More Academic Writing on Soaps
sam...@mit.edu
back, and it wouldn't let me reply to the thread anymore. I thought I
would add some more in a new post instead.
Cantor, Muriel G. and Suzanne Pingree. The Soap Opera. Beverly
Hills: Sage, 1983.
One of the first books published solely on analyzing the soap opera,
The Soap Opera is written by two professors interested in women's
place in mass media and uses both historical analysis and content
analysis to develop a more sociological approach to the study of
soaps. The intent of the book is to provide a broad overview of "the
history, production, contents, and audiences" of soap opera for other
scholars and students to help establish an understanding of the soap
opera genre, possible effects of the soap opera genre on viewers, and
the possibilities of establishing the soap as an area of television
study worthy of continued research. The book also uses Procter &
Gamble show Guiding Light as a...well...guiding light into understanding
the soap opera genre, just as Allen and others have done. The authors
establish that they are not trying to challenge the high-art of the
aesthete by raising the social prominence of soap opera but are
providing this study to understand the role of soap opera in society.
The historical overview and content analysis provided by the first
several chapters of the book leads into the seventh chapter, an
examination of the soap opera audiences, the uses and gratifications
of soap opera, and an examination of the effects of watching soaps on
viewers.
Cassata, Mary and Thomas Skill, with Michelle Lynn Rondina, Patricia
A. Anderson, Samuel Osei Boadu, Debroah L. Silverman, Deborah A.
Neumann, Laurie P. Arliss, and Patricia Tegler. Life on Daytime
Television: Tuning-In American Serial Drama Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1983.
This book, which only recently ended up in my hands, should likely be
examined with each essay focused on separately, as each chapter
differs in content and includes work from various authors, although
Cassata and Skill have a hand in writing most of the work. Life on
Daytime Television was the result of Project Daytime at the State
University of New York at Buffalo. I have also yet to fully mine a
wonderful annotated bibliography at the end of the book, which
includes a lot more work than I knew existed on soaps previous to
1983, much of it in the social
(over)
sciences and journals of communication studies and thus not referenced
in most of the research I have looked at and also a lot of work that
was done in dissertations and/or conference presentations never sent
to publication. This divide is actually a focus of the book, as the
forward is two short essays authored by George Comstock, who examines
soap opera from a social scientist's viewpoint; and Horace Newcomb,
who examines soap opera from a humanist's viewpoint. The book tries
to establish middle ground between empirical and humanistic approaches
and examines the genre by several small studies-character analysis,
audience analysis, historical analysis, studies of setting and
fashion, gender balances on soaps, and an examination of the mindset
of soap producers. All in all, it appears to be a very useful
collection that provides a lot of nuance and that will require a lot
more of my attention.
Cassidy, Marsha F. What Women Watched: Daytime Television in the
1950s. Austin, TX: U of
Texas P, 2005.
Marsha F. Cassidy studies the viewing patterns of women in the viewing
of early television and establishes the importance of soap operas at
this time. Her book details the transfer from radio to television of
soap opera in the 1950s. Irna Phillips, who helped pioneer radio soap
operas, was instrumental in the transformation and insisted on
creating a form in which women could participate in viewing without
needing the visual constantly, to accommodate viewing that did not
require one to sit in front of the television for the full program.
The first soap aired as an experiment in February 1949. However, The
Guiding Light first gained popularity as a radio program transferred
to 15-minute television segments on CBS. Cassidy acknowledges the
debt she owes to feminist research of soap operas as informing her
work here. For understanding the origins of the soap opera in terms
of modern feminist thought, this book provides an important historical
texts that grounds other feminist work with a history that explains
how the soaps of today arrived at where they are.
Cooper, Mary Ann. For the Love of Soaps: A Soaps & Serials History:
Vol. 1. Rocky Hill, CT:
Pioneer, 1987.
Another book aimed at the popular press, For the Love of Soaps
provides a similar handbook tool, updated from Soap World. Mary Ann
Cooper provides a brief history of each of the soaps on the air at the
time of the book's printing, along with a history of other soap operas
no longer on the air. The book is also interesting to study in and of
itself, as it is a book aimed for a popular audience and at least
gives some indication as what publishers believe a potential audience
might want at that time. This indicates the possibility of viewers
not familiar with the history of soaps that could benefit from
learning about the general history of the show, as well as viewers who
might be nostalgic for the photos presented in the middle of the book
or the remembrance of soaps that have been cancelled.
Edmondson, Madeleine and David Rounds. The Soaps: Daytime Serials of
Radio and
TV. New York: Stein and Day, 1973.
