Comparison of Soap Operas

My group members and I each analysed a different soap opera, I chose to analyse EastEnders as this is the British soap that I am most familiar with. The rest of my group members analysed Coranation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks, therefore getting the four most popular British soaps covered between us. We have now comprised a list of what conventions all four of the soaps share.

We found that all the soaps have similar storylines even if they are shown in different ways, for example the soaps main issues all involve, violence, adultry, mental disorders, serious illness and sexuality. These can all be related to present storylines in all four of the soaps that we analysed and it is the use of storyline like those above that give each soap a sense of realism that the audience can relate to.

The settings of the soaps are also similar, they are all set in a small villiage or street and they invovle a small community of characters that are all inter-linked. Within the setting of the soap there is also similar locations where the main scenes are set, most commonly the local pub as it is a place where all the characters can come together. For example in EastEnders this would be the Queen Vic.

Another common convention that we found between the soaps was the type of characters, all the soaps have a jack the lad character, a family of lower social standing, the medling old lady, the business man, the rebelous teenagers etc. it was clear to see from how we had each analysed the seperate soaps that these characters are portrayed in each soap but in slightly different ways.