CAGE

CLASSIn theory a soap opera is meant to be a slice of real life but how well do British soaps represent the nations class’s?

I formed a focus group of 20 people that regularly watch soaps, a mix of females and males, ages, class backgrounds and sexualities; and asked them if they thought that the different class’s of Britain are successfully represented in the 5 main soaps.

Out of the 20 people I asked 15 of them said that they thought the 5 main soaps did successfully represent the British class system.

The 5 that disagreed pointed out that the characters are often over dramatized and there are very rarely, ‘average middle-lower class’ characters that actually represent the majority of the county. In general if a soap character is poor they’re very poor and if a soap character is rich/posh they’re very rich/posh.

AGEHow well do the nations soaps represent the age groups in Britain?

Out of my focus group of 20 people, 17 said they thought soaps in Britain successfully represented the diverse age rages in Britain.

The 3 that disagreed pointed out that depending on the soap the representation of age ranges varies. For example Emmerdale has more 50 plus people than 30 -. However the soap is meant to represent the lives of people in a small village so this lack of age range is not unbelievable.

GenderIt is obvious that the soaps do correct represent the genders in numbers but how well do they represent them unbiasedly?

10 out of the 20 people in my focus group said they felt men and women are represented fairly, and the gender representation is similar of that in real life.

The people that disagreed had similar comments to those that disagreed with the age question. They pointed out that if a women was a ‘girly’ character then they are very girly and if a woman was more ‘masculine’ they are very masculine and the same for the campness of men and the manliness of men.

Ethnicity

Soaps are advertised as slice of real life but do they really represent the diverse range of ethnicities in Britain?

Of the 20 people I asked 18 said they felt that soaps successfully represented the different ethnicities in Britain.

The 2 that disagreed pointed out that soaps rarely represent the eastern European's in London/Manchester.