pushed to the side and in the centre is the difference to all other British
The Future Popularity of British Soap Operas The issue of whether soaps can sustain their popularity is very debateable as the overall viewing figures for soaps have fallen, for example figures for Eastenders in 1995 where sixteen million (according to BARB) whereas in 2005 the average viewing figures were about eight to nine million. There are different factors that could be associated with this decline such as more competition for the audience, more channels and soaps, scheduling issues
How British Soap Operas Attract Large Audiences British soap operas used a variety of strategies and operations to attract a large audience. These strategies clearly work as proven by viewing figures for the three most popular soaps; Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale command viewing audiences of over ten million on a regular basis. Also soaps have proven to be the most consistent in terms of high audience figures over the years, making them indispensable to the institutions which
The Influences of Soap Operas On Family Life On at least five nights a week, the nation tune into their boxes, snuggle up with a cup of tea, and draw their attention to the lives of some of the country's most talked about families. No, I don't mean the Royals, the Beckhams or the Blairs, but names like the Mitchells, the Duckworths or the Bishops. Since the early sixties, people have been drawn towards the fictional lives of soap families, but why do we love feeding on other people's misery