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Name: Joseph GibbsCandidate Number: 6409

Centre Name: St Paul’s Catholic College

Centre Number: 64770

1. HOW OLD ARE YOU?

The first question in my survey asked how old the participant was. This gives an idea of what age group is most interested in the soap opera genre. As the graph clearly denotes, 16-20 year olds got the highest turnout in my survey, with 7 out of 11 people being in that age range. Two people were 26-30, and one was 50+. One person did not vote in this, for unexplained reasons. These results connote that young people are the most interested in watching the soap opera genre, and as a result of this, that will be the target audience for our own soap opera trailer.

2. ARE YOU MALE OR FEMALE?

In my survey, there was an equal amount of participants for each gender. This could be perceived as showing that the ideology of Rebecca Feasey, stating that the soap opera genre appeals to strong dominant women, is not always true, as there are many male respondents to my survey also.

However, this may not be an entirely accurate representation, because of the relatively low amount of people that have answered, compared to the millions who watch the soap operas on a daily basis. Despite this, it’s important, I feel, to make a soap opera that will appeal to both men and women.

3. HOW OFTEN DO YOU WATCH SOAP OPERAS?Question 3 asked how often the participants watch soap operas on a regular basis. This question can help us gain an understanding of how often our soap opera should be on TV, because if nobody watches them every day, for example, there is no point in having it exhibited every day.

The results for this question show a variety of results, with two people specifying that they never watch soaps, and two only once a year. Three people, (a quarter of all participants) however, said they watch it every day, and four said they watch it every few days. This connotes that our soap opera should only be on a few times a week to gain the widest appeal.

4. WHAT ELEMENT DO Y0U FIND MOST EXCITING ABOUT SOAP OPERAS?In this question, it is clear that the most popular element of a soap opera is the drama involved. This connotes that we should include a lot of drama in our soap opera, including some mystery to entice the audience. Crime was the least popular, so that tells us that the trailer should focus more on dramatic storylines than anything else.

5. WHAT SHOULD A SOAP OPERA BE?

There was an overwhelming majority for question 5, with 100% of participants stating that a soap opera should be multi-stranded, so that there are a number of different storylines running at the same time, all interlinked together.

6. WHO DO YOU THINK SOAP OPERAS ARE MAINLY TARGETED AT?The same goes for question 6 – every participant agreed that soap operas are mainly targeted at women. This connotes that there needs to be some element of ‘difference’ (Steve Neale) in our soap opera, so that men can be enticed in to watching the soap also.

7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SOAP OPERA?Question 7 asked the participants to pick their favourite soap opera from the list. EastEnders was the majority vote, with Hollyoaks coming 2nd, Coronation Street 3rd and Emmerdale last, with no votes at all. This connotes that we should look to EastEnders for inspiration and conventions to ‘repeat’, as it is evidently successful amongst soap opera fans.

HOW I USED MY PRIMARY RESEARCH

My primary research proved extremely useful when making decisions during planning. Firstly, upon finding out that soap operas are seen as being targeted at women, we made the decision to target our trailer at both men and women, to draw in a new audience and provide a USP in comparison to other soap operas, as an element of “difference” (Steve Neale).

As an element of “repetition” (Neale), we decided that our trailer would be multi-stranded. 100% of the participants in the survey stated that they think a soap opera should have several strands on the go, therefore this is a convention that is successful within a soap opera and we are repeating it to capture a similar audience to, for example, EastEnders, which proved to be the most popular soap amongst the participants.