Do Studies of Soap Opera Viewers Help Us to Understand Media and Audience Power - Essay Example

Ways of Understanding Media and Audience Power through Studies of Soap Opera Viewers Introduction Studies of the role of soap opera audience in understanding media and audience power have yielded mixed and often contradictory results. While other researchers concentrated on the interpretative relationship linking the audience and medium, few others are banking on the contextual study of audience of this popular culture staple. Those who claimed to have seen the light are clamouring for the reconsideration of the often denigrated (i.e., feminised) role of such audience and their marginalisation within the cultural theory frameworks. As a result thereof, more debates are being opened up, which is easier than finding ways to resolve disagreements about media effects and audience reception analysis concentrated on the consumption of soap opera. Additionally, the flurry of soap opera audience research have narrowed the view in looking at the archetypes of good and bad, 'masculine' and 'feminine' genres and cognitive and emotional responses onto high and low culture, and more of the like. To help decipher some of the puzzling problems of audience studies, particularly that of soap operas, it will be of value to look into the various discourses of media researchers and feminists of television, particularly that of soap opera. This paper then answers key questions about soap opera, its audience, use of television as medium, and the media research theories. Particularly these questions are: What is what we call a soap opera? What is the difference of soap opera with other genre? Why do studies of soap opera viewers help understand audience power and the media? Do you agree? Compare the US/British soap opera with others. After a discussion of these questions, this paper ends with a short conclusion. Soap opera: origin and cultural currency Soap opera has emerged as one of the most intensively explored genres of daytime TV. It gained ground in the social research field when researchers noticed against this television show format's negative social impact on wives and mothers (Dines and Humez, 2003). But before soap opera gained prominence and attracted attention, this serialised and multi-plotted story format with women on its centre was said to have began as a 15-minute daily radio show, and was designed to sandwich soap power ads in the 1930s (Allen, 1985 in Dines and Humez, 2003). Slade (2000), meanwhile, suggested that its format was driven by advertising needs – that is, to hold audience attention through the soap ads and brings them back for another advertisement-filled episode. Soap opera became a television staple in the 1950s and early 1960s, hence, by the 1970s, this popular yet often despised but resilient television staple was attracting more than 20 million audiences (Allen, 1985 cited in Dines and Humez, 2003; Slade, 2000). Even more helpful, it is said that the study of soap opera provides a way through which genres are discussed and debates about television as a whole can be dissected. According to Geraghty (2005), merely defining soap opera can be useful in delineating the characteristics of television drama. Throughout the decades that television studies, particularly that of soap opera has been conducted, issues surrounding television studies have been threshed out and significantly shaped. Thus, soap opera, stressed by Geraghty (2005, pp. 129) 'as a particular television medium's product packaged as a fiction for women has been a product of a particular contingency' – that of the 'feminist interest'. Such so-called 'feminist interest' is also being accounted as the cause of the transformation of soap opera into a very fashionable field for academic enquiry (Brunsdon, 1993). For this matter, however, this television genre have also become a staple of textbooks, which were claimed to have sclerosed recent discussion about soap opera (Geraghty, 2010). Since textbooks are produced with the intention of simplifying and making comprehensible certain body of knowledge to provide students accessible information and with what are considered to be suitable stepping stones at appropriate levels, theoretical and the more comprehensive discussion about soap opera has been denigrated. Moreover, textbook treatment of soap opera have disarticulated the genre's original ideas, developments and theoretical breakthroughs. Explained in an easier more convenient manner, textbook definitions or discussions of soap opera have conveniently proceeded to present only the agreed positions, common sense understanding, in effect, hiding the work which was needed to create it. To identify soap opera, it would be best to look into a range of generic features that this television genre have (Brown, 1984 cited in Fiske, 1987, pp. 469-470; Slade, 2000; Geraghty, 2010; Liebes & Livingstone, 1998): As a serialised television (then radio) format, there is resistance to narrative closure Packed with multiple characters and plot threads Sense of time parallels actual time, which suggests that actions are there to continue whether audience watch it or not; narrative drag on as life goes on There is abrupt segmentation between parts Dialogue, problem solving, and intimate conversation are emphasised Male characters are 'sensitive men' Female characters are often said to be professional, if not powerful and strong in the world outside the home Setting for the show are often situated in a house or some other place that acts as a home (domestic settings) Despite intricacies of story plots and varied characters, soap operas are often low budgeted and production costs are low The