THE REPRODUCTION OF PATRIARCHAL IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY IN SOAP 
OPERA: A CASE STUDY 



THE REPRODUCTION OF PATRIARCHAL IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY IN SOAP 

OPERA: A CASE STUDY 

By 

ALLISON ROSE HOWARD, B.A. 

A Thesis 

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies 

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements 

for the Degree 

Master of Arts 

McMaster University 

August, 1988 



Master of Arts (1988) 
(Sociology) 

McMaster University 
Hamilton, Ontario 

TITLE: 

AUTHOR: 

The Reproduction of Patriarchal Ideological 
Hegemony in Soap Opera: A Case Study 

Allison Rose Howard, B.A. (University College 
of Cape Breton) 

SUPERVISOR: Dr. Graham Knight 

NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 169 

ii 



ABSTRACT 

This research analyzes the reproduction of 

patriarchal ideological hegemony in the soap opera Another 

World using Stuart Hall's theory of the mass media and his 

conceptualization of ideology. A structural analysis of five 

one hour video-taped episodes of Another World reveals how 

the three the soap opera text constructs meaning fulfilling 

functions of the mass media, and thus, reproducing 

Hall's theory patriarchy's hegemony. This research confirms 

of the mass media and the propositions which flow from his 

conceptualization of ideology. Moreover, this research is the 

first attempt to systematically apply Hall's theory to the 

study of soap opera. It goes beyond the generalizations of 

his theory to look at the particularities of soap opera which 

contribute to the reproduction of patriarchal ideological 

hegemony. However, it is seen that what is problematic to 

this research, and all research on soap opera, is a lack of a 

theory of the reader. 

iii 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

I would like to thank the members of my supervisory 

committee. My supervisor, Dr. Graham Knight, for his help in 

the development of my ideas and ultimately this thesis. Dr. 

Peter Donnelley and Dr. Charlene Miall for their constructive 

criticisms. 

Thanks to Connie and John deRoche who may be called 

my mentors, for they were the first to extend the 'invitation 

to sociology.' 

The writing of this thesis was often a lonely and 

that 

always 

frustrating experience; however, the special friendship 

I developed with Rena Kon pulled me through. She was 

there to listen to my 'bitching.' I thank her for always 

husband making me laugh during trying times. I also thank my 

John Phyne for his emotional support. 

Finally, I extend special thanks to my parents. For 

it was their encouragement and support that enabled me to 

pursue my dream. 

iv 



Chapter One: 

Chapter Two: 

Chapter Three: 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction 1 

What is Soap Opera? 1 

A Brief History of Soap Opera 3 

The Trivia1ization of Soap Opera 5 

Soap Opera as a Cultural Product 7 

The Soap Opera Viewer 8 

Theory 10 

Introduction 10 

Marx and Ideology 11 

Critical Theorists and Ideology 16 

Althusser and Ideology 17 

Gramsci and Hegemony 21 

Stuart Hall and Ideology 23 

Stuart Hall's Theory of The Mass 30 
Media 

Patriarchy and Ideology 

Television and Ideology 

Soap Opera and Ideology 

Conclusion 

Methodology 

Structuralism Versus Content 
Analysis 

v 

33 

37 

43 

51 

54 

54 



Chapter Four: 

Chapter Five: 

Chapter Six: 

Structuralist Methodology and Soap 59 
Opera 

The Reflexive Researcher 64 

Another World: The Construction of 
a Social Imagery 

66 

Introduction 66 

The Process of Personalization on 67 
Another World 

The Process of Personalization and 76 
the Representation of Class on 
Another World 

The Process of Personalization and 87 
the Representation of the Publici 
Private Spheres on Another World 

The Process of Personalization and 92 
the Representation of Social 
Problems on Another World 

The Construction of the Social 95 
Imagery of Another World 

Conc lusion 101 

Another World: The Ranking of 
Ideologies 

104 

Introduction 104 

Another World: Nicole's Storyline 105 

Analysis of Nicole's Storyline 106 

Concl usion 129 

Another World: The Production of 
Consensus 

vi 

131 



Chapter Seven: 

Appendix: 

Footnotes 

Bibliography 

Introduction 

Soap Opera and Realism 

The First Level of Realism and 
Another World 

The Second Level of Realism and 
Another World 

The Production of Consensus and 
Nicole's Storyline: An Analysis 

Conclusion 

Conclusion 

Scene Map of One Episode of 
Another World 

vii 

131 

132 

133 

141 

144 

151 

153 

158 

161 

163 



Chapter One 

Introduction 

What is Soap Opera? 

Soap opera is daytime television serial drama. In the 

united States, it is a form of television that appears 

continually throughout the year, five days a week without 

reruns (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 19). As opposed to an 

episodic dramatic series, each soap opera episode does not 

contain a complete story. The series form of television 

presents a different story each week to be resolved by the 

few central characters around which it revolves. The stories 

of soap opera continue across episodes, and there are 

numerous stories occurring simultaneously involving many 

characters. 

Soap opera has its own specific characteristics that 

make it distinct from other television forms. Its most 

distinct characteristic is that it "never begin[s] and never 

end[s]" (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 22). The multiple plot 

lines continue for weeks, and the closure of one plot line 

always leaves room for the opening of another. Plot lines are 

interwoven developing in different stages keeping resolutions 

uneven. Even with the weekend breaks, there is no final 

closure in soap opera. 

1 



2 

Soap opera has a relatively slow pace when compared 

to prime-time television (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 23). This 

slow pace is due to its other characteristics. Repetition is 

the main delaying device. Plot lines are repeated daily by 

the use of character flashbacks and especially by character 

dialogue. Characters continually talk and re-talk plot lines. 

Moreover, this excessive reliance on dialogue causes soap 

opera to lack action. "What happens of [sic) soaps is usually 

told through conversation and not through the portrayal of 

events. There is little of the action-oriented, fast-moving 

violence so common in prime-time television" (Cantor and 

Pingree, 1983: 24). 

However, not all dramatic serials are soap operas. 

The so-called 'nighttime soaps' of prime-time television are 

not soap operas (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 25). They have 

specific characteristics that differentiate them from daytime 

dramatic serials. Daytime soap opera is directed toward an 

audience of women, thus its content reflects the concerns of 

women (e.g., romance, health, and children). The 'nighttime 

soaps' are directed toward a "more sexually heterogeneous 

aUdience" (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 28). Therefore, they 

will reflect the concerns of both women and men. This results 

in prime-time serial drama going beyond domestic concerns and 

dealing with power, money, and big business (e.g., Dallas and 

Dynasty). Moreover, there is more action on 'nighttime soaps' 



3 

which makes their storylines move faster than that of daytime 

soap opera. "[E]very prime-time episode is packed with many 

crises and resolutions" (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 27). 

Although the 'nighttime soaps' are derivatives of daytime 

soap opera, it can be seen that labelling them soap' opera is 

a misnomer. 

A Brief History of Soap Opera 

The history of soap opera is enmeshed with the 

history of American network radio and the demands of a 

capitalist economy. With the creation of network radio in 

1923, for the purpose of selling advertising time to national 

corporations, the search began for a form of entertainment 

programming conducive to selling products (Allen, 1985: 101, 

103). By 1931, experience had shown that serial radio was an 

effective way of drawing and maintaining an audience both 

loyal to the serial and its advertised products. (Allen, 

1985: 105). Even more significant to the history of s~ap 

opera was the discovery in 1932 of women consumers. They made 

the majority of family purchases, and they spent most of 

their time at home with the radio (Allen, 1985: 107). 

The use of daytime radio then became popular with 

corporations whose products were geared towards use in the 

household. Moreover, the 1930's were the Depression era and 

companies like Procter and Gamble were dependent on volume 



4 

sales to maintain profits. "Given the fact that Procter and 

Gamble's customers were overwhelmingly female, daytime radio 

seemed a logical and cost-effective advertising venue" 

(Allen, 1985: 108). Radio soap opera began to thrive between 

1933 and 1937 as more corporations recognized its advertising 

potential (e.g., Pillsbury and General Foods). And the 

writers of radio soap opera "kept uppermost in their minds 

the function of their stories as advertising vehicles" 

(Allen, 1985: 118). Radio soap opera continued to thrive well 

into the late 1950 ' s until the advent of network television. 

The corporations who sponsored daytime radio soap 

opera did not turn immediately to television, waiting for 

proof of its ability to draw daytime audiences. However, the 

proof was there by 1960 and "television serials completely 

supplanted their radio antecedents" (Allen, 1985: 125). Today 

television soap opera still is a popular advertising vehiCle 

that reaches millions of women, and it remains a popular form 

of entertainment for those women. Its longevity is due to its 

continuing ability to fulfill its economic function. 

Furthermore, soap opera's relative obscurity can also account 

for its longevity. 

Part of the soap opera's success on television can be 
attributed to its "invisibility" to male opinion 
leaders, legislators, and regulators •••• [U]ntil the 
1970s few academics bothered studying them, few 
cannentators wrote about them, and the trade press 
found the seasonal prbne-tbne network crapshoot more 



exci ting to cover than the much more static 
profitable) world of dayt:ime progranming" 
1985: 126). 

