Audience motivation, viewing context, media content, and form: The interactional emergence of soap opera entertainment

Abstract

Drawing on published research and three new studies, this essay relates analyses of viewing motives and context with analyses of soap opera content and form. As a result, three general claims are made about the nature of student soap opera watching. First, student soap opera watching provides an especially cogent illustration of the social emergence of mass communication entertainment. Second, soap operas provide a particularly important sort of social entertainment: the opportunity to experience the role of communication in facing irresolvable conflict. Third, the pleasure of this social experience is itself an important motive for student exposure to soap operas.