Soap talk: The appeal of soap opera to contemporary female audiences

The purpose of this paper is to explain why women find contemporary television soap operas so enjoyable to consume. The primary methodology that is utilized to accomplish this purpose is a structural analysis of the eleven characteristics of soap opera proposed by communication cultural analyst Mary Ellen Brown (1994). To support this analysis, examples are taken from a currently airing television soap opera, All My Children, which can be seen daily at noon on ABC. Implications for further study of the soap opera genre are then discussed. First, however, a brief history of soap opera and several of its contemporary definitions are offered