published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Literary Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This thesis uses the concept of pleasure as it has been applied to cultural artefacts in order to give a description of various characteristics of the soap opera genre. The concept of pleasure is applied to soap opera narrative, characters, visual style and viewing attitudes. Three soap operas, The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, and Another World, are described in detail according to these various types of pleasures. The Young and the Restless is a soap that relies largely on visual pleasures and melodrama. General Hospital's strongest pleasures are related to its character development and use of humour. Another World, the most traditional of the three soaps, is best at stimulating the pleasures associated with talk. Through analysis of viewer commentary supplied by letters sent to Soap Opera Weekly and Soap Opera Update and Nielsen ratings, it can be concluded that the pleasures that most soap opera viewers seem to value the most are related to visual style, romance and a delicate balance between realistic characters and fantasy in narrative.

Popular feminine narratives, domestic, emotion-based texts through which communities of women have traditionally practiced feminine discourse, have been marginalised by dominant masculine cultures throughout their long history. This continues in the postmodern era, in which the culturally dominant postmodern aesthetic has declared the death of the social, narrative and affect, all intrinsic to the popular feminine narrative. Nevertheless, these narratives persevere in such forms as the daytime television soap opera. Using a reader-oriented model, American soap operas are discussed as a site for the generation of women's pleasure, and as a forum for the raising, sharing and addressing of problems which affect women's lives. Soap opera fan magazines further extend the already social soap opera experience, which celebrates emotion and empathy in a culture which often negates them.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2008. / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of English Literature, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Inaug.-Diss.--Basel. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 153-154.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology, March 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.) --University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, Discipline of English, 2008. / "December 2007" Bibliography: leaves 75-92. Also available in print form.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / Vita. Includes the author's English translation of the French libretto of the opera. Includes compact disc with musical examples. Includes bibliographical references (p. 405-413).

Thesis--Università di Roma. / "Catalogo": p. [71]-115. Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-118).