Realism In Soap Operas

Realism – How realistic are soaps?

Soap Operas tend to try and focus on everyday life situations; they usually use middle class environments, e.g. Mini Mart (EastEnders). They also use working middle class characters to relate to the target audience.

They tend to embrace their location, playing to stereotypes such as accents, occupation and costume. For example EastEnders focus mainly on the life in London’s east end. This then attracts the target audience into having the sense of escapism. Linking this with uses and gratifications the audience uses personal identity where the audience seek to establish who they are in relation to others. This means if a teenager was watching and there was a teenager in the series, that person would establish a connection between the two of them; this is common in soap operas. For example EastEnders has characters such as Peter and Lola who are in a love relationship together, this is something teenagers of today can relate to.

What type of Verisimilitude (truth) is created?

One of the main conventions of a soap opera is the verisimilitude, reflecting everyday life.

Verisimilitude is used to make the soap opera believable to the audience, it forms the sense of escapism for the audience members. It gives the audience members comfort when facing their own problems and believing they are not that bad due to the characters situations being in a worse situation. Verisimilitude is created into soap operas to attract the audience with the appeal of watching a real community like their own.

Realism in Soap Operas - Examples

EastEnders: Breast Cancer Storyline - This is a realistic strand as Cancer statistics is increasing on a day to day basis. Cancers of the breast, lung, prostate and bowel account for over half (54%) of all new cancer cases in the UK in 2011. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/incidence/uk-cancer-incidence-statistics. From then on there has been a rise in patients fighting cancer. For EastEnders this is a realistic strand as it is something which is occuring in today's society.

From the Soap Opera we see Carol fighting her battle like many other patients around the UK.

This gives the audience a sense that these characters are not invincible and they are like every other person and can get sick. Adding a sense of verisimilitude to the Soap Opera.



Hollyoaks: Esther's Bullying Storyline - This is a realistic strand as many children or teenagers are bullied by their peers whether at school or through the use of cyber bullying. In this Hollyoaks episode we see the bullying become more intense with a variety of harsh comments and tormenting pranks until  Esther reaches breaking point and commits a suicide attempt. Statistic show that "bully victims are 2 to 9 time more likely to consider suicide", it also shows "nearly 30% of students are either bullies or victims of bullying and 160,000 children stay home from school everyday because of fear of bullying." http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.html.


"Over 80% of teenagers use a cell phone regularly making it the most popular form of technology and a common medium for cyber bullying"

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html