What is a Soap Opera?

For A2 Media studies coursework, me and my group are going to create an opening for a soap opera, this blog will show the process in which will lead up to the making of the soap opera. The research, analysis, questionnaires, characteristics, conventions and other terms of insight into soap operas will help me along the way.

Soap operas are long-running serials which are about everyday life. A television serial, typically broadcast in the afternoon or evening, about the lives of melodramatic characters, situations and suspense.

They originated in American radio serials of the 1930s, soap opera is a genre originally drawn from radio rather than film. They were targeted directly at a female audience (presumed to be housewives) and so soap manufacturers sponsored the programmes to advertise their brands to their primary consumers. Using the word opera was a way of mocking the programmes that were considered to be trivial and domestic.