5 

(albeit 
(Allen, 

Soap opera's relative obscurity and its failure to gain 

respect in the circles of respectability can be directly 

connected to its status as women's fiction. 

The Trivialization of Soap Opera 

Women1s fiction has never received the respect that 

men's fiction unquestionably receives. The celebration of 

men's fiction, while women1s fiction is ignored or 

disparaged, can be seen within the general context of the 

trivialization of women's culture. "Speaking crudely, 

football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, 

the buying of clothes 'trivial. I And these values are 

inevitably transferred from life to fiction" (Woolf, 1927: 

128) . 

Soap opera as women's fiction has a long history of 

being categorized as 'trivial. I With its narrative roots in 

the domestic novel of the nineteenth century, the soap opera, 

from its beginnings in radio to its successful transition to 

television, has been marginal to the dominant male narrative 

forms. "[T] he soap opera was [and is] regarded as a form 

marked by its difference from normative (read, "male" ) 

categories of art and ~arrative, as something apart from, not 



-,~."",--~ 

6 

a part of, traditional narrative genres" (Allen, 1985: 138). 

The subject matter of soap opera's fictional discourse (i.e., 

women's concerns) is often excluded or trivialized in 

dominant fictional discourses (i.e., men's genres: the 

western, the spy thriller, the private eye) (Weibel, 1977: 

XXi Allen, 1985: 149). Moreover, the labels attached to 

feminine narratives (e.g., soap opera, romance stories, 

domestic novel) carry with them a notion of triviality 

issuing from "the masculine contempt for sentimental 

(feminine) 'drivel'" (Modleski, 1982: 14). 

It is contended that this so-called 'sentimental 

1 (feminine) drivel' re-presents women's culture; furthermore, 

soap opera re-presents a female subculture amid the dominant 

male culture. Allen. (1985: 148) observes 

wanen have in sane sense fonned a subculture in 
American society, a subculture defined by sex and 
in relation to the daninant male cuI ture and united 
by a common set of experiences and imposed values. 
The danestic novel represents the emergence of a 
vehicle of public literary expression for the 
American female subculture ... continued in later 
fiction, wanen' s magazines, and soap operas. 

All soap operas "qualify as manifestations of women's 

culture" (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 27). Soap opera as a 

women's genre re-presents women's culture, the private 

sphere. The private sphere (as opposed to the public sphere 

of the dominant male culture) is the female subcUlture. This 



7 

subculture is the sphere of women's concerns: family, 

romance, health, the personal. It is these cultural values 

that soap opera speaks (Hobson, 1982: 32). Soap opera is the 

re-presentation of the world from a female perspective, and 

this is why the dominant male culture trivializes the genre. 

In 1940, one male critic equated soap opera with children's 

programming. 

Through the long mid-afternoon, while I itched to 
listen in on Rep. Die's denunciations or Mr. 
Damrosch, SWansdown Flour, Bisquik, Dr. Lyon's 
Tooth Powder, Mazola ... and Procter and Gamble kept 
me drugged with the insidious fascinations of 
"Valiant Lady," "My Son and I" ... "Orphans of 
Divorce," •.• and "Backstage Wife." .•• Then suddenly 
"Jack Annstrong, the All-American Boy," "Little 
Orphan Annie," and "Tan Mix" were upon me, and I 
realized it was the children's hour. Children's 
hour indeed! Hadn't the whole day been one long 
children's hour· (Cook in Allen, 1985: 11)! 

However, once soap opera is analyzed within its wider 

context, it is not so easily dismissed as trivial. 

Soap Opera as a Cultural Product 

Soap opera is a cultural product of the mass medium 

of television, and as such, it will re-present the meanings 

inherent in its culture (Fiske and Hartley, 1978: 17). As a 

cultural product, soap opera will respond to the conditions 

of its culture, reproducing those conditions through the 

representations in its text. The culture which surrounds the 



8 

soap opera is patriarchal; furthermore, patriarchal culture 

is the hegemonic culture (English Studies Group, 1980: 

262-263). It will be argued in this work that soap opera, as 

a cultural text, will function to symbolically reproduce 

patriarchal ideological hegemony. "[T]he basic thesis that 

popular fiction has a particular work to do in the 

maintenance and struggle for hegemony is 

insists that hegemony is struggled for in 

important. Gramsci 

every sphere of 

society, even in those areas which seem most private and 

removed from the incursions of politics or the state" 

(English Studies Group, 1980: 265). 

To dismiss soap opera as trivial is to view the genre 

in a narrow focus. The broader context of the genre must be 

recognized; that is, the conditions of its existence must be 

understood. By viewing soaps in this wider context, the 

genre's so-called triviality is brought into question. 

The Soap Opera Viewer 

Viewer's of soap opera are 

(Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 118). It is 

predominantly 

often said of 

particular audience that soap opera provides an 

escape from their daily lives (Hobson, 1982: 

women 

this 

of avenue 

119) . This 

negative assessment of the soap opera viewer follows from the 

trivialization of the genre and from its location within mass 

culture. "Women are therefore seen as the passive victims of 



9 

just as the the deceptive message of the soap operas, 

ideology of mass culture sees the audience as 

pathetic victims of the commercial culture 

unwitting and 

industry" (Ang, 

1982: 119). However, this assessment of the soap opera viewer 

is too simplistic. How can soap opera with its intense 

melodramatic portrayal of life's problems be an avenue of 

escape? More significantly, the reduction of this viewer to a 

'passive victim' ignores the interaction the viewer has with 

the soap opera text. 

Viewers do not passively watch soap opera. As Hobson 

(1982: 135) found in her study of soap opera viewers, they 

"contribute to their own understanding of the programme and 

make their own readings of what the production sets out to 

communicate. They work with the text and add their own 

experiences and opinions to the stories in the programme." 

Viewers do not necessarily accept dominant messages in the 

text in an unquestioning way. The message in the text "can be 

changed or 'worked on' by the audience as they make their own 

interpretation of a programme" (Hobson, 1982: 106). Although 

this analysis is not concerned with a theory of the reader, 

it does assume an active reader unlike the one proposed in 

the mass culture perspective. However, as will be seen in 

this research, the text's openness is limited, structuring 

the viewing experience towards the dominant point of view. 



Chapter Two 

Theory 

Introduction 

The theoretical orientation which informs this 

analysis of soap opera derives from the Cultural Studies 

approach. This approach places the mass media in their 

cultural context, arguing that the mass media reproduce the 

meanings of their culture. Stuart Hall's (1977) theory of the 

mass media explicates how the mass media reproduce the 

ideological structures of their culture, and thus, 

ideological hegemony. 

The following will situate Hall in a broader 

tradition discussing key theorists of ideology: Marx, the 

Critical Theorists, and Althusser. Gramsci's 

conceptualization of hegemony will then be discussed as an 

alternative to domination theory. This is fOllowed by 

discussion of Hall's particular conceptualization of 

ideology, indicating the influences of Althusser and Gramsci. 

Furthermore, Hall's theory of the mass media will be 

presented, revealing the additional influence of Gramsci. 

Becoming more specific, patriarchy and ideology will 

be discussed in the context of hegemony. Then attention will 

turn to television "and ideology. The circumstances and 

10 



11 

conventions of television facilitate ideology; moreover, 

television is seen to reproduce ideological hegemony. 

Given the above discussion, it is suggested that soap 

opera (as a product of television) will also reproduce 

ideological hegemony. Specifically, soap opera as a women's 

genre re-presenting women's culture will reproduce 

patriarchal ideological hegemony. It is shown that the soap 

opera text contains patriarchal ideology, and a brief review 

of the literature reveals that patriarchal ideology does 

struggle with an alternative ideology of liberal feminism to 

construct meaning within the soap opera text. 

The hypothesis that soap opera will reproduce 

patriarchal ideological hegemony will be tested using Hall's 

theory of the mass media which necessitates analyzing how 

soap opera constructs meaning. 

Marx and Ideology 

Marx's theory of ideology can be divided into three 

aspects: the conception of a dominant ideology, ideology as a 

distortion of reality, and the relationship between 

phenomenal forms and reality. The first aspect of Marx's 

theory of ideology is the conception of a dominant ideology. 

Marx states: 

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the 



12 

ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling 
material force of society, is at the same t~ its 
ruling intellectual force. The class which has the 
means of material production at its disposal, has 
control at the same time over the means of mental 
production ... the ideas of those who lack the means of 
production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are 
nothing more than the ideal expression of the daninant 
material relationships, the dominant material 
relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the 
relationships which make the one class the ruling one, 
therefore, the ideas of its dominance (Marx and 
Engels, 1972: 136-137; emphasis in original). 

Ideology is placed within the context of power and 

domination. Those with material power have the power to 

control representations 2 of reality. They use this form of 

power to legitimize the continuance of their dominant 

position in society and the subordinate position of others. 

Through its ideology, the dominant class represents its 

particular interests as the universal interests of all 

classes. This dominant ideOlogy supports the class system of 

domination (Giddens, 1983: 19). However, the dominant 

ideology, as an expression of a class system of domination, 

must also express class struggle. By necessity, it must be 

contradictory expressing differing interests (Hall, 1977: 

317) . 