lifelike and realistic impression created is manifested through the regular daily appearance of soaps and its unpretentious domestic settings Within the fictionalised life of soaps, these are seen as more real or lifelike than life itself, and more coherent and discussable than the very fragmented and all too private personal lives of real life people Defining then soap opera, using narrative analysis can allow for the differentiation of the genre when compared to other television series, serials and the like (Geraghty, 2010). Key to our discovery of the differences between soap opera and other narrative formats is to see the differences in the organisation of the narrative time and the lack of it in soap opera. Fundamental here is the narrative structure of soaps. According to Geraghty (2008), although classified as series, soap operas are unique when viewed through its potentially never-ending narrative structure. This defining feature, making it a special case of serial, seems to suggest that the narrative is written as if it can go on perpetuity. For Branston and Stafford (cited in Geraghty, 2010), such open narrative structure of the soap opera was the consequence of its having a – 1) multiple plot; 2) narrative functions partly to suit production needs; 3) characters' movements in and out of prominence, and; 4) the need to address old timer and new viewerships. Although each of these characteristics merits considerable discussion, it will be helpful to look into two of the soap opera genre's key characteristics and compare it with conventional realist narratives: its ongoing, serial form and propensity to prevent closing, and its multiplicity of plots (Fiske, 1987). Under the realism manifested in soap opera, it enjoys an infinitely extended middle part, as opposed to the traditional realist narratives that are constructed to bear a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the traditional narrative format, a story begins with a state of balance that is later on disturbed. In order for the plot to push through, the narrative will trade the effects of this disturbance all the way through to the final resolution, in effect, for the hope that a new and possibly new equilibrium will be restored (Fiske, 1987). The ideological thrust of a story is then determined through comparing of the states of equilibrium with which the story unfolds from beginning to end, and by identifying the nature of the threat of disturbance. For in these endings, the point of both narrative closure and ideological closure can be traced. Quite expectedly, the question posed will be resolved through the narrative, making sure that what it lacks and what it suffers from will be satisfied, and that threats will be diffused. In sum, the resolutions of these disturbances are naturally in search for a particular ideological reading of events, settings, and characters (Fiske, 1987). Apparently too, the aim of the realist narrative – that is, to make sense of the world – and derive the pleasure obtained from it from the comprehensiveness of this sense – are evaluated based on the relationships of the ideologies of the reader and through them to the dominant ideology of the culture. So then minus a narrative ending, which is a formal points at which to derive a powerful ideological closure, it would be inimical to losing that sense of finality of novel or film endings. In soap operas, however, departed characters and even apparently dead characters can and do return to life and the programme. Truly so, even without the manifest physical presence, the departed characters live on in the memory and gossip both of those that remains, and of their viewers (Fiske, 1987). Television Studies and Soap Opera Criticisms: A Survey Being hugely popular among women, the soap opera genre has attracted enormous interest among feminist critics who contend that along the broadening audience base of this form in the 1970s, this fiction remains a major part of many women's cultural lives (Rogers, 1991). For Rogers (1991), soap opera genre can lay open rich wealth of opportunities for cultural and social critics to examine complexities and intricacies of feminine cultural codes. What the fragmentation of the soap narrative format reinforces pertain to the status quo of women, implying heightened respect to the nature of sex roles and of interpersonal relationships in a dominantly patriarchal culture. As others observed, soap opera as a genre can often allow scholars construct contrasting messages or subversive readings of this format, while actual audience or viewers may not successfully render the same reception to the same (Rogers, 1991). Or, in another view, Hobson (in Geraghty, 2010) have sought to assert the importance of studying not only the narrative and characters in soaps. Hobson argued that a better currency to look at in studying audience pleasure in soap opera text is not its escapist property, but the engagement with a cultural form that it renders. His defence of the genre relied on his philosophy that criticism must also zero in on the connections that are established between and among the experiences and recognisable emotions and situations from the lives of the audience. Opinions vary among these feminist critics on the subversive properties of text and on the way real audience read the text. One such influential figure is Tania Modleski who, through his seminal Loving with a Vengeance (1982), underscored the way in which text of the soap opera narrative have positioned its viewers – that of causing the viewers to take on a particular 'subject position' or temporary identity while viewing the form. Modleski (cited in Dines and Humez, 2003) emphasised this to be the case on