The Survival of Soap Opera

by Ford, Sam

• ISBN13: 9781604737165
• ISBN10: 1604737166
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-03
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi

Summary

The soap opera, one of U.S. televisionÂ'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 viewersÂ' attention from cable and the Internet. Yet, soapsÂ' influence has expanded, with serial narratives becoming commonplace on most prime time TV programs.The Survival of Soap Operainvestigates 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 ABCÂ'sGeneral Hospital, CBSÂ'sThe Young and the RestlessandThe 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.

Author Biography

Sam Ford is a research affiliate with Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Convergence Culture Consortium and Director of Digital Strategy for Peppercom Strategic Communications. Abigail De Kosnik is an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. C. Lee Harrington is professor of sociology and a Women's Studies Program Affiliate at Miami University. She has been conducting research on the daytime industry and soap fans since the late 1980s and is author of many published academic works on soaps, including Soap Fans with Denise D. Bielby.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Challenges To The Future Of Soaps
Introduction: The Crisis of Daytime Drama and What It Means for the Future of Television	p. 3
Perspective: Scholars Barbara Irwin and Mary Cassata on the State of U.S. Soap Operas	p. 22
Perspective: Historian William J. Reynolds on Memories of The Edge of Night	p. 29
Perspective: Writer Patrick Mulcahey on Changes in Soap Opera Writing Contracts	p. 31
Perspective: Actor Tristan Rogers on Changes in Soaps' Industry, Audiences, and Texts	p. 34
Daytime Budget Cuts	p. 38
Agnes Nixon and Soap Opera ôChemistry Testsö	p. 44
Giving Soaps a Good Scrub: ABC's Ugly Betty and the Ethnicity of Television Formats	p. 49
The Way We Were: The Institutional Logics of Professionals and Fans in the Soap Opera Industry	p. 58
Capitalizing On History
Perspective: Scholar Horace Newcomb on the Pleasures and Influence of Soaps	p. 81
Perspective: Scholar Robert C. Allen on Studying Soap Operas	p. 83
Growing Old Together: Following As the World Turns' Tom Hughes through the Years	p. 86
Perspective: Writer Kay Alden on What Makes Soaps Unique	p. 101
Perspective: Scholar Nancy Baym on Soaps after the O. J. Simpson Trial	p. 104
Of Soap Operas, Space Operas, and Television's Rocky Romance with the Feminine Form	p. 106
The Ironic and Convoluted Relationship between Daytime and Primetime Soap Operas	p. 119
Perspective: Scholar Louise Spence on Comparing the Soap Opera to Other Forms	p. 130
Perspective: Scholar Jason Mittell on the Ties between Daytime and Primetime Serials	p. 133
Preserving Soap History: What Will It Mean for the Future of Soaps?	p. 140
Did the 2007 Writers Strike Save Daytime's Highest-Rated Drama?	p. 154
Experimenting With Production And Distribution
ôThe Rhetoric of the Camera in Television Soap Operaö Revisited: The Case of General Hospital	p. 163
Its Not All Talk: Editing and Storytelling in As the World Turns	p. 175
Guiding Light: Relevance and Renewal in a Changing Genre	p. 180
The Evolution of the Production Process of Soap Operas Today	p. 187
From Daytime to Night Shift: Examining the ABC Daytime/SOAPnet Primetime Spin-of Experiment	p. 191
ôWhat the hell does TIIC mean?ö Online Content and the Struggle to Save the Soaps	p. 201
The Evolution of the Fan Video and the Influence of YouTube on the Creative Decision-Making Process for Fans	p. 219
Learning From Diverse Audiences
Soaps for Tomorrow: Media Fans Making Online Drama from Celebrity Gossip	p. 233
Soap Opera Critics and Criticism: Industry and Audience in an Era of Transformation	p. 250
Hanging on by a Common Thread	p. 265
Perspective: Fan Site Moderator QueenEve on Fan Activity around and against Soaps	p. 272
The Role of ôThe Audienceö in the Writing Process	p. 275
The ôMissing Yearsö: How Local Programming Ruptured Days of Our Lives in Australia	p. 279
As the World Turns' Luke and Noah and Fan Activism	p. 293
Constructing the Older Audience: Age and Aging in Soaps	p. 300
References	p. 315
Index	p. 331
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