American soap operas

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Labs: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

The television landscape has changed drastically in the past few years; nowhere is this more prevalent than in the American daytime serial drama, one of the oldest forms of television content. This class examines the history of these "soap operas" and their audiences by focusing on the production, consumption, and media texts of soaps. The class will include discussions of what makes soap operas a unique form, the history of the genre, current experimentation with transmedia storytelling, the online fan community, and comparisons between daytime dramas and primetime serials from 24 to Friday Night Lights, through a study of Procter & Gamble's As the World Turns.

In each week's viewing lab, we will be watching the Procter & Gamble Productions/TeleVest soap opera produced for CBS Daytime Television, As the World Turns (1956-present). There may be occasional viewings of texts for comparison in regular class sessions.

There is only one book required for this course:

Allen, Robert C. Speaking of Soap Operas. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780807841297.

All other readings for the course will be provided on MIT Server, as the other books we will be reading are currently out of print.

There will be none. Students must attend regularly to complete the assignments.

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