Soap Operas, Content Analyses of

Daytime serial dramas, or soap operas, emerged from radio programming of the 1940s and 1950s and became a popular genre among housewives and retirees. The pace of these serial dramas is often quite slow, with more talk than action and with a focus on interpersonal relationships. Over recent decades, the content of soap operas has become edgier, attracting adolescents and college students. Because of their increasing popularity, devoted viewers, and expanding audiences, researchers have begun to examine the specific nature of their content and to ask whether it is appropriate for younger viewers.

This question drives many content analyses of daytime soap operas. For these analyses, researchers record a selection of soap opera programming, typically 1 week, and then systematically analyze the programs for the presence of specific behavior or themes. Alternatively, some analyze soap opera digests that offer summaries of each day's episodes. The intent of either approach is to document the frequency or prevalence of specific actions, themes, or attributes. In general, findings paint the soap opera world as one dominated by white, middleto upperclass, attractive professionals. Nonwhites accounted for only 3% to 5% of all soap opera characters in early analyses and nearly 15% in more recent studies. Unlike all other TV genres, however, men and women typically appear in equal numbers on soaps, although women tend to be younger than men. The majority of soap opera characters (75%) are between 20 and 50, with only 1% of major characters over age 65.

A common focus of soap operas is romantic and sexual relationships. Indeed, recent findings from Dale Kunkel and his colleagues show that soaps are the genre for which the highest percentage of programs (96%) contain sexual content. As such, the bulk of the existing content analyses focus on sexual content. For these analyses, researchers first develop a list of sexually intimate behaviors, such as passionate kissing, unmarried intercourse, and prostitution, and then analyze multiple episodes to document the number of times these behaviors are displayed visually or mentioned verbally. Additional characteristics of sexual content are sometimes noted, including sex, age, race, and marital status of the participants; nature of the relationship between participants (e.g., strangers, married); and tone of the interaction. Several common findings emerge. First, sexual references are more often verbal than visual. Verbal references to unmarried intercourse are particularly common; references to prostitution, homosexuality, and STD prevention are less frequent. When sexual content is visual, it tends to be passionate kissing or erotic touching; physical representations of sexual intercourse are rare. Second, findings indicate that verbal or visual sexual references have increased from about 2 per hour in the early 1980s to 5 to 8 by the late mid-1990s. A 2003 programming analysis put this rate at 5.1 scenes per hour. Finally, such content occurs more frequently in reference to unmarried intercourse than married intercourse.

A second focus of soap opera content analyses is the prevalence of substance use, particularly alcohol, described as the most frequently used drug on television. Studies have investigated the frequency with [Page 774]which alcoholic drinks are consumed or discussed, settings and circumstances under which such behavior occurs, reasons alcohol is consumed, and any apparent consequences of drinking. Several findings have emerged. First, alcohol portrayals are quite common, but they are less frequent on daytime soaps than in prime-time programming. Studies report that incidents of alcohol use appear 1.5 to 3 times per half hour in American soaps and 6.4 times per hour in British soaps, where many scenes take place in pubs. Second, in terms of context, the majority of drinking characters are male, and much drinking takes place in the home (in American soaps). Third, drinking is most frequently depicted as serving social facilitation purposes (e.g., wine with dinner, cocktails at a party), and such behavior is either reinforced or meets no consequences. Drinking to escape reality is the second most common reason for drinking, especially among alcoholics. This is typically frowned on and meets with concern; drinking to intoxication is often negatively reinforced. Yet overall, soap opera drinking is somewhat common yet typically moderate and problem free, with minimal depiction of the consequences of drinking, especially any negative health consequences.

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