Shortland Street audiences and cultural citizenship

Abstract

Shortland Street is New Zealand's most successful long-running television soap. The programme has a reputation for dealing with complex issues of public relevance, such as HIV/AIDS, cultural diversity, teenage pregnancy, same-sex relationships and Indigenous culture and language. This article analyses how Shortland Street viewers talk about these public issues and about the soap's role in representing and reflecting on New Zealand society. Interviews with a total of 112 Shortland Street viewers were carried out in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The aim of this article is to analyse interviewees' discourse about Shortland Street as practices of cultural citizenship. The benefits of this approach are twofold: first, it will provide a deeper understanding of the value of Shortland Street for New Zealand society; and second, it will make connections between theoretical writing on cultural citizenship and empirical audience studies.

Notes

1. Additionally, re-runs of episodes from previous seasons of Shortland Street are aired on the Freeview channel TVNZ 6 under the title ‘Shortland Street: From the Beginning’.

2. Shortland Street has not only screened in New Zealand but has also been exported to Australia, the United Kingdom, Fiji, Canada, Malta, Cyprus, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Botswana, Sri Lanka, Cook Islands and the Seychelles (Cairns and Martin 1996, 99; Dunleavy 2005, 245).

3. Of the total of 112 interviews, 38 were carried out in 2006, 26 in 2007 and 48 in 2008.

4. I would like to thank Sue Abel for her invaluable contributions to this project. Sue and I designed the project together, and she trained and supervised half of the group of students in 2006. Sue has also given feedback on earlier drafts of this article, for which I am very grateful.

5. This project would not have existed without the enthusiastic contributions of the following Victoria University of Wellington Media Studies students. In 2006, the interviewers for this project were: Nor Azira Basiran, Nicole Bennik, Emma Black, Graeme Cash, Stephanie Connor, Georgia Dimock, Melissa Donald, Andrew Feltoe, Pattara Jaikasemwong, Rebecca Lake, Kayla Landers, Daniel Ritchie, Gemma Rutland, Lewis Stoddart, Kania Sugandi, Chris Sutton, Carl Suurmond, Bridget Upton, Kimberly Vinnell and Anna Will. In 2007: Sarah Barnett, Frances Cook, Jenni Hagedorn, Claire Hind, Genevieve Hole, Misha Jemsek, Katrine Kranstad, Sarah Litwin-Schmid, Sandy Lowe, Rachel Matthews, Laura Oldeman, Joanna Richards and Ariana Smith. In 2008: Mark Barlow, Adrienne Chubb, Michael Gannaway, Denise Garland, Ariana Greenland, Ryan Ingram, Anne Jäger, Anna Koot, Stacey Last, Meghan Lawitz, Hannah Naftel, Anita Patel, Selina Peauafi, Emily Pedersen, Olivia Pykett, Emma Slieker, Andrea Smith, Marlene Thies, Mallory Thompson, Alice Till-Carty, Natalie van Veen, Kayla Whittle, Hannah Williams and Alice Wilson. My sincere thanks to all of them for allowing me to use their interviews for this article.