Moreover, this ruling class/ruling ideas model of 

ideology posits ideology as a reflection of the material 

conditions of existence determined by the mode of production. 

Ideology comes to be determined by the economic, denying it 

autonomy. 



13 

The second aspect of Marx's theory of ideology poses 

ideology as a distortion of reality. "Consciousness can never 

be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence 

of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men 

and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera 

obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their 

historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the 

retina does from their physical life-process" (Marx and 

Engels, 1972: 118; emphasis in original). The 'camera 

obscura' metaphor suggests ideology is a distorted 

representation of reality inverting real relations. 

to the ruling class/ruling ideas model, the 

representation is directly translatable to concrete 

implying that ideas are only epiphenomena dependent 

Similar 

distorted 

reality 

on the 

economic for their existence (Mepham, 1974: 101). Moreover, 

the people whose consciousness is produced through the 

material relations of their existence have a false 

understanding of their circumstances; they possess false 

consciousness, for they live in distortion. The result of 

false consciousness is the dehistoricizing of the social, as 

it is presented as natural and universal (Ramirez, 1986: 98). 

Within ideology, and thus false consciousness, society is 

presented as an ahistorical entity hiding the precariousness 

of the social structure as a product of human construction. 

The third aspect of Marx's theory of ideology is the 



14 

relationship between phenomenal forms and reality. Phenomenal 

forms are the categories which compose ideology. They arise 

from real relations, and at the same time, they conceal the 

real relations of people to their conditions of existence. 

Phenomenal forms are appearances, and as 

present a partial reality. For example, the 

such, they 

phenomenal 

only 

form 

'wages' is an ideological category which makes invisible the 

basis of the real relation between capital and labour which 

is exploitation based on surplus value. The exploitative 

production process as the necessary real relation of 

capitalism is hidden. Instead, only the exchange of labour is 

visible in an apparently free market of free individuals 

exchanging a 'fair day's wage for a fair day's work' (Mepham, 

1974: 103, 109; Hall, 1977: 323). Phenomenal forms conceal 

the contradictions of a capitalist social formation. 

Phenomenal forms as ideological categories perform 

the "structural dislocation" or the "decentering of material 

practice" of the real relations of capitalism from the 

ideological discourses that re-present them. These phenomenal 

forms are not illusions, for they are materialized in social 

practice (Hall, 1977: 323-324). Individuals do act in a 

labour market exchanging their work for wages. Moreover, 

unlike the 'camera obscura' conception of ideology, 

phenomenal forms cannot be traced directly back to reality 

independently of one another. Phenomenal forms are 



15 

interdependent. Real relations are hidden in a "structure of 

appearances" or in the interconnections of phenomenal forms. 

The wage as a phenomenal form is not independent of other 

phenomenal forms. Once this ideological category is 

identified, it necessitates the analysis of other phenomenal 

forms to which it is inextricably connected. For example, the 

wage necessitates an analysis of the phenomenal form money. 

Money hides the real source of the wage from the labourer. It 

appears as if the capitalist's wealth does not derive from 

surplus value. And money necessitates the analysis of the 

phenomenal form commodity, whose exchange through the money 

form, hides the human labour inherent in the production of 

that commodity. Consequently, the real relations of 

production (i.e., labour exploitation) are hidden in the 

equivalent exchange of commodities for money in the market 

place (Mepham, 1974: 111). 

Within Marx's theory of ideology, there are two 

conceptions of ideology. Ideology is viewed as a distortion 

of reality merely reflecting reality upside-down in an 

illusion. Ideology is equated with false· consciousness. Then, 

ideology is viewed as a structure of appearances partially 

representing reality. Moreover, Marx reduces ideology to the 

economic. It can be seen in the work of later ideology 

theorists that two aspects of these particular 

conceptualizations of ideology have become problematic. The 



16 

critical theorists take up false consciousness with Althusser 

later arguing against both false consciousness and economic 

reductionism. 

Critical Theorists and Ideology 

The critical theorists of the Frankfurt school (i.e., 

Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse) represented a shift from the 

economism of Marxism to the concern with ideology and 

culture. They were influenced by the mass society critique 

which concerned itself with "the decline of the 'organic 

community', the rise of mass culture, [and] the social 

atomization of 'mass man'" (Bennett, 1982: 32). Placing these 

concerns of the mass society 

framework, the critical theorists 

modern culture and the media. 

This critique focused 

critique within a Marxist 

developed a critique of 

on the media's role in 

preventing the working class from developing a revolutionary 

consciousness (Bennett, 1982: 42) • For the 

theorists, the working class consciousness has been 

by 'the culture industry' which constantly 

categories of thought (i.e., ideologies) for them 

critical 

thwarted 

provides 

to think 

reality. This prevents alternative categories of thought from 

occurring and threatening the status quo. Furthermore, high 

culture has lost its critical potential, for it has been 

reduced to low culture through the massified commodities of 



the media which reproduce capitalism. 

The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they prarote 
a false consciousness which is .inrnune against its 
falsehood .... Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional 
ttnIght and behavior in which ideas, aspirations, and 
objectives that, by their content, transcend the 
established universe of discourse and action are 
ei ther repelled or reduced to the tenns of this 
universe (Marcuse, 1964: 12; emphasis in original) . 

17 

The critical theorists contend that mass culture 

creates a working class with a false consciousness through 

the dominant ideology of capitalism, disseminated by 'the 

culture industry.' However, the critical theorists, as 

intellectuals, did not possess this false consciousness. 

Despite this elitism, they did put forth ideology and the 

media as important vehicles in managing the contradictions of 

capitalism. And they did relegate Marxist economism to the 

background (Bennett, 1982: 46; McQuail, 1984: 63). Yet, they 

retained the notion of a dominant ideology creating false 

consciousness in the subordinate classes. 

It is Althusser who argues against false 

consciousness while retaining the notion of a dominant 

ideology. And it is Althusser who places Marxist economism in 

the foreground arguing against it. 

Althusser and Ideology 

Althusser's theory of ideology is part of an attempt 



18 

to rework classical Marxism (Grossberg and Slack, 1985: 88). 

He argues against the economic reductionism of classical 

Marxism contending that society is a structured totality not 

reducible to one single element, the economic (Hall, 1985: 

91). The economic is not the essential center, the essential 

determinate, of the social formation, so the superstructures 

are relatively autonomous of it. In relation to ideology, 

this autonomy of the superstructures means that ideology has 

an existence of its own relatively independent of the 

economic. It does not merely reflect material relations. 

Althusser conceptualizes ideology as a 

system of representations •.. [which] have nothing to do 
wi th 'consciousness': they are usually images and 
occasionally concepts, but it is above all as 
strucbJres that they impose on the vast majority of 
[people], not via their 'consciousness' •••• In ideology 
[people] .•. express, not the relation be~en them and 
their conditions of existence, but the way they live 
the relation between them and their conditions of 
existence: this presupposes both a real relation and 
an 'imaginary', 'lived' relation (1969: 233; emphasis 
in original) . 

This conceptualization makes an important distinction 

between real relations and imaginary relations. People's 

relationships to reality are imaginary, for there is no 

correspondence between the real relations of the social and 

how they are lived by people. As previously discussed in 

relation to Marx, the real relation in the capitalist social 

formation between employer and employee is exploitative. 



l\; ,; •••• ', '.- '. 

19 

However, people do not live the real relation. Instead, they 

experience reality through phenomenal forms. Phenomenal forms 

can be seen as the imaginary. A fair day's wage for a fair 

day's work is an imaginary relationship of people to their 

real conditions of existence, exploitation. People do not 

experience the real relation but rather live in the imaginary 

relation of phenomenal forms (i.e., ideology). 

However, imaginary relations are not false 

consciousness. Althusser argues that ideology has 'nothing to 

do with consciousness', for it is as structures that ideology 

exists. "[People] 'live' their ideologies ... not at all as a 

form of consciousness, but as an object of their 'world' -as 

their 'world' itself" (Althusser, 1969: 233; emphasis in 

original). Ideology represents and structures people's lived 

experience. It is real. Ideology, as lived experience, is 

material and has effects because it becomes inscribed in 

social practices. 

Althusser (1971: 166) contends that ideology exists 

within social practices, specifically within the practices of 

the "ideological state apparatuses." ISA's are social 

institutions which reproduce the ideological structures of 

society. They include the educational system, the family, the 

church, and the mass media (Althusser, 1971: 143). The social 

practices of these ISA's are organized in rituals (e.g., 

marriage, a Sunday ~ervice, a school day) where people's 



20 

actions, predicated by their imaginary lived experience, are 

placed. Thus, ideology assumes a material existence within 

the ISA's as it is manifest in concrete practice 

1971: 168-169). Since ideology has material 

cannot be false. 

(AI thusser, 

effects, it 

The mechanism through which ideology works is the 

subject for Althusser. Ideology only exists through its 

creation of subjects (Althusser, 1971: 170-171). Ideology 

produces experience for individuals creating places or 

subject positions for them within that experience. 

