History of Soap and General, Narrative and Setting Conventions

The term 'Soap Opera' comes from the 1930's in the USA to the 1950's where they spread to televisions around the world. It descried radio series that were sponsored by 'soap'. The stories usually have dramatic or tragic story line's giving them the name 'opera'.

Popularity of soap increased due to American Soap's like 'Dallas' made rise to popular British soaps like 'Eastenders' and also Australian soaps such as 'Neighbors' and 'Home and Away' which targeted a younger audience allowing British soaps to introduce new characters of younger ages into their soaps along with the introduction of teen-soaps such as 'Hollyoaks'. 'Soap' has become very popular, such success has allowed the longest running soap, Coronation Street to thrive for 50 years. Soaps have entertained and became topic of conversation for numerous people over the years and have become some of the most popular television.

Soap Conventions
.Soaps usually are on most days of the week all year round including special episodes for Christmas and New Year. They are serialized dramas and to be on so often emphasizes their realism, on average a soap episode incorporates a day's length, once again showing their realistic attributes.

.Set in a small area, Eastenders - The Square, Emmerdale- A village etc. In terms of occupational soaps they are set in a work place eg: Holby City- cast works in a hospital, Waterloo Road cast set in a school.

.Soaps usually have multi-stranded narratives to show a range of characters lives in an episode, stories usually are quite shocking but somewhat realistic, stories usually center around affair,disease,homosexuality,love,deceit,crime,depression,child abuse,drugs, struggling families and other stories of this caliber.

.A focus on about a third of the casts different story-lines in a week as not to get too confusing for the viewer.

.Focus on common or working class characters for the majority.

. Each episode will end with a cliff hanger to encourage viewers to watch the next episode.

. Episodes usually contain enigma (questions raised) and action (questions answered) This can be seen with the stereotypical soap character who will usually have some dark secrets which will be gradually revealed as the serial progresses.

 .Have a familiar theme tune and opening sequence, the opening sequence may change however it is rare for the theme tune to change and audiences to be happy about it.

. Characters usually all appear to know each other well and many cast members have extended family,who will come and go through the years.

.Strong regional identity (Coronation Street -Manchester attracting viewers of the area and adding to realism)

.Central meeting place where secret are often exposed or storyline comes to a climax. Usually seen with pubs in both Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Eastenders.

.Controversy - drugs,homosexuality, and more recently baby swaps bring about a lot of public and media interest, inevitably causing a rise in ratings as well as more debate as the stories usually escalate in controversial plots, most recently can be seen with the 'baby swap' plot in Eastenders which saw 'Ronnie Branning swap her dead baby for Kat Moon's live baby. This story had to be cut short and re-written due to public outcry.

.Stories usually feature a marriage or birth, two extravagant moments which more often then not, do not end  happily.