account of soap opera's multiplicity of characters and shifting perspectives. The result of such properties, viewers of soap opera are left with no single character to identify with, therefore, Dines and Humez (2003, p. 464), in quoting Modleski (1982, p. 92) - “The subject/spectator of soap opera … is constituted as a sort of ideal mother, a person who possess greater wisdom than all her children, whose sympathy is large enough to encompass the conflicting claims of her family (she identifies with them all).” Meanwhile, in the earlier television studies, the focus that centred on the text than the audience was credited as a contribution of the feminist studies. According to Brunsdon (1993), the formative stage of feminist television criticism spreads from 1976 to the mid-1980s, shying away from a genre that were once vilified and ridiculed to become a mainstay of the academia. For Rogers (1991), the very terms 'soap opera' have already become a stigma among other popular culture artifacts, citing that it has indeed become “so pejorative that it is applied condescendingly to a variety of genres and situations to indicate bathetic superficiality and kitsch” (Rogers, 1991). For Brunsdon, a more appropriate approach than the historical topology in undertaking feminist media research would be a heuristic divided into the transparent, hegemonic, and fragmented. These topologies are defined each through the relationship between the feminist and her other, the ordinary woman, the non-feminist woman, the housewife, and the television viewer. Observers note the general shift of the television criticism from merely a study of the text to an increased scrutiny of the medium and the genre's relationship to audience. Brunsdon (1993) argued that the feminist critical discourse itself constructs and produces, more than analyses, a series of position for 'women.' Contrary to the negative perceptions given to soap operas as mindless stuff, she note that studying this genre actually required feminine competencies because of its propensity to deal with the complexities of the private sphere, an aspect in society that is often ignored or avoided in other genres. Brunsdon (1993) defended this lowly format called soap operas as part of a highly gendered cultural system that gives women some space to reflect on what it felt to be one in the contemporary world. It appears then that purpose of the feminist critical inquiries of television format was to redeem television as an object worthy of discourse. Its sub-goal then would be to defend the television and its audiences through the ways it deems necessary, such as threshing out ways to analysis this medium using the concepts and approaches different from those developed in film studies. The challenges were heavy on the side of the critical enquiry for soap opera since the genre was generally marked by contradictions (Hayward, 1997). According to Hayward (1997), soap opera, like other forms of mass entertainment, was a product driven by capitalistic motives of its business owners. In addition to this, soap opera is widely considered and classified under the category of 'women's fiction,' a product to be consumed produced and created not only for but by women, which still remain as a marginalised subgroup within that same industry. Not surprisingly, the problems besetting critics of soap operas have identified among others the consequences or struggles of feminist media studies. To be particular, the study of soap opera can pose threats in the historical denigration not only of the television as a mass communication medium, but that of the forms of feminine popular culture also (Rogers, 1991). The ambivalence shown by so many feminists about soap opera genre were articulated by Modleski (1984) – “We desperately want to like a form that is popular with so many women but are repulsed by the conservative ideology. This ambivalence manifests itself when the same scholars who criticise soaps for promoting patriarchal stereotypes praise them for being 'in the vanguard … of all popular narrative art.” The generation of soap opera have also now involved the participation of audience. Hayward (1997) noted that networks are tapping the audience in providing their own interpretation, uses, and in creating 'their' shows. Soap opera producers are also holding 'forums' to invite fans to view and discuss an upcoming episode or show and to request these panels of fans to discuss their reactions to characters and plot lines. Writers note responses from audience and the output are then brought into their weekly planning sessions. Through modern technology, the increase of so-called soap opera cyberfan have increased the opportunities for collaborative negotiation (Scodari, 1998). In the cyberspace, fans are creating and joining discussion fan groups, one of the different types of outlet to allow fans to publicly post instantaneous and/or reflexive negotiations with the primary text(s) as well as meta-textual material, such as magazines. According to Stevenson (2002), there seems the tendency among feminists to seek to establish gendered selves as discursively unstable construction. The rationale is to deconstruct polarities between gendered people: of men and women, straights and gays, lesbians and gays, and the like. The simple reason for such effort has always been to unravel the complex ways through which identities are actually constructed. Another noteworthy observation was the seeming lack of discursive exploration of the interaction that manifest between the soap opera and the audience, a seeming backlash in enriching contemporary debates about what the fiction engenders (Slade, 2000). To recall, the collaborative contexts of