Individuals become subjects when they recognize their 

experience within ideology. This recognition invites or 

"hails" these individuals to occupy the subject positions 

created in the ideological structure. This creation of 

subjects is also called "interpellation." Moreover, 

individuals are "always already subjects" unable to escape 

ideology (Althusser, 1971: 172-174; emphasis in original). 

However, Althusser's theory of ideology can only 

account for the reproduction of a dominant ideology. He 

places ideology at the center of capitalism functioning to 

reproduce its social relations of production. It is by "the 

massive inculcation of the ideology of the ruling class that 

the relations of production in a capitalist social formation, 

i.e., the relations of exploited to exploiters and exploiters 

to exploited, are largely reproduced" (Althusser, 1971: 156; 



,~ .' - 1,,~ • ., 

21 

emphasis in original). Althusser does not account for the 

reproduction of ideologies other than the dominant one. 

It is Gramsci who provides an alternative to the 

notion of a dominant ideology which pervades the work of the 

previous theorists. 

Gramsci and Hegemony 

Gramsci's analysis of society is a project intended 

to discover how consensus is produced in a class society 

where power and dominance characterize class relations. His 

key concept, hegemony, provides the answer to the problem of 

the production of consensus. It runs counter to the ruling 

class/ruling ideas explanation for social consensus which 

posits a static dominant ideology legitimating the domination 

of one class by another. Rather, the structure of dominance 

of class society is achieved by cultural leadership not 

ideological domination. This is the central theme of hegemony 

(Mouffe, 1979: 193). 

The nature of this cultural leadership is the ability 

of the dominant class, amid ideological struggle with 

subordinate classes, to establish an equilibrium where it 

successfully articulates the ideological elements of the 

subordinate classes to its value system. This articulation3 

creates a "successful hegemony" where a collective will is 

constructed among all-classes so that the dominant class 



22 

"appears as representative of the general interest" acting on 

its behalf (Mouffe, 1979: 194). The antagonisms that exist 

between classes are transformed into mere differences which 

appear to be equally represented in a pluralist society. This 

is how consensus is produced. The subordinate classes consent 

to their own subordination, for their interests appear to be 

the same as the dominant class, displacing inequalities in 

4 power. The power of the dominant class lies in its ability 

to win consent for its dominance through ideological 

struggle, through its power to construct hegemonic ideology. 

Power becomes inscribed in ideology. 

However, the very nature of this cultural leadership 

predisposes it to a constant struggle to maintain power and 

dominance. Cultural leadership involves directing the 

collective will towards the interest of that leadership, the 

dominant class. Thus, it is a constant struggle to maintain 

the particular structure of the ideological elements that 

make up the collective will. For, there are other classes in 

society whose interests are in opposition to the dominant 

class', and they engage in a struggle to rearticulate the 

structure of ideological elements (Mouffe, 1979: 183, 192). 

The dominant class, in order to maintain its hegemonic 

position, must constantly modify the collective will as new 

interests are expressed by rival classes for cultural 

leadership. Hegemonic ideology is necessarily dynamic and 



- - -- -------

fluid, for it must readjust its elements 

delicate equilibrium of hegemony and 

consensus. 

to 

the 

maintain 

production 

23 

the 

of 

Gramsci's formulation of hegemony recognizes the 

diversity of ideologies that exist within any society. The 

differing conditions of existence (both social and material) 

of particular classes in society give way to differing 

definitions of reality -a multiplicity of ideologies. 

Hegemonic ideology is a dynamic and fluid structure of 

unequal, contradictory, and competing ideologies organized 

within the framework of the dominant class' definitions of 

reality. It is on the terms of the dominant class that 

subordinate realities are expressed. Ideology becomes central 

to the exercise of power and the production of consent. 

It is Stuart Hall who blends the theorizing of 

Althusser and Gramsci to produce his own theory of ideology 

and the mass media. 

Stuart Hall and Ideology 

The emergence of the Cultural Studies approach 

brought to the fore the concept of ideology in relation to 

the analysis of the mass media (Hall, 1980a: 117). "This 

approach begins with the assumption that all cultural items, 

in the form of media content and cultural artifacts, contain 

elements of the processes and ideologies inherent in their 



24 

creation" (Belkaoui, 1979: 104). The mass media are analyzed 

in the context of their surrounding culture, for it is 

culture which contains the meanings that the mass media 

re-presents. Here culture is conceptualized as a form which 

structures meanings into definite relationships or 

ideological configurations. Therefore, culture can be said to 

embody the meanings which reproduce ideology. Culture is a 

"signifying practice" with "its own determinate product: 

meaning" (Hall, 1980b: 30; emphasis in original). As cultural 

products, the mass media come to embody the particular 

ideological configuration of that culture. Moreover, the mass 

media are seen as sites of ideological struggle where the 

production of meaning becomes an area of contention. 

The key pro~onent of the Cultural Studies approach to 

the mass media is Stuart Hall. His theory of the mass media 

views the mass media as social institutions with central 

roles in the reproduction of ideology. Hall's view of the 

mass media derives from Althusser's conceptualization of them 

as 'ideological state apparatuses.' It is with this influence 

from Althusser that Hall (1977: 343) conceptualizes the mass 

media as "socially, economically and technically organized 

apparatuses, for the production of messages, signs arranged 

in complex discourses: 'symbOlic goods'."S 

The 'symbolic' dimensions of the mass media are their 

ideological dimensions, and Hall also draws on Althusser for 



25 

his conceptualization of ideology. Hall agrees with Althusser 

on many of the key notions involved in his conceptualization 

of ideology as discussed previously. Specifically, Hall 

(1985: 91, 99-100) concurs with Althusser that ideology is 

not reducible to the material relations of society. Ideology 

is a relatively autonomous level of the social formation. As 

clarified in the earlier discussion, ideology has material 

effects, for it is inscribed in social practices. Thus, 

following the logic of Althusser's argument, Hall agrees 

ideology cannot be false consciousness. Furthermore, Hall 

concurs that ideology imposes itself as a structure. 

"Ideologies are the frameworks of thinking and calculation 

about the world -the 'ideas' which people use to figure out 

how the social world works, what their place is in it and 

what they ought to do" (Hall, 1985: 99; emphasis in 

original). And as for Althusser, Hall (1985: 102), too, 

concurs that individuals are subjects created by ideology. 

However, Hall eventually breaks with Althusser's 

conceptualization of ideology contending it is too 

functionalist (Hall, 1977: 337; Hall, 1982: 78; Hall 1985: 

99). Althusser contends that the ideological state 

apparatuses only function to reproduce the dominant ideology 

without addressing the reproduction of ideologies which 

counter the dominant one. As Hall (1985: 99) observes, 

"[w]hen you ask about the contradictory field of ideology, 



26 

about how the ideology of the dominated classes gets produced 

and reproduced, about the ideologies of resistance, of 

exclusion, of deviation, etc., there are no answers [from 

Althusser]." 

It is now that Hall turns to Gramsci's concept of 

hegemony to further develop his conceptualization of 

ideology, and thus, his theory of the mass media in society. 

Ideology, through Gramsci's concept of hegemony, becomes a 

"complex field (not a single, univocal structure) " (Hall, 

1977: 333; emphasis in original). Moreover, ideology becomes 

for Hall "one of the key forms of contestation over the 

dispositions and struggles for power at different sites in 

society" (Grossberg and Slack, 1985: 90). Power becomes 

contested through a struggle over meaning, a struggle to 

signify reality in a particular way. This struggle over 

meaning emerges as the "politics of signification" (Hall, 

1982: 78). Ideologies "contest one another, often drawing on 

a common, shared repertoire of concepts, rearticulating them 

within different systems of difference or equivalence" (Hall, 

1985: 104). This is an active process where definitions of 

reality are constructed and reconstructed. The struggle is a 

social practice. 

Refining his conceptualization of ideology under 

Gramsci's notion of hegemony, Hall is able to go beyond the 

'dominant ideology' of Althusser. He retains the progressive 



27 

elements in Althusser's conceptualization of ideology 

blending them with the influences of Gramsci. He develops his 

conceptualization of ideology as a fluid structure of many 

competing ideologies struggling for preference to define 

reality. "Ideology is, for Hall, the web of meanings and 

discourses, the strings of connotation and their means of 

representation, within which social practices, consciousness, 

identities, and subjectivities are placed" (Grossberg and 

Slack, 1985: 89). It is Hall's conceptualization of ideology 

which will inform this analysis. 

In summary, it is Marx's work on ideology which began 

the development of this important concept. Marx located his 

two conceptualizations of ideology within the context of 

power, domination, and class struggle. He conceived of a 

dominant ideology which served the interests of the dominant 

class by maintaining their dominant position in society. 

Moreover, Marx viewed ideology as an effect of the material 

relations of society totally reducible to the economic. In 

his 'camera obscura' metaphor, ideology became false 

consciousness. Yet, in his discussion of phenomenal forms, 

ideology became a partial representation of reality 

materialized in social practice, and thus, not false 

consciousness. From Marx's work on ideology, the notions of a 

dominant ideology, economic reductionism, false 

consciousness, and pheno~enal forms became central concerns 



28 

of later theorists. 

