The Soap Opera Evolution: America's Enduring Romance with Daytime Drama - Softcover

Matelski, Marilyn J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786472812 ISBN 13: 9780786472819

Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2012

Synopsis

The first daytime dramas began as early as 1930, with Painted Dreams. Programmers soon discovered that housewives often controlled the purse strings, and soaps become an advertiser's gold mine. They now generate more than $900 million in network revenues annually.

Around 50 million people (reportedly including congressmen and rock stars as well as two-thirds of all American television-watching women) tune in each weekday afternoon for a dosage of love, loss and libido via "the soaps."

This scholarly study examines the soap phenomenon from a sociological point of view. Included in the analysis is classic research by Rudolf Arnheim, Herta Hartzog and Helen Kaufman as well as contemporary studies and previously unpublished research. The evolution of popular plotlines and characters, as assessment of reality in today's plots, which people watch soaps and why, specific plotlines for the 13 soaps presently aired, 40+ family trees illustrating program changes, the future of soaps--all are covered.

About this title

About the Author

The late Marilyn J. Matelski was professor emerita of communication at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Edition details

• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786472812
• ISBN 13: 9780786472819
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224