Soap Characters and Life Skills: An Interview Study on Shortland Street

Abstract

Shortland Street is New Zealand's most successful domestic television soap opera. For this study, 112 regular Shortland Street viewers (92 women and 20 men) were interviewed in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The interviewees spent a considerable amount of time evaluating the soap's characters. They classified characters as either ‘likeable’ or ‘annoying’, and grouped them according to their ‘life skills’. Talking about characters' life skills urged viewers to reflect on their own experiences, views and positions. The Shortland Street characters articulate a discursive community with which viewers can interact to discuss life skills they regard as important. While previous soap opera studies have shown that viewers appreciate stronger female characters, in this study female characters seen as lacking life skills were heavily criticised by many interviewees.

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