Written by a longtime writer and actor in daytime drama, this early
look at the soap opera genre traces the history of soaps up to that
point. The book is written with an industry perspective in mind and
is aimed at casual readers. Edmondson and Rounds provide what is
primarily a comprehensive history of soaps, from their development on
radio to the transfer to television in the 1950s and early 1960s. The
book begins with a defense of soap operas against cultural
(over)
critics, primarily those from psychology and sociology. The authors
follow with a few chapters tracing television's development on radio,
the decline of radio and rise of television, and the current state of
soaps on TV. They wrap up with chapters looking at soaps from the
perspective of audience viewing demographics and ratings, the way
soaps are produced, and criticisms of soaps in mainstream American
culture. The book is low on analytical content and even includes such
things as trivia games for readers, but it provides a concise and easy-
to-follow basic history of the genre in America. The authors released
a similar book with the same press three years later entitled From
Mary Noble to Mary Hartman: The Complete Soap Opera Book.
Fiske, John. Television Culture. London: Methuen, 1987.
One of the most recognizable academics advocating a more positive
views of television studies is John Fiske. Fiske's book Television
Culture includes scholarly looks at a variety of television, not only
the high art television emphasized in the earlier days of television
studies but areas of television culture generally frowned upon,
including soap opera. Fiske builds on larger discussions of "gossip"
and oral culture as it relates to feminine discourse and to enjoyment
of the soap opera. He traces the history of scholarship on gossip in
women's culture and its intersection with work on soap opera,
concluding that soaps work cohesively within this gossip culture by
providing daily interaction that can be discussed and debated by
viewers. Fiske also writes about gendered television, elaborating on
a variety of specific aspects of the soap opera form-the decentralized
focus of the narrative as based on a variety of characters, constant
disruption of events, deferment of plot lines (the importance of
spoilers are included-soap fans care less about what but about why and
how and how others will react), as well as the importance of sexuality
and female empowerment, excess, and plentitude. The value of Fiske's
quick observations are all worthy of much further study and
understanding when combined with content analysis and close readings
of particular soap opera storylines.
Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy. "All's Well that Doesn't End-Soap Opera and
the Marriage Motif."
Camera Obscura 16 (January 1988): 119-127. Reprinted Private
Screenings: Television
and the Female Consumer. Ed. Lynn Spiegal and Denise Mann.
Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P, 1992. 216-225.
Flitterman-Lewis builds substantially on her assertion in Channels of
Discourse that television differs substantially from film in that
classical Hollywood cinema desires closure while soap opera in
particular-the genre that Flitterman-Lewis identifies as "the
quintessential televisual form"-celebrates open-endedness as a
requirement of the genre. She explores how much differently the
viewing experience is for soap viewers as compared to film viewers,
where closure is what viewers are waiting for in one while
interruption of closure is the principal mode of storytelling in the
other. She ties her research into that of Jeremy Butler and other
work about the aesthetic differences in soaps that help develop this
distinction and then concludes with the content analysis of the
weddings of two particular soap couples on General Hospital in 1986
and 1987 to demonstrate these differences.
Frentz, Suzanne, Ed. Staying Tuned: Contemporary Soap Opera
Criticism. Bowling Green, OH:
Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1992.
In the current research I've found, there is a gap of publishing after
Remote Control in 1989 and Television and Women's Culture in 1990,
with no new research on this growing field I've found in 1991.
However, Suzanne Frentz comes in with a powerhouse of a book in 1992
that (since I only recently received it through ILL) will require much
more attention from me in the next couple of months. Frentz's book
adds substantial scholarship on soap operas from a variety of
contributors, taking a typical popular culture studies approach by
attacking various small issues in textual analysis and viewer
reception of soaps. Contributors Rodney Andrew Carveth, Alison
Alexander, George Bohrer, M. Sallyanne Ryan, Bonnie Ketter, Gilah
Rittenhouse, Deborah D. Rogers, Mariam Darce Frenier, Carol T.
Williams, Jane Archer, Diana C. Reep, Scott R. Nelson, Vibert C.
