Suchergebnisse

A quantitative description is presented of the audience & the content of the daytime TV serials. The growth of the soap opera audience is documented with figures for the number of minutes of programs, the Viewer-Hours per day, & the average audience size at semi-annual intervals since 1955. Current audience composition is presented for age, sex, region of US, Ur vs Ru, income, educ, & household size. There are 2 types of content analysis of programs. 1st, the major problems & events of one week in all soap operas are distilled & presented as a list of 85 themes divided into "criminal & undesirable activity," "Med developments," "soc problems," & "romantic & marital affairs." The 2nd analysis of content was derived from a sample of 4 episodes of each of 14 programs. 371 diff characters were identified by sex, age group, marital status & occup. Coding was applied to 884 distinct conversations for object, topic, tone & location. Findings indicated that the typical viewer of soap operas is an adult woman (71% of total). Viewing is strongest in the south & midwest, in Ru areas, among lower educ & income viewers, & among viewers from larger households. The world of the soap opera is populated by M & F adults--mainly M professionals & their F wives, lovers, secretaries & assistants. They spend almost all of their time talking while indoors. In conversations, M's tend to pair off with F's who tend to be younger. The M's are less likely to be married. Over 90% of the conversations are about people, mostly people who are not present. When the topic is not business or small talk, conversation turns to fam matters, health, & romantic relationships. The key remaining area for res involves the question of what effects this content has on these viewers. AA.