soap opera reception and interpretation in media studies was already observed even during the early 70s, according to Allen (1985 in Scodari, 1998). The extent to which audience interpret and use hegemonic texts in resistive ways are subject of numerous debates among critical and cultural media scholars (Scodari, 1998). To with, Stevenson (2002) argued that cultural studies that addressed formerly repressed issues of pleasure and identity were gradually adopted through studies of women's interpretative relationships to popular culture. Outcome of these feminism and cultural studies yielded efforts geared toward mapping out the ways in which the self is fashioned out of contemporary cultural forms. And the soap opera genre studies have allowed the merging of concerns of both feminism and cultural studies (Stevenson, 2002). Finally, other feminist media criticisms traced by Brunsdon (1993) include the following: Combination of bourgeois, Marxist, radical and post-structuralist feminism with the distinction between essentialist and non-essentialist approaches (Kaplan, 1987). The typologies variant of the familiar political distinctions between liberal, radical and socialist feminism (Steeves, 1987; Liesbet van Zoonen, 1991). Differentiation between liberal, radical, and socialist feminism in the analysis of the range of feminist media research (Van Zoonen). Studies that argue for the methodological and analytic significance of the tradition of British cultural studies to the feminist analysis of television – seeing this as one way of avoiding essentialism (Brunsdon, 1993). Apart from the feminist perspective on soap opera, the genre was also being studied as a means of developing moral reasoning skills – to children. Slade (2000) argued how children can be of equal rank with adults in bringing out the schoolyard gossip about soap operas with a philosophically sophisticated discourse. The study of soap opera and children as its audience was rare in the plethora of overflowing discussion about the feminist codes of soaps, which after all are very successfully sold so much for what advertisements it can sell during commercial breaks. In his study, Slade (2000) used telenovela, a Latin American version of the American soap operas, investigate how the genre can provide a testing ground for ethical attitudes and starting point for debate. In his words, Slade (2000, pp. 423-424) state how soap opera have opened new ways as a talk starter – “Using soap opera as an entree to a moral dilemma might appear to be a mere high-tech way of doing what has long been accepted as a mode of developing moral talk. All too often such exercises degenerate into a dry rehearsal of options; television draws on the visual experience and the ability to identify with characters to make such moral dilemmas vivid.” Reflecting on these statements, Slade's assertion that soaps are indeed coming forward as a constituting a common culture is no longer a coincidence. This is made manifest in other television formats like news, which has taken on a soapy approach (Slade, 2000). In the convention of television, visual media that evoke immediate and emotional reactions can greatly differ than when compared to print because moving images may generate more emotional. Slade (2000), meanwhile, countered that while television may be thought of as less logical than print, the emotional reasonings may be deemed unreasonable or different from reasoning. Given these properties, soap opera may be compared to nineteenth century fictions, whereby wide imaginative space are available to give wide room for moral debate to take place. American and European Soap Operas, compared The soap opera, with an image that is wholly American in origin, was said to have reached the European soils during the 1980s. The question following this influx of American television has stirred and worried European film and television producers to rise up to the challenge (Liebes and Livingstone, 1998). In Europe, producers of television soaps were divided into three groups: the big producers (Great Britain, Germany), those countries producing one or a few soaps (Greece, the Netherlands, Scandinavia), and those who produce none (France, Italy, Spain) (Liebes and Livingstone, 1998). Apparently too, the study then of European soaps was spurred by questions about preserving these national cultures' identity and cultural diversity amidst globally diffused soap opera. The enquiry also asked whether European nation states can manage to produce their own successful soaps amidst the competitive new environment. To be particular, these studies on the European soap opera can be helpful in discussing the cultural imperialism thesis or Americanisation (Liebes and Livingstone, 1998; Ang, 1985). In her study of the American serial Dallas, Ang meant that there is the tendency for other national soap operas to imitate or capitulate to Americanisation. The implication would be the repression of more authentic national cultures to flourish or the liberation of other commercial cultures to be recognised. As a result then, other nations might strive to imitate the glossy production style of Dallas or any of its American counterpart. Liebes and Livingstone (1998) classified Euro-centric soaps into three subtypes: the community soap, the dynastic soap, and the dyadic soap. In the first type, kinship structure constitute the dynastic type, whereas the community soap elevates the hegemonic type, which have said 'to be produced in the spirit of public service broadcasting and so are more likely to problematise gender issues in their conscious attempt to transmit social messages' (Liebes and Livingstone, 1998, pp. 147). The dyadic form, however, are