Cambridge, and Diane M. Calhoun-French join Frentz in tackling a
variety of issues-How soaps might promote the view of a promiscuous
world; the gender differences involved in viewing soaps on college
campuses; the viewing reactions of junior high students when watching
soaps; the depiction of everyday sex in soaps; the nuclear family on
As the World Turns; the handling of AIDS storylines on soaps; the fate
of the subject in open narratives; the "destructive slide" toward
closure on some soaps; particular character representations on All My
Children; the relationship of soaps with oral culture amongst its
audiences; and the relationship of soap families with "real-life"
families. This collection of essays is worthy of much more study on
my part and is one of the most exciting collections that I've yet to
fully mine. However, the work is outside the established canon on
soaps, as none of these writers appear in the other anthologies or are
cited often by previous scholarship. This is a book that looks useful
with several relatively short essays on various particular aspects of
the soap opera, but it may have either dropped under the radar of
scholarship for many people or else viewed as the "B-team" of scholars
compared to Brunsdon, Allen, Ang, Hobson, Tulloch, and company.
Geraghty, Christine. "The Aesthetic Experience: Soap Opera."
Television Times: A Reader. Ed.
John Corner & Sylvia Harvey. London: Arnold, 1996, 88-97.
Although another piece within the British realm of cultural studies
and primarily focused on examples from British texts and American
primetime dramas like Dallas that have received more international
attention than the American daytime soaps, Geraghty's essay is an
important one that has influenced subsequent scholarship on American
daytime soap opera. Geraghty sets out to examine the aesthetics of
soaps and to distinguish the soaps against ideas of "light
entertainment," melodrama, and realism. Geraghty finds that "soaps
deploy a range of aesthetic elements and offer a mix of generic
conventions which confuses or makes them an object of scorn to those
who seek to confine them to a particular format." This mixing of
genres aesthetically is interesting to compare and contrast with
Robert C. Allen's work on the influence of Hollywood on soaps when
they first transferred from radio to television and on Jeremy Butler's
work on understanding and developing a study of style in American
daytime drama.
Geraghty, Christine. "The Study of Soap Opera." A Companion to
Television. Ed. Janet Wasko.
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, 308-323.
Christine Geraghty provides an overview of what has been written on
soap opera and the feminist perspective, similar to Charlotte
Brunsdon's latest work. She encourages readers to realize that
feminist criticism of soap operas does not exist as a unified body of
research and does not provide definite answers that complement each
other but, instead, these works are in conflict with each other and
provide much more nuance than they are often given credit for. She
also establishes the importance of soaps entering the classroom, as
Brunsdon does in her book. This latest trend of writing about the
study of soaps provides more chances for the study to become a
permanent and completely accepted part of television studies, as
metacommunication carries with it some degree of feeling of importance
of the communication being discussed. Therefore, talking about the
analysis of soaps grants that analysis of soaps some degree of
legitimacy as being worth discussing as a whole.
Giles, David. "Soaps." Media Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 2003, 248-257.
David Giles ventures to take soaps beyond the understanding of
primarily British feminist scholars and into realms of understanding
from psychological aspects, as he sees the enjoyment of soaps coming
from "our ability to bring fictional creations to life in our own
cognitive activity and in our talk." After a brief discussion of the
history of soap operas and the formal features of soaps, Giles
identifies trends in recent viewing trends and scholarship that are
moving the study of soaps away from the supposition of a female
audience. Giles identifies trends in research that find
identification is not the only explanation for enjoyment of soap
viewing but also the ability to understand and know characters and to
predict successfully how they will react in situations. He concludes
that some viewers long considered as not being able to distinguish
fiction from reality may be enjoying a form of play by discussing soap
characters as if they were not television characters but instead
actual people.
Gledhill, Christine. "Speculation on the Relationship Between Soap
Opera and Melodrama."
Quarterly Review of Film & Video 14.2 (1992), 103-124.
Christine Gledhill comes along at a key time in the development of a
body of scholarship on soap opera to identify a key disparity in the
texts of former authors-What is soap opera's relationship to
melodrama? Gledhill finds that scholars such as Ang and Modleski find
great ties and that Modleski even calls soap opera "soap opera
melodrama." On the other hand, Allen makes no reference to melodrama
at all in Speaking of Soap Opera and looks at radio soaps and classic
Hollywood as the inspirations for the soap opera drama. Gledhill
posits that it is the denigrated nature of both melodrama and soap
opera that causes people to lump them together and even points out
cases in which those writing about melodrama have used soap opera as
the scapegoat to try and pull melodrama higher in cultural standing.
Gledhill finds a key difference is that soap opera was originally
devised solely to be a women's genre and also finds that the seriality
of soaps set them apart from most melodrama. She identifies shared
tendencies and subject matter between the two forms but also a push
toward social realism in soap opera not present in melodrama. She
concludes by questioning how the trend in drawing soap opera formats
into primetime shows with male audiences might cause changes in
television viewership patterns, a question further addressed by recent
critics like Jason Mittell.