The Great Indian Television Soap Opera

abstract

Fiction has been a popular genre on Indian television. From the era of a single national broadcaster to the time when a plethora of General Entertainment Channels (GECs) has crowded the Indian tele-screen, fictional programming has seen an exponential ascent. TV serials have become one of the most popular offerings. In the age when narrowcasting seems to be taking broadcasting head on, the genre of television serials however seems unperturbed. TV serials have also weaved socio-cultural patterns through their content. The content of Indian television soaps has seen an evolution of sorts. They have made vociferous cultural representations in the process. This paper seeks to look at the evolution of content in the televised soaps in the Indian context. The paper traverses the role of these soaps in defining cultural identity and ethos. It would further seek to critique the cultural ethos of the new ‘pseudo-social’ breed of soaps.

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Ruchi Jaggi

Ruchi Jaggi is a media educator with the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Symbiosis International University, Pune, India.