Independent Research - Hollyoaks

Hollyoaks is a British soap opera that airs on Channel 4, every weekday at 6.30pm. I think that the target audience for Hollyoaks is predominantly students and teenagers, due to the time it is shown at- this can often coincide with the time students are eating dinner, and so provides an ideal opportunity for them to watch it then. I also think this because of the age range shown in Hollyoaks, which is mostly consistent of teenagers and young adults, many of which are students. This means that the show often deals with issues and parts of life that relate to students, such as issues with relationships, school or sexuality, which are things often presented in the show.

Whilst Hollyoaks can deal with issues faced by teenagers, there are also adults in the show. This gives a sense of verisimilitude by showing the influence adults have on younger people and also how young adults go about their daily lives. For example, in the episode watched, there was a young adult male who was struggling in his relationship with a woman whilst also having to look after his baby son. Stereotypical conventions are applied to some of the teenagers, such as a student leaving her work to the last minute, and a pair of teenagers who are shown with money they shouldn’t have. Whilst these are effectively negative stereotypes that teenagers are misbehaving and lazy, they do bring some truth to how teenagers actually behave and helps the target audience to relate to the show.

Variation in the ethnicity of characters is not something really shown in Hollyoaks, as most of the characters are white, but there are a few people of minor ethnicities. Whilst there were not any people of other ethnicities in the episode I watched, the fact there are a lot of white people living in that area does give some verisimilitude to the actual range of ethnicities around England. It helps to represent how in some areas of the country there are a lot of people of ethnic minorities, such as in London, whilst in others there are not.

With regards to gender and sexuality, Hollyoaks represents male and female characters in a fairly stereotypical way. Even in the introduction to the show, female characters are shown in colours such as red and wear feminine things like dresses, with the use of mise-en-scene making them sexualised- particularly with the use of the cherry. Almost all of the female characters shown in the episode I watched were shown to conform to stereotypical gender roles; having long hair, wearing makeup and wearing feminine clothing such as a pink coat and dresses. The males in the show were also shown to conform to their gender roles, yet more so in the way they acted. A lot of the males in the episode I watched were shown as being in conflict with each other, arguing about secrets and perhaps even fighting over a woman. The behaviour of some female characters was also stereotypical- one female was shown to be emotional and had self-esteem issues after completing a questionnaire.

This information is gained from watching several episodes of Hollyoaks. This information will help me in the creation of my soap opera pieces as it enables me to know more about soap opera conventions and also allows me to compare my own soap to real ones when creating it. It also gives me information into the typical target audiences for specific soap operas and will assist me in working out the target audience for my own soap pieces.