The critical theorists, in their critique of mass 

culture and its deleterious effect on revolutionary potential 

of the working class, conceptualized ideology following 

Marx's 'camera obscura' metaphor. Ideology for the critical 

theorists is false consciousness. The concern here is with 

the dominant ideology and its creation of false consciousness 

in the working class. This particular conceptualization of 

ideology does not go beyond Marx, and thus, it does not offer 

any critical insights or developments concerning the 

conceptualization of ideology. 

with the advent of Althusser, 

of ideology does develop beyond Marx. 

the conceptualization 

There is a movement 

away from false consciousness and a treatment of the problem 

of economism. Althusser, in his critique, denied the 

reducibility of ideology to the material relations of 

society. He developed the conceptualization of 

arguing that ideology was relatively free of 

ideology by 

the economic. 

Furthermore, ideology was not false consciousness. It had 

real material effects as the lived experience of individuals. 

Here Althusser is seen to draw near to Marx's phenomenal 

forms, for imaginary relations can be equated with the 

partial representations of reality represented in 

forms as the building blocks of ideology. And 

phenomenal 

Althusser's 

introduction of the subject as the vehicle for ideology is a 



29 

further advancement in the conceptualization of ideology. 

Despite the progressive elements in Althusser's work, 

he retained the notion of a dominant ideology. His concern 

was how, through the ISA'S, the dominant ideology was 

reproduced, and in turn, reproduced the status quo (i.e., the 

social relations of production). 

Gramsci's development of the concept of ideology 

takes place within his conceptualization of hegemony. 

Ideology is no longer the static dominant ideology of the 

previous theorists. Rather, it becomes fluid and dynamic 

facilitating the hegemonic process. Ideology becomes the site 

of struggle for differing class interests. It becomes the 

locus of power, for whoever controls representations has the 

power to construct hegemonic ideology. This retains Marx's 

original placement of ideology in the context of power, but 

it goes beyond Marx's notion of a dominant ideology in the 

ruling class/ruling ideas model. Ideology, in Gramsci, is a 

delicate balance of conflicting interests directing the 

collective will toward the interests of the dominant class. 

Stuart Hall combines the key conceptions of Althusser 

and Gramsci to develop his conceptualization of ideology. 

Ideology now is a structure or system of representations that 

creates subjects materializing itself in their social 

practices. Ideology is not static but ever changing. It is 

the site of power struggles among differing interests which 



30 

vie for the power to shape representations of reality. Hall 

locates this notion of ideology within the material site of 

Althusser's ISA's or specifically the mass media. 

As previously noted, it is Hall's 

of ideology that informs this research. 

position of the Cultural Studies approach 

conceptualization 

And it is the 

that the mass 

media, as cultural products, embody the ideologies of culture 

which is the basis for this study. The above statements 

demand certain approaches to the topic at hand. 

is proposed that ideology will be found in the 

the mass media. Secondly, if ideology is 

Firstly, it 

products of 

not false 

consciousness but material, it is again proposed that 

ideology can be found within the material sites of the mass 

media. Thirdly, since ideology is a structure, it is proposed 

that it will be uncovered within the media in that form. This 

directs the research towards a particular methodology as will 

be seen in the following chapter. Fourthly, if ideology is an 

ever changing site of struggle, it should be found as such in 

the texts of the mass media. 

Stuart Hall's Theory of the Mass Media 

With Gramsci's conceptualization of the hegemonic 

process, Hall is able to take his theory of the mass media 

beyond their being sites and transmitters of ideology. 

Appropriating Gramsci's notion of hegemony, Hall (1977 : 



31 

340-342) explicates how the mass media organize contradictory 

and competing discourses within the hegemonic ideology to 

produce, from a fragmented and plural reality, the sense of a 

social totality and social consensus, that is, ideological 

hegemony. This is Hall's theory of the mass media. 

Hall (1977: 340-342) distinguishes three functions of 

the mass media which give them roles in the reproduction of 

the hegemonic process. 6 The first function of the mass media 

is to construct an imaginary social totality which is a 

ready-made whole free from fragmentation. The realities of 

disparate groups are homogenized, so the cleavages of society 

are masked as compatible differences. The 'ideological 

effect' of this imaginary social totality is the unifying of 

pluralities, so that they appear to coexist without 

antagonisms. All groups appear to have the same interests, 

for particular interests (i.e., those of the dominant group) 

are universalized. The construction of this social imagery 

presents a "world-of-the whole" (Ha 11 , 1977 : 341) . A 

plurality of realities is made intelligible, so they can be 

apprehended as a coherent social whole. 

The second function of the mass media in their 

reproduction of ideological hegemony is to articulate the 

diverse ideologies of a plural society. "Here the social 

knowledge which the media selectively circulate is ranked and 

arranged within the great normative and evaluative 



32 

classifications, within the preferred meanings and 

interpretations" (Hall, 1977: 341; emphasis in original). The 

management of alternative ideologies takes place 

ranking arena. They are contained or incorporated 

preferred ideologies. It is here the struggle over 

in this 

by the 

meaning 

takes place, for this is where it is 'decided' what 

ideologies will be allowed to define reality and how. 

The third function of the mass media is the 

production of consensus. Consensus must be produced for the 

hegemonic preferred rankings of ideologies within the 

ideologies. The production of consensus is secured as 

"contrary views" are included wi thin the 

definitions of reality which allow disparate 

preferred 

groups to 

"attach themselves" to this particular ranking of ideologies 

(Hall, 1977: 342). They recognize their own subordinated 

definitions of reality within the hegemonic discourse. This 

recognition produces consent to the preferred ranking, for 

their views appear to be equally represented. Thus, they 

consent to their own subordination effecting the reproduction 

of ideological hegemony. 

However, the securing of ideological hegemony is not 

guaranteed. Given the nature of hegemonic ideology as a 

delicate balance of ideological elements constantly in 

struggle to establish meaning, subordinate groups will not 

necessarily decode ideological meaning as the dominant group 



33 

has encoded it. Hall (1980c: 135) states that "there is no 

necessary correspondence between encoding and decoding, the 

former can attempt to 'pre-fer' but cannot prescribe or 

guarantee the latter, which has its own conditions of 

existence." Hall (1980c: 136-138) establishes three positions 

a subject may assume from which to decode meanings: dominant 

hegemonic, negotiated, or oppositional. A dominant hegemonic 

decoding preserves the dominant or preferred encoded 

meaning. A negotiated decoding preserves generally the 

dominant meaning while decoding oppositional meaning at the 

situational level. 7 Finally, oppositional decoding 

nothing of the original dominant encoded meaning. 

preserves 

Thus, the mass media as ideological state apparatuses 

do not necessarily succeed in the absolute reproduction of 

ideological hegemony. Reproduction is loose, leaving room for 

change, for the hegemonic process is a tenuous process of 

managing conflicting and changing interests. It is Hall's 

theory of the mass media which will be used as a framework 

within which to analyze how soap opera reproduces patriarchal 

ideological hegemony. 

Patriarchy and Ideology 

The discussion will now turn its attention away from 

ideology and class domination to ideology and gender 

domination. This, of course, necessitates a discussion of 



34 

patriarchy. Patriarchy is "the omnipresent system of male 

[dominance] and female subjugation ... achieved through 

socializing, perpetuated through ideological means, and 

maintained by institutional methods" (Mitchell, 1971: 65). 

Patriarchy is a gender hierarchy of male dominance and female 

subordinance. The ideological separation of the public and 

private spheres in patriarchal ideology is a legitimating 

device for this hierarchy (Jaggar, 1983: 241). It normatively 

constructs women in the private sphere of the family, the 

center of patriarchy's gender hierarchy (Mitchell, 1971: 99). 

The ideologies of romance, femininity, domesticity, 

and motherhood "compose the matrix of patriarchal ideology" 

(Harrison, 1978: 192). The ideology of romance associates 

love with marriage. Marrying for love is the basis on which 

the roles of women in the private sphere are legitimated 

(Bland et al., 1978: 43). Moreover, the ideology of romance 

hides the economic aspect of the relationship where the man 

establishes dominance over the woman, instead presenting 

marriage as an "affective" relationship (Jaggar, 1983: 199). 

The ideology of femininity concerns female sexuality. It 

defines women as the sources of pleasure for men always being 

"attractive" and lI ava ilable" (Winship, 1978: 136). 

The ideology of domesticity posits women's place as 

in the home, establishing her central role within the family. 

Her role there is not pnly as a domestic labourer, but she 



35 

also must "[ensure] the sanctity of the home" (cited in 

Bland et al., 1978: 47). She is responsible for the emotional 

well being of all family members. Domestic ideology 

legitimates the private sphere as the 'natural' place for 

women. 

The ideology of motherhood, in tandem with the 

ideology of domesticity, further places women 'naturally' 

within the private sphere. This ideology defines women as 

nurturers who are the virtuous protectors of the family. 

Female sexuality is denied in the ideology of motherhood. In 

this ideology, women are "sexually unavailable" 

1978:138). 

