In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The trailer which I participated in producing is based on a soap which has conventions of soap operas and dramas. My production is based on a business and on its workers going through the recession. A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction usually broadcasted on television. What differentiates a soap from other television drama programs is the open-ended nature of the narrative, with stories spanning several episodes. Soap operas have a large scale of target audience; young teenagers to the older ages. The success of soap operas is mainly the narratives used and also the characters as well as the settings. An example of a successful soap opera is EastEnders. The series has been going on for over twenty years and is the most watched programme in the UK. EastEnders uses a wide range of characters through age, ethnicity and gender, and, generally bases it around working-classes. The conventions of soap operas are that they used ‘real’ storylines which can occur in the audiences’ lives. As Eastenders is set in east London, the storylines would contain issues surrounding the lives of the characters living in London, for example, jobs in London or certain events which would take place in London. Soap operas’ target audience are mainly women, and initially when soap operas were first running it was actually for women. However, today it has more male audiences than it would have had 15 years ago. In my production, the conventions of soap and drama are intertwined. It is easier to understand this by saying that I have used conventions of soaps but also, I have improved on the conventions according to my target audience and to make it more realistic. Soap opera narratives run concurrently, intersect, and lead into further developments. This structure has worked well and keeps the audience waiting till the next episode, the intersecting storylines are like mini-cliffhangers and almost forces the audience to watch other storylines within the episode, so ending cliffhangers of the episode has the same effect with these mini-cliffhangers.

In my production social class is an obvious matter and there are clear lines between the classes. In contemporary UK it is thought that class identities are blurred because of the wider possibilities for working classes and other classes to buy into the class they wish to identify with. Most people believe this because of the individualistic society London is. In fact class is an obvious element in our lives because certain classes have certain advantages, for example, middle classes have advantages on money and education where as working classes would be more different; access to higher education is usually through a student loan and most families receive benefits in this class. In my production there is a spectrum of classes which would be used, not just working-class like EastEnders. It is based in London and we keep the element of individualism, but portray it more as loneliness rather than community based like soap operas, just because this is realistic in a soap based in London. The class of the characters are middle-class and goes down to working-class to ‘classless’ class, which is someone who would be seen as a ‘tramp’ in societies’ eyes.

The production is mostly woman dominated. This emphasises on the success of women and also to represent them in a way to break stereotypical image of women. One of the characters featuring in the production is a homosexual young female; the men in the office are attracted to her but she is not interested. The aim of this character is to show that there is not always an ‘office slut’ and that women are not subsidiary to men. The personal assistant is male and unpopular with the employees but has a close platonic relationship with the boss. He is unsuccessful socially and represents a male character who, in some ways, subsidiary to women. This is just to draw a contrast between reality and stereotypical characters where in soaps usually women are obedient to men. Women are becoming more successful and stronger as time goes by. The boss is the dominant female and she is typically a stressful person because of her commitments to her work. She also represents the Muslim religion which is not found in British soaps. Her religion is not so much of a ‘big deal’, her headscarf is the only symbol to show this and this shocks the audience, in a way, to see a Muslim female boss in the workplace. London is a multi-cultural and secular society and Eastenders fails in some ways to portray this effectively. We do not see a lot of religious people in soaps, or at least in a long term. Her religion and beliefs are not a moral issue but just her lifestyle. Currently within the western world there are prejudices surrounding the religion mainly which are the effects of the media on how it is the religion of terrorist. In our groups’ interview with an office, (mainly made up of white Christian workers) they agreed that they were aware of the exaggeration of the media about this religion and that actually the businesses that they have agreements with are mostly Muslims or Jewish.

There is also a character in the production that has ADHD. Soaps do not tackle mental disorders as ‘normal’ as often. Schizophrenia is also a manageable disorder when taking prescription drugs. It is quite common to meet an array of people in London and the idea of a character having a mental disorder such as ADHD is just to portray this. It is a disorder where a person has difficulty in concentrating and can affect their life drastically in terms of work. Soaps play a huge role in educating the audience in many ways according the storylines they use to make people aware of certain things. This character is just to represent that anyone, even someone in your workplace, can have a health issue but also that there is no need to actually highlight it in sense where the whole office (or community) would have to feel sympathy towards that person, because it is acceptable to be different. The portrayals of disabilities are becoming popular, for example, in Hollyoaks there is a character that has a wheelchair. The idea of using disabilities, as well as educating the audience, it also attracts to disabled audiences and drawing them into the soap community and making them feel part of it.

