Soap opera genre target audience

1. Soap Opera Genre –
Target Audience
Name: Jude Munday
Candidate Number: 3092
Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic School
Center Number: 64135
OCR Media Studies – A2 Level
Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio

2. The stereotypical target audience for soap operas according to Hartley’s 7 subjectivities are females aged 18-
40. Its attractive to people in this bracket because they tend to be more emotionally engaged, females
stereotypically are more dramatic than males and therefore become more attached to soap operas and can
really get into the scenarios. Its stereotypical for females to prefer to watch such shows like romances
compared to actions. It is clear that the target audience are aged 18-40 due to the times that soap operas are
aired, often being on at 7pm to 10pm weekdays. This is prime time for working class people who work during
the day and so are at home at these times usually relaxing, as the average worker gets home between 6-7pm.
Using Maslow’s Hierachy of needs we can understand that the audience are of various types. Many are care
givers (the stereotypical female aged 25) as they engage with the how and the characters feeling emotionally
attached to tem perhaps feeling upset when a likened character dies or something bad happens to them.
Another example is that the audience are explores, they are interested by varying social situations covered and
to explore new issues.
Katz would say that the audience for soap operas are personal identifiers, so they like to identify peoples social
situation, problems for example. This is due to the vast amount of difference in characters each having their
own problems which the audience can identify.
Hollyoaks cast – proves the
characters are mostly
working class.

3. The Psychographics graph denotes that the audience are
aspirers, people who seek higher social status and care very
much on their persona. This can be deduced as soap operas
are very materialistic and portray certain aspirers, they often
show the good characters as being well dressed excreta.
However people who are resigned will also watch soap operas
as they seek the feeling of social situations and want to be in
the loop with modern society. This is because people who are
resigned are elderly and perhaps now feel more lonely, so
soaps engage these people into society. Finally people who
watch soaps may also be strugglers who use the soaps as an
escape to their own social situation. Seeing other people go
through difficulties (as acted by the drama) may make
themselves feel better but also provide living experience so
that they can get themselves out of this struggle.
Hollyoaks – teenage characterIn accordance with the socio economic needs, the
stereotypical target audience are within the bracket c1-E. This
is because as mentioned before the audience are working
class which is specifically this bracket as deduced by the
showing times. More so the characters within the shows are
often working class (c1) and therefore have been chosen so
the audience can relate to them. However there is also a
bracket for students (E) as teenagers are often portrayed
within soap operas through a number of characters. People
who watch soap operas are in the lower bracket of the scale
as the episodes aren't educational and so require less
attention and so are very much a casual TV show to watch.