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To Be Continued...: Soap Operas Around the World
To Be Continued... explores the world's most popular form of television drama; the soap opera. From Denver to Delhi, Moscow to Manchester, audiences eagerly await the next episode of As the World Turns, The Rich Also Weep or Eastenders. But the popularity of soap operas in Britain and the US pales in comparison to the role that they play in media cultures in other parts of the world.
To Be Continued... investigates both the cultural specificity of television soap operas and their reception in other cultures, covering soap production and soap watching in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. The contributors consider the nature of soap as a media text, the history of the serial narrative as a form, and the role of the soap opera in the development of feminist media criticism.
To Be Continued... presents the first scholarly examination of soap opera as global media phenomenon.
To Be Continued... investigates both the cultural specificity of television soap operas and their reception in other cultures, covering soap production and soap watching in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. The contributors consider the nature of soap as a media text, the history of the serial narrative as a form, and the role of the soap opera in the development of feminist media criticism.
To Be Continued... presents the first scholarly examination of soap opera as global media phenomenon.
410 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 22, 1994
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February 29, 2016
I've read various sections of this, a fascinating reference book. I started with 'Global Neighbours? by Stephen Crofts, because it is an Australian soap that was very popular in Britain. I swear I have never watched an episode myself.
This essay opens with:
'An irresistible epigraph from Jerry Hall, when she was the taller half of Mick Jagger, speaking on the Clive James Show in the United Kingdom on New Years Eve, December 31, 1989: "Before I saw Neighbours, I didn't know there was an Australia." '
Now, some can appreciate the irony in this, now that Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch are engaged.
Another standout essay is:
'The end of civilization as we knew it, Chances* and the postrealist soap opera' by Ien Ang and Jon Stratton
'Chances* and the postrealist soap opera.
Chances problematizes the traditional soap's stress on the moral consensus of community by privileging 'radical excess': that which is excessive to, and therefore is generally excluded from the prevailing moral order of soap opera. This shift forms the basis of what we will call soap opera POSTREALISM.'
The collective essays cover soap operas around the world.
This essay opens with:
'An irresistible epigraph from Jerry Hall, when she was the taller half of Mick Jagger, speaking on the Clive James Show in the United Kingdom on New Years Eve, December 31, 1989: "Before I saw Neighbours, I didn't know there was an Australia." '
Now, some can appreciate the irony in this, now that Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch are engaged.
Another standout essay is:
'The end of civilization as we knew it, Chances* and the postrealist soap opera' by Ien Ang and Jon Stratton
'Chances* and the postrealist soap opera.
Chances problematizes the traditional soap's stress on the moral consensus of community by privileging 'radical excess': that which is excessive to, and therefore is generally excluded from the prevailing moral order of soap opera. This shift forms the basis of what we will call soap opera POSTREALISM.'
The collective essays cover soap operas around the world.
Displaying 1 of 1 review