(Winship, 

Conceptualizing patriarchal ideology as a 'matrix' is 

to view it as a container of its composing ideologies which, 

by necessity, are fluid within it. The ideologies of romance, 

femininity, domesticity, and motherhood move in and out of 

preferred positions. There is no rank order among them. The 

ideology of romance moves into a preferred position within 

the matrix to legitimate the ideologies of domesticity and 

motherhood (Harrison, 1978: 192). For, the organization of 

women into the private sphere is predicated on their 

acceptance of the ideology of romance. Romantic love is the 

basis for women's dedication to the family and her domestic 

roles. Furthermore, the ideology of romance and the ideology 

of femininity are interdependent. In order to attain 



36 

romantic love, women must make themselves pleasing to men. It 

is only by defining women as pleasure givers, through the 

ideology of femininity, that the ideology of romance can 

work. Moreover, it is women's role in the family to please 

men because of romantic love. 

Contradictions arise from this fluidity. The 

ideologies of motherhood and femininity are contradictions 

within the matrix of patriarchal ideology (Winship, 1978: 

136, 148). The ideology of femininity demands that women be 

sexually available for men's pleasure. The ideology of 

motherhood demands that women be maternal and deny sexuality. 

These two demands for women are contradictory, establishing a 

binary opposition: the whore versus the mother (Jaggar, 1983: 

260) . 

The hegemonic position of patriarchal ideology in our 

society is predicated on its ability to maintain these 

composing ideologies as the 

subordinate position. As 

preferred meanings of 

a hegemonic ideology, 

women's 

it has 

successfully incorporated and contained alternative meanings 

of women's conditions put forth by feminism in general 

(Jaddou and Williams, 1981: 109). The particular struggle 

over meaning which has taken place since the advent of 

feminism necessitates patriarchal ideology's incorporation of 

meanings in opposition to its definition of reality. 

Moreover, it necessitates a movement of the hegemonic 



37 

equilibrium allowing for change (i.e., not only allowing the 

interests of women greater voice but their actualization). 

Women's rights have been strengthened within patriarchy from 

women attaining the right to vote to their entitlement of an 

equal share of marital property. Only through careful 

management of the equilibrium can patriarchy retain its 

dominance. It has managed a delicate balance of conflicting 

interests. 

Television and Ideology 

Television is a medium of the mass media. Given 

Hall's theory of the mass media, television shoUld reproduce 

ideological hegemony. Television is a social institution 

which produces 'symbolic goods' in the form of television 

programmes which cover a wide variety of genres. Television 

is a cultural artifact, and as such, it comes to re-present 

cultural meanings -ideological discourses. "Television, as 

one of the major mass media, is part of the communications 

apparatus whose primary thrust is ideological; that is to 

say, it constructs social reality and reproduces social 

relations" (deLauretis, 1979: 115). Television is a site for 

the struggle over and production of meaning. 

The 'symbolic goods' which television offers can be 

seen as texts or messages which re-present cultural meanings. 

The text can only produce meaning through interaction with 



38 

the television viewer, and this interaction allows ideology 

to work (Fiske, 1982: 143-144). However, the interaction 

between the television text and the viewer takes place under 

particular circumstances and through particular conventions 

which facilitate the work of ideology. The television medium 

has particular characteristics which position the viewer to 

read meaning from the text unaware of the ideology at work. 

The "television medium presents us with a continuous stream 

of images almost all of which are deeply familiar in 

structure and form .... It uses codes which are closely related 

to those by which we perceive reality itself. It appears to 

be the natural way of seeing the world" (Fiske and Hartley, 

1978: 17; emphasis in original). It is the particular 

structure of television viewing and presentation which 

facilitates it as an ideological apparatus. 

John Ellis (1982) looks at these particular 

circumstances of viewing television and the particular 

conventions of television to show how the work of ideology is 

facilitated through the structure of the medium. The viewing 

of television takes place mainly in the home. The domestic 

setting for television makes viewing an intimate activity 

done in the privacy of the living room (Ellis, 1982: 113). 

Furthermore, "the stripped-down image" of television, where 

details are absent, leads to the conventional close-up camera 

shots of the medium. This emphasiS on the face in close-up 



39 

creates a sense of intimacy for the viewer (Ellis, 1982: 

131). And it positions the viewer in an intimate relation to 

the television. The intimate positioning of the viewer is 

further established through the content of television. The 

focus on the family form 8 in television's variety of genres 

"produces a sense of intimacy, a bond between the viewers' 

conception of themselves (or how they ought to be) and the 

programme's central concerns" (Ellis, 1982: 136). Moreover, 

television's sense of being " live" enhanced by its 

conventions (Le. , segments following real time, 

self-contained segments, close-ups, sound continuity, and 

direct address) "gives the impression that these events 

are ... co-present with the viewer, shared 

_. witnessed from outside" (Ellis, 1982: 

rather 

136-137) • 

than 

The 

televisual representation of reality appears to be that of 

the viewer; consequently, the fact that the viewer has been 

positioned in relation to the television from a pOint of view 

of intimacy is lost. The conventions which construct this 

viewing position appear natural, for they are how the viewer 

naturally perceives reality. The obviousness of perception 

allows socially produced meaning within the text to appear as 

the viewer's own, facilitating the work of ideology. Thus, it 

is not apparent that it is the television that produces the 

meaning for the viewer and not vice versa. 

Television, b~ing a domestic medium, must compete 



40 

with the domestic surroundings of viewers which may draw 

their attention away. The viewer is a casual viewer who 

'delegates' his/her glance to television. Therefore, the 

particular mode of representation for 

must attempt to keep the attention of 

1982: 128). The use of sound (e.g., 

returns the viewer's attention to the 

television's meanings 

the viewer (Ellis, 

music and laughter) 

television image. It 

signifies the important times to look, so the meaning of the 

text is not lost (Ellis, 1982: 162). The television must keep 

the attention of viewers in order to "recruit the interests 

of its viewers by creating a complicity of viewing: the TV 

look at the world becomes a surrogate look for the viewers" 

(Ellis, 1982: 163). Yet, this 'surrogate look' appears to be 

the viewers own natural way of seeing the world. It is not 

evident that this way of viewing the world is through the 

socially produced conventions of television based on the 

codes of realism. "The camera, like a magician, appears to 

read our mind, and our own act of reading, our necessary act 

of collaboration in this deceit, goes unnoticed and unnoted" 

(Nichols, 1981: 35). This, too, facilitates the work of 

ideology. 

Television, as an element of the mass media system, 

can be looked at specifically in its role as reproducer of 

ideological hegemony. "Television is a human construct, and 

the job that it does ~s the result of human choice, cultural 



decisions and social pressures. The medium responds 

conditions within which it exists" (Fiske and Hartley, 

41 

to the 

1978: 

17). If television responds to the conditions within which it 

exists, it will most likely symbolically reproduce those 

conditions (i.e., the characteristics of its culture). 

Todd Gitlin (1979) looks at the structure of prime 

time television to see how it expresses and supports 

ideological hegemony. Looking at the format and formula of 

prime time television, Gitlin (1979: 254) argues that the 

regularity of television programmes in terms of time, 

characters, and narrative form "convey images of social 

steadiness." This regularity "express[es] and cement[s] the 

obduracy of a social world impervious to substantial change." 

The 'ideological effect' is the naturalizing of the social so 

that it does not appear as a human construct, an historical 

structure. 

The coming and going of television programmes fits 

into a consumer society where the audience has the illusion 

of choice in the programs that are produced for consumption. 

"In this way, the regular changes in TV programs, like the 

regular elections of public officials, seem to affirm the 

sovereignty of the audience while keeping deep alternatives 

off the agenda. Elite authority and consume-r choice are 

affirmed at once -this is one of the central operations of 

the hegemonic liberal. capi talist ideology" (Gitlin, 1979 : 



42 

254-255). Moreover, commercials constitute the viewer as a 

consumer rather than a citizen. "Public problems (like air 

pollution) are propounded as susceptible to private commodity 

solutions (like eyedrops)" (Gitlin, 1979: 255). Television 

privatizes the public. 

Gitlin (1979: 256; emphasis in original) argues 

"hegemonic ideology is maintained in the Seventies 

that 

by 

domesticating divisive issues." On prime time television 

social conflict and social problems are dealt with by a few 

persons, and the solutions to these problems no matter how 

"deeply ... located within society .•. will be solved among a few 

persons" (Gitlin, 1979: 262). The slants of programs are 

either "a legitimation of depoliticized forms of deviance, 

usually ethnic or sexual", or "a delegitimation of the 

dangerous, the violent, the out-of-bounds" (Gitlin, 1979: 

261). Social conflict is "transported into the cultural 

system, where the hegemonic process frames them, form and 

content both, into compatibility with dominant systems of 

meaning" (Gitlin, 1979: 264; emphasis in original). 