set on a destabilised environment in which family structures are absent or missing, and these subtypes are operating on the modern and postmodern despair of too much liberation and too little trust. They concluded then that while the production by European nation states of soaps have become established in expressing national cultural concerns, there is dependency upon incorporating both formal and content features of the genre. Additionally, Liebes and Livingstone (2008, pp. 175) – “Thus, the move away from the culturally specific contents towards a more 'empty form' may be seen to threaten cultural expression through the soap opera.'” Then we proceed to the study of the larger producer of soaps in Europe, which have always been community soaps (Liebes and Livingstone, 2008), the British. In a more general level, television studies on American and British soap operas drew on concepts being developed in film studies, an approach viewed to help the researcher in determining differences and generating the characteristics of the product of the television medium. The impetus in this approach was toward making television as a medium worthy of deep study and in order to map out modes of analysis that will gradually be on its own terms different from the concepts and approaches developed in film studies (Geraghty, 2010). It will be best then to look into the aspects of American and British soap opera that are being looked at in this regard. Primary of these works on narrative is the concern that television has the propensity to run its stories through segments and episodes. Another is the the seeming lack of narrative closure of serial fiction can be contrasted on the film medium's rather imposition of an ending that can then perform ideological and narrative closure. Thirdly, given that debates about the qualities of realist narratives in dealing with ideology and representation are inherent in other mass communication media, the same can also be said to be related to television's public function, particularly to the interaction between television fiction and other generic forms like documentary and news. Through representation studies, a factor in the criticism works centred on gender, have led researchers of television media, which unlike comparable work in cinema studies, into the kind of enquiry about what kind of soap opera viewers are the female audience. Moreover, it can hardly be denied the role played by realism and representation for the discussion of British soaps, and these key indicators are often linked to narrative organisation. These have advantages as stories about social issues can be dealt with and as in real life, can be expected to resurface over many years (Geraghty, 2010). Another distinguishing mark of British soap opera than its counterpart is its tendency to incorporate references to the everyday rhythms and insertion of generally mundane moments of daily chores like shopping and cooking (Geraghty, 2010). There is more realistic and far concrete settings that are utilised in British soap operas without neglecting that its emphasis on such verisimilitude can be affected by the realist narrative's demands for flexibility to allow shorelines to meet and switch and allows for the coherence and the feeling of community so central to soap's pleasures (Geraghty, 2010). Another broad organising principle of British soaps identified by Geraghty (2008) is gender, push forth through the fiction's depiction of how communities are bound together by family and emotional relationships. For in British settings, the domesticity and relationships are put at their 'heart,' both factors that point towards a range of female roles and the valuing of female skills (Geraghty, 2010). One relevant observation made about the study on gender in British soaps is how the same lead to the identification of melodrama in soaps, often said to be associated with the polarising forces of good and bad and the emphasis on the personal rather than the than the public sphere. The advantage here of using melodrama is how it can be exploited with and in contrast to the mundane everydayness of realism, that gives license to soap operas to exaggerate because of the use of the melodrama form. Without such approach to use, soap operas would hardly draw on clearly defined emotions to explore complex moral issues (Geraghty, 2010). Audience Reception Studies Underscoring problems facing audience research, Livingstone (1998) elaborated prospects for audience reception analyses. Her paper described the paradox existent in the construction of research canon – the flurry of studies being published while there remains big body of criticisms which have largely gone unresolved. Thus, she encouraged future studies geared toward this direction. Livingstone (1998) first identified six of the most popular research models that facilitate audience analysis or the interpretative construction of paradigm linking audience and medium, that can easily be understood within broad ethnographic context. First of these traditions was concerned with the processes of producing and reproducing culture (encoding and decoding) to arrive at a text and audience studies (Hall, 1980 cited in Livingstone, 1998). The concern of this model was an enquiry into the degrees of understanding and misunderstanding in the communication exchanges. The concern of such study was dependent on the relations of equivalence 'established between the positions of the personifications, encoder/producer and decoder/receiver' (Hall, 1980, pp. 181 cited in Livingstone, 1998, pp. 2). Secondly, the audience interpretation as a bridge between the uses and gratification studies and cultural studies (Livingstone, 1998). Katz (1979, cited in Livingstone, 1998) noted that the goal here is to determine how audience might respond amidst media excess. The purpose of this effort then is to eventually allow the performance of ritual uses of communications, including the transmission of media contents from the source (producer) to the recipient (audience). Thirdly, the audience studies that try to shy away from the focus on the ideological and institutional determinants of media texts, particularly indicating the emergence of 'disappearing' audience (Fejex, 1984 cited in Livingstone, 1998). This theory is concerned with the resistant type of audience towards a more thorough understanding of such hegemonic studies as the dominant ideology thesis, the cultural imperialism thesis, and the political economy paradigm. The fourth approach to audience study, however, is aimed at moving toward post-structuralist paradigm that occurred through the Birmingham's School's approach to cultural studies and through the influence of German reception-aesthetics and American reader-response theory (Livingstone, 1998). The feminist studies is fifth among these audience reception analyses that hopes to advocate the reconsideration of the mapping out of mode of analysing good and bad, masculine and feminine genres, and cognitive and emotional responses onto high and low culture. The alternative course of action in this research path is the discovery of a sustainable map to investigate passive and active audiences, critical and normative readings and open and closed texts. Through feminine aesthetic grounds, the allegedly marginalised audience or invisible (feminine) was believed garnering the voice it deserved through normative theorising (Livingstone, 1998). Finally and sixth, the use of ethnographic context in audience reception analysis. This paved the way for the contextualisation of texts and other elements in the producing and consuming of popular culture products. This sixth tradition involves a more intricate and detailed look at the 'culture of the everyday,' emphasising the relevance of 'thick description' as providing a grounding for the theory. Also considered here are studies of rituals relative to culture and communication processes, and the discovery of meanings in the verisimilitudes of daily life. (Livingstone, 1998) Conclusion The significance of audience studies of soap opera viewers in understanding media and the power of the recipient of such popular culture product cannot be discounted as only relevant among social and culture critics. Producers of soap operas can learn and understand from American soap operas and through its European counterparts how to respond to the challenge and allegations that soap operas are making the audience unintelligent and passive (non-vigilant). Though this may be challenged by the rise of new kinds of active audience who are utilising the power of modern technology to participate in the conceptualisation and sharing insights about the improvement of soap opera to become more pleasurable in audio-visual sense, however, the participation of the audience will still have to pass through the endorsement of different forces like networks and advertisers. Hence, audience participation is not yet big on the shaping of the moral compass that soap opera may aspire to deliver. In this regard, the proposal of Slade (2000) that soap opera be used as a tool in developing moral reasoning skills of its audience is commendable, an optimistic note than what were rarely tackled by feminist and television audience reception studies which are merely concerned with the text and sometimes the combination and text-reader analysis. To this point, the level of soap opera criticisms are lacking. Moreover, media studies about soap opera are often relegated to how the plethora of theorising would promote the self-interest of the advocate (feminism of the feminism struggle to go mainstream from being marginalised) and the academic enquiry to benefit students in the academia but less toward aiding policy makers in institutionalising the fiction format as an aid in heightening the audience's level of competency and comprehension of the televisual texts to inspire change in oneself and then society. In sum, the examination of soap opera viewers will continue to evolve, with some extolling it and some damning it; with some crediting it to a world of reality in restoring equilibrium. Whatever interpretation social and cultural historians and researchers may finally have, the fact is that it came through within and beyond one man's control. The study then can help provide a safety net that will allow regulators and all concerned the reason to check for its uses. References Ang, I., 1985. Watching 'Dallas’: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. [online] Available at [Accessed 24 August 2011]. Ang, I., 1990. “Melodramatic identifications: television fiction and women’s fantasy’ in Brown, M., ed. Television and Women"s Culture: the politics of the popular, London, Sage. Brunsdon C., 2000. The Feminist, the Housewife and the Soap Opera: Clarendon Press Brunsdon, C., 1993. Identity in feminist television criticism. Media, Culture and Society, 15, pp. 309-320. Brunsdon, C., 1981. 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Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ch. 45. Scodari, C., year, "No Politics Here":Age and Gender in Soap Opera "Cyberfandom". In G. Gines and J.M. Humez, ed. 2003. Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text- Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ch. 48. Slade, C., 2000. Why Not Lie? Television Talk and Moral Debate, 1(4), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. pp. 419-429. Read More