Secondary Information - Neo Liberalism

The Citizenship concept

Livingstone (1998) researched what connects the audience with the textual analysis and the production studies and found to understand the complex dynamics between the communication policies and the way individuals interpret the media. Schiller, 1989 and Livingstone (1998) discovered the concept of resistance and having an active audience can be connected to an active citizenship.

This theory links with our research as we want our audience to either interpret our soap the way we want them to or to leave it to interpretation and whether the audience will understand the true meaning if it was left to interpretation.

Roland Barthes (1972) discovered the 'reader in the text' which reaches beyond the 'average reader' and challenges the audiences interpretation through its structural imperatives. Rather than what the audience does with the text they are give
n making it easier to make connections between the text and social issues. 

Linking with our research it could be used for controversial strands on how the audience the producers want the strand to be interpreted or are they opening it up to interpretation. For example EastEnders- Coming out as gay, his mother rejected him or was disappointed in him. Personally as a view I thought it was harsh she rejected him because of it but other viewers may have thought that is the best thing to do, all down to interpretation. 

Realism and Social Issues

Longhurst (1987) quoted "Realism is one of the most disrupt terms used in cultural analysis". Hull (2004) took this quote and researched into the criteria when evaluating the realism of television texts, whether they are plausible, typical, factual, emotionally involved, narrative is consistent and persuasiveness. 

After conducting an interview viewers were asked to judge Eastenders on whether it is realistic or unrealistic. Findings show they believed the programme was realistic or believable in most frequent terms used but it was also "exaggerated", "far fetched", "over the top", "Ridiculous" or "surreal".
This links into our research as we are looking to create a realistic soap opera trailer and to do this we need to research about illogical verisimilitude and how to overcome this when creating our piece. 

EastEnders a form of public service
Ofcom (2004) studied public service broadcasting in the UK showed that audiences took the view 'that some early-evening programmes, including soaps, these have an important social role to play in airing complex and controversial issues'. It is believed there is a wide spread view that soaps can be important social benefits through EastEnders being believ
ed to be classified as a public service.
Linking this research to our research creating a trailer which is linked closely to public services means there is more chance of the audience understanding and relating to certain situations. This then creates verisimilitude to our piece.