Hegemonic ideology is reproduced through these 

conventions of prime time television. The social world is 

presented as an unchanging nonconflictive whole. Viewers are 

constituted as private, non-political consumers. Social 

conflict and alternative social arrangements are contained 

in, or excluded from, .the television message reduced to micro 



43 

level situations that can be dealt with outside of the 

political arena. n[H]egemonic ideology is 

and absorptive; it is only by absorbing 

conflicting definitions of reality and 

extremely complex 

and domesticating 

demands on it, in 

fact, that it remains hegemonic" (Gitlin, 1979: 264). 

Soap Opera and Ideology 

It has been argued that television, as a mass medium, 

is an apparatus reproducing hegemonic ideology. Given that 

soap opera is one of the 'symbolic goods' produced by the 

social institution of television, it will be argued that soap 

opera will also reproduce ideological hegemony (i.e., 

patriarchal ideological hegemony). 

As a form of television, soap opera, too, is a 

product of its conditions of existence. Soap opera exists on 

television among the myriad of commodities produced by 

television for mass consumption (Allen, 1985: 45). Soap opera 

is located in a capitalist society. Indeed, soap opera 

exists because it draws an audience for advertisers. 

only 

Soap 

opera serves an economic function (Intintoli, 1984: 73; 

Allen, 1985: 45). However, not only does soap opera exist 

because of capitalism's logic, its very form and content are 

shaped by this logic (i.e., profit over aesthetics, and don't 

offend the viewer/consumer) . 

The form of soap opera (i.e., narrative form and 



44 

visual form) is largely the result of its economic function. 

From soap opera's origins in radio to its transition to 

television, it has primarily been seen by its creators as an 

economic vehicle. 

[I]t is clear that the idea of presenting 
continuing stories focusing upon domestic concerns of 
daytime radio was the resul t of the conjunction of 
corporate desire to reach a particular audience (warnen 
eighteen to forty-nine) and broadcaster's need to fit 
the daytime hours with revenue-generating pDDgramming. 
The soap opera represents a fonn of cultural 
production that has been fully penetrated by capital 
since the rroment of its conception, a fonn driven and 
sustained by corporate imperatives (Allen, 1985: 
128-129). 

As an economic vehicle, soap opera was created for a 

specific category of women -housewives (Cantor and Pingree, 

1983: 150). Soap opera, now conveyed by television, is viewed 

in a domestic setting during a particular time of the day 

when housewives most likely compose the majority of viewers. 

In 1981, seventy percent of the daytime audience were women 

eighteen years and older (Cantor and Pingree, 1983: 118). The 

form of the soap opera has emerged from these conditions of 

existence. 

Soap opera has a fragmented narrative structure. The 

narrative structure of soap opera is characteristically 

and repetitive with multiple plots. The 

segmentation of the narrative is accomplished by the constant 

switching from one plot. line to another only giving short 



segments of anyone plot during 

opera's narrative. Repetition of 

45 

the course of the soap 

the various plots takes 

place daily on soap opera. Repetition always occurs within 

episodes and across episodes. Characters constantly talk and 

re-talk plots. And if this repetition is not enough, some 

soap operas provide the viewer with a summary of events from 

previous episodes at the beginning of each new episode. 

As noted previously by Ellis (1982), television as a 

domestic medium must compete with domestic surroundings for 

the viewer's attention. Moreover, the soap opera assumes a 

particular viewer -the housewife- whose domestic tasks cause 

her to view in a "distracted state" while she tends to her 

family's needs and household duties (Modleski, 1983: 70-71, 

73). It is within this context that soap opera creators 

assume women to be viewing, thus the form of soap opera 

accommodates such a viewer. The 'distracted state' caused by 

the housewife's daily routine is accommodated by such 

narrative form. She can watch her favorite soap opera amid 

the many tasks which interrupt her viewing as the 

segmentation accommodates short viewing spans; moreover, the 

repetition of plots allows her to miss some segments without 

losing the storyline. And just as important, the use of 

excessive dialogue in soap opera instead of action to move 

the narrative allows the housewife to follow storylines by 

listening rather than viewing. This further accommodates her 



46 

distracted viewing state. 

The fragmented structure of soap opera's narrative 

accommodates the viewing housewife in order to maintain her 

interest in the soap opera, so she is available to watch 

commercials. Commercials increase the segmentation of the 

narrative structure with their constant interruption. Soap 

opera is "crafted to fit commercials" (Intintoli, 1984: 76). 

Moreover, the continuousness of the narrative is an attempt 

to create a continuous viewer whose loyalty to a particular 

soap opera may translate into loyalty for the products 

advertised during that soap opera (Intintoli, 1984: 66). 

The excessive use of close-up camera shots result 

from their quickness compared to complex time consuming 

long-shots; therefore, close-up camera shots increase 

production speed and reduce costs (Intintoli, 1984: 141). The 

use of location shots is kept to a minimum not because they 

are more expensive than the construction of exterior sets in 

the studio, but they interfere with the over-all production 

schedule of the soap opera. The less time used in production 

the more money that is saved (Intintoli, 1984: 137-138). 

Thus, soap opera becomes largely a world of interiors filled 

with talking faces. 

The form of soap opera is determined by its economic 

function; however, as a residual effect, the soap opera's 

form facilitates the work of ideology. The fragmented 



47 

narrative structure accommodates the viewing conditions of 

the woman, and thus, it constructs a position for her in the 

soap opera text, a position of interaction with the text and 

its 'web ' of ideology. The use of excessive close-ups and the 

continuous nature of the narrative construct a type of 

realism for the viewer where pOints of recognition can be 

established. This positions the viewer to construct meaning 

from the representations within the soap opera text which 

connote ideological structures. 

The content of soap opera is also shaped by the logic 

of capitalism. Generally, content must be safe, yet it must 

attract an audience. Consequently, the narrative content must 

be contemporary but not offensive. The producers of soap 

opera are very aware of their audience. They have to tell 

stories that "minimize risk" (Intintoli, 1984: 102; emphasis 

in original). The stories presented in soap opera are within 

what the producers perceive to be the majority's view. They 

must keep within the perceived consensus. Dominant ideologies 

become encoded in the soap opera text only allowing 

subordinate ideologies to enter when social pressure is 

exerted by outside forces struggling over meanings (e.g., 

pressure groups, audiences). High ratings must be kept so 

profit is not threatened. Social and economic pressures 

'decide ' what ideologies are to be included in, or excluded 

from, the soap opera text. 



48 

Since producers of soap opera are very aware of their 

audiences and since that audience is primarily women, the 

content of the soap opera must sustain an audience of women 

in order for its economic function to be fulf illed. "The 

content of soap opera reflects its intended audience. The 

stories are women's stories, focusing on love, romance, 

childbearing, health and illness, manners and morals" (Cantor 

and Pingree, 1983: 28). Thus, soap opera is a women's genre 

which re-presents women's culture (Hobson, 1982: 32; Cantor 

and Pingree, 1983: 27). It is the 'symbolic' dimension of 

soap opera as meaning producer that incorporates the cultural 

sphere of women into its content. These 'stories' are the 

ideological discourses that construct the culture of women's 

daily lives; moreover, they are the composing ideologies of 

patriarchal ideology. As a genre that represents women's 

subculture amid a dominant men's culture, soap opera can be 

said to exist within the conditions of patriarchal culture. 

Thus, it can be asked to what extent does soap opera, as a 

cultural text, contain the ideological discourses of 

patriarchy. 

it is argued that patriarchal 

ideologies struggling to make 

opera text. Furthermore, it is 

In this research , 

ideology will be one of the 

meaning within the soap 

hypothesized that the soap opera 

ideological symbolically patriarchql 

text will 

hegemony. 

reproduce 

This is 



possible since the soap opera text, as 

will respond to' its conditions of 

reproducing its hegemonic ideology. 

Although there is no research 

on soap opera and the hegemony of 

undertaking a brief review of the 

49 

a cultural product, 

existence -patriarchy-

specifically focusing 

patriarchy's ideology, 

literature of studies 

focusing on the portrayal of women in soap opera indicates 

the existence of patriarchal ideology in the soap opera text. 

Moreover, it indicates that the hegemonic process is 

occurring in the soap opera text as an alternative ideology 

to patriarchy (i.e., liberal feminist ideology) is contesting 

the patriarchal definition of women, however limited. This 

liberal feminist ideology does not seek to destroy 

patriarchal ideology but rather works to redefine women 

within hegemonic patriarchy (Jaggar, 1985: 181). 

Recently, there has been an increase in the number of 

female characters occupying positions of power (i.e., high 

ranking occupations) in soap opera. However, closer 

inspection shows that this inclusion is on patriarchal terms. 

Arliss et al. (1983: 148-150) investigated the occupational 

roles of women characters on soap opera. They found 64% of 

male characters occupy positions of power in contrast to only 

34% of the female characters. Therefore, female characters 

tend to occupy mostly subordinate positions despite their 

numerical balance with male characters (Rondina et al., 1980: 



50 

9) • 

Research has shown that female characters portraying 

traditional women in the domestic, familial, romantic context 

are approved while non-traditional (i.e., non-domestic) 

female characters are condemned (Tuchman, 1978: 13; Meehan, 

1983: 124-5). Weibel (1977: 59) observed that female 

characters on soap operas who neglected their families in 

favour of the work world were punished in their personal 

lives (e.g., spouse's infidelity). Cantor and Pingree (1983 : 

90-91) found that on soap operas " [c]onservative, nurturing 

women tended to be good characters, while evil women were 

career-oriented and nontraditional in their behavior." 