Realism is a massive part of soaps. Traditional soaps are community based but unfortunately this is not so common in London anymore, this does not reflect London’s individualistic society. People are becoming more independent. The community based feel Eastenders has is more towards post-war Britain and this is becoming out of fashion. In our interview for research, when asked about Eastenders people questioned why nobody had a washing machine (a mutual point in the soap is a laundrette). As a group we challenged this idea and by featuring different characters we tried to draw a line between people to emphasise that communities do not exist anymore in the professional world. However, we do try to create a new fashioned community, one which consists of different and independent people yet also as one body because the people featured in the soap are working in the same area of work. So, communities do work in soaps because we see this through current successful soap operas, however it needed updating by extending it and using the idea of community in a different way.

A current issue such as the recession which is globally impacting people and businesses are not being touched on enough by soaps. It is a major event in most peoples’ lives because it has caused people to lose jobs and even go bankrupt. This massive issue should be highlighted more and not featuring this in a soap is quite peculiar because a soap is actually meant to reflect real life; the audiences’ life. As the target audience are working classes for most soaps and the crisis has affected this class a lot, it should be used as a main storyline which runs throughout the episodes. My production’s spine and what holds together the storyline is actually this matter: the money crisis. Because money is such a universal thing, the target audience are middle and working classes.

In soaps it is fair to say that narratives are exaggerated because every episode there is always something wrong with someone. No one is ever just happy. I understand that this is done for entertainment purposes, and I would say that this exaggeration is not an accurate representation of people. Some of the major problems which have happened to some of the characters’ lives in Eastenders would not happen in anyone’s lifetimes. I believe that if featuring a happier episode it would have more of an effect to the audience if something bad happened in the next episode because it would disappoint the audience rather than an ongoing ‘unlucky’ experience for the characters.

The target audience for my production are people between early 20s up to middle age who work in an office environment. They would be able to sympathise with the characters, i.e. the new girl character would be a window for the audience to learn and understand the surroundings and the idea of the soap and to meet to the people who are featured in the soap. They would learn about the soap with the new girl. The other characters are appealing in different ways for the audience; the ADHD sufferer is actually a good looking character and is meant to appeal to the female audience. Eastenders has such a large scale of audience of different backgrounds; this is because they feature such a huge scale of different characters. My production would just appeal to a niche audience, an audience that would appeal to the characters. Young adults may be interested in watching this soap because they may want to work in an office or already do and want to empathise with the soap.

Soap opera narratives run concurrently and intersect. This structure has worked well; the intersecting storylines are like mini-cliffhangers keeps the audience waiting. The main cliffhanger at the end of the episodes keeps the audience waiting for the next episode. This is a main element of soaps and this convention is necessary to keep a soap running, so we have kept this vital element. The interweaving storylines keep the characters updated and the storylines updated and gives a chance to unravel more and more storylines to keep the audience interested. It also creates a way to bond the characters and maybe even introduce new ones. Soap operas also have central meeting points. In Eastenders the pub, launderette and the market are the main points in which characters meet each other and also to form gossip (another convention). The ideas of the meeting points are also a vital ingredient to identify a program as a soap. The meeting points in my production are places where an office employee is likely to go and, the target audience of middle class and working class are also likely to identify with. These places are the pub, the car park, and the kitchen of the office. There would also be outside meeting points away from the office premises to maybe introduce new characters or to just have a chance to see the characters outside of the working environment. However, like in EastEnders where everyone knows each other somehow, not everyone would know each other in my production, simply because of the main message of London being a crowded yet lonely place.

The ideas being communicated is that long running soap operas, however successful they may be, they are actually outdated when paralleled with the real world. They do cover the realistic issues of daily life through storylines, but they seem exaggerated. London is a multi cultural city and it can be easy to forget this because it is always around us. There should be more variety in the characters’ cultures in soaps to appeal to a wider audience. The production seeks to confront stereotyping and just prove it wrong because the stereotyping itself is created by the media and by using media we are trying to undo it. Empowering women and just bringing a certain religion to surface are just the slight ways in which it may help.