In these studies, inclusion of the alternative view 

of women's roles is included on patriarchal terms. It is 

framed in the dominant value system of patriarchal culture. 

At the same time that women in powerful positions are 

accepted, they are rejected. Traditional domestic roles for 

women are condoned while non-traditional roles are condemned. 

The age old dichotomization of women's roles into good and 

evil is drawn on to show that women belong in the private 

sphere. Entrance into the public sphere of men is to be evil 

and unwomanly. Weibel (1977: 60-1) states 

'Good' ••• is associated with traits traditionally 
stereotyped as female, such as love, compassion, 
family, loyalty, and the willingness to sacrifice and 
suffer; 'evil', on the other hand, is associated with 



51 

traits long stereotyped as masculine -including 
cutthroat professional ethics, excessive involvement 
in work, neglect of family, infidelity, and so on. 

While an alternative view of women's roles is 

included in the soap opera text, it is articulated to 

patriarchal ideology showing the correctness of the 

separation of the public and private spheres. It 

delegitimizes and depoliticizes the call for more powerful 

roles for women in society. Liberal feminist ideology is 

contained limiting its circulation in patriarchal ideology's 

matrix. It would appear patriarchal ideology is given 

preference to construct meaning within the soap opera text. 

The alternative ideology of liberal feminism is expressed 

only on the terms of patriarchal ideology. This reveals the 

hegemonic process at work within the soap opera text. 

The research in this brief review of the literature 

does not explicitly address the issue of patriarchal 

hegemony. These findings can only tentatively point to the 

indication of the hegemonic process at work establishing a 

basis for the stated hypothesis. Therefore, it is the purpose 

of this research to explicitly address the issue of 

patriarchal hegemony in relation to soap opera. 

Conclusion 

It is the reproduction of patriarchal ideological 



52 

hegemony within the soap opera text that is of concern. The 

interest is on the soap opera as a cultural text and how it 

re-presents cultural meanings. As a product of its conditions 

of existence, it is not the 'effects' that the soap opera has 

on its viewer that are of concern, but rather how the text 

constructs meaning to be 'read' by the viewer. Much 

literature on soap opera does not recognize the important 

'symbolic' dimension of soap opera and is satisfied to look 

for the deleterious 'effects' of soap opera viewing. The 

'effects' on the viewer include dissatisfaction with life 

(Kinzer, 1973); the harmful effect 

1975); and the distortion of reality 

Mayes, 1981). The soap opera as 

on children (Goldsen, 

(Buerkel-Rothfuss and 

a cultural text which 

constructs meaning is ignored; therefore, these researchers 

do not address the issue of how soap opera constructs and 

re-presents cultural meanings. They are satisfied to quantify 

soap opera content analyzing the frequency of particular 

occupations (Gade, 1981); the types of sex roles portrayed 

(Turow, 1974; Hodges et al., 1981); the frequency of sexual 

behavior (Greenberg et al., 1981; Lowryet al., 1981); and 

the types of conversations found in soap opera dialogue 

(Fine, 1981). Quantifying the content of soap opera abstracts 

it from its structural relation to other elements of the soap 

opera, and thus, there is no possibility of discovering how 

the soap opera text constructs meaning. Recent research 



53 

influenced by the Cultural Studies approach and semiology has 

begun to delve into the soap opera text exploring its ways of 

constructing meaning (Hobson, 1982; Brunsdon, 1983; Modleski, 

1983; Allen, 1985). 

Using Stuart Hall's theory of the mass media and his 

conceptualization of ideology, it is 

research to examine how the soap opera 

hegemony of patriarchal ideology. 

the 

text 

This 

purpose of 

reproduces 

can only 

this 

the 

be 

accomplished through discovering how the soap 

constructs meaning, for ideological hegemony is 

opera text 

reproduced 

primarily through a struggle over meaning. The soap opera's 

construction of meaning will be examined in terms of how the 

soap opera (as a 'symbolic good' of the mass medium of 

television) fulfills the functions of the mass media in its 

reproduction of patriarchal ideological hegemony. 



Chapter Three 

Methodology 

Structuralism Versus Content Analysis 

The purpose of this analysis is to examine the ways 

in which the soap opera text reproduces patriarchal 

ideological hegemony. This necessitates the discovery of how 

the soap opera text constructs meaning, for this is to 

discover how ideology works. The analysis must make visible 

the ideological meanings that appear natural or taken for 

granted. It must reveal the ideological structures which are 

encoded in the soap opera text; therefore, a structuralist 

methodology must be used. 

The use of this methodology in the analysis of soap 

opera texts has not traditionally been the predominant 

methodology used. Content analysis has been the popular 

choice as a methodology for the analysis of soap opera texts 

(Allen, 1985: 35). However, with the positing of the concern 

of ideology in the mass media, structuralist analysis must 

replace content analysis as a methodology if ideological 

structures ar-e to be revealed. 

Content analysis is quantitative. It approaches 

text with the intention of quantifying items within 

any 

that 

text. Thus, the analysis of soap opera using this methodology 

54 



55 

quantifies occurences within the soap opera text often as a 

basis for comparison with the socio-demographics of the real 

world. (Allen, 1985: 36). Content analysis studies have 

looked at the socio-demographic characteristics of soap opera 

characters comparing them to socio-demographic 

characteristics of the real world's population to ascertain 

the degree of realism of the soap opera text (e.g., Katzman, 

1972; Cantor and Pingree, 1983; Rondina et al., 1983). 

Similarly, for the purpose of comparison with the real world, 

they have looked at the incidence of illness and its cause 

(Cassata et al., 1983); the incidence and types of violence 

and crime (Cantor and Pingree, 1983); the incidence and types 

of social issues presented (Downing, 1974; Greenberg et al., 

1982); and the incidence of alcohol use (Lowery, 1980) in the 

soap opera text. 

These types of analyses assume that the soap opera 

text should represent the real world, and if it doesn't, it 

distorts reality. The major problem with this assumption is 

that the fictional status of the soap opera text is ignored. 

"In the case of content analysis of soap operas, as in other 

texts ... what is being observed for its regularities is not 

some aspect of a real-life society but a fictional 

construction" (Allen, 1985: 36). The soap opera text as a 

fictional construction should not be expected to mimic the 

real world. As a fictional construction, the soap opera text 



56 

selectively extracts aspects of the real world reorganizing 

them to construct its fictional reality. Allen (1985: 37) 

calls this "not a process of transplantation but of 

transmutation." The aspects of reality that are included in 

the soap opera text do not fully function as in the real 

world. They are changed when made to conform to the fictive 

world of the soap opera text. 

The world of television is clearly different f~ our 
real social world .... television does not represent the 
manifest actuality of our SOCiety, but rather 
reflects, symbolically, the structure of values and 
relationships beneath the surface (Fiske and Hartley, 
1978: 24; emphasis added). 

It is this 'symbolic' dimension of television and the 

texts that it produces which are lost in content analysis. 

For content analysis, by ignoring the fictive status of the 

soap opera text, confuses reality and fiction assuming the 

meanings of its quantified items are "derived entirely from 

their function in the real world and not necessarily from 

their functions in the texts which they are parts" (Allen, 

1985: 38). Thus, the 'symbolic' or ideological dimension of 

the soap opera text is ignored favoring quantifiable manifest 

contents. The soap opera text is reduced to isolated items 

abstracted from their context. This is done in error, for "a 

text, clearly is a structured whole, and the place occupied 

by the different elements is more important than the number 



57 

of times they recur" (Burgelin, 1972: 319; emphasis in 

original). Content analysis quanitifies the signifiers 9 of 

the text without thought to what they signify; consequently, 

the systems of signifiers in the text are not analyzed to 

make visible ideological structures. Content analysis denies 

the 'symbolic' dimension of the text never moving beyond the 

manifest content. Of course, content analysis should not be 

totally disregarded. It is a methodology useful for mapping 

out the contents of a text. It can be used to identify 

signifiers in the text. 

On the contrary, structuralist analysis does what 

content analysis cannot. It does make visible the structure 

of ideology by going beyond the manifest content of the text 

to reveal the latent content. Structuralism views the text as 

a 'structured whole' which can be dissected into its 

constitutive elements to discover how the text makes meaning. 

The elements are not seen as isolated items to be tabulated, 

rather they are seen in sets of relations to one another, as 

systems of differences, and as structures which produce 

meaning through that difference. Therefore, it is the form of 

the message not the raw content that is important. It is how 

the content is organized into various systems of signifiers 

that reveals how the text means, and thus, reveals 

ideological structures (Burgelin, 1972: 313-320). 

From this per~pective meaning is produced through 



58 

difference. Signifiers are organized into systems which 

produce meaning through the differential relationships 

between each signifier in 

defined in relation to its 

that precede and fOllow 

that system. Each signifier is 

difference from the signifiers 

it. Therefore, the relationship 

between signifiers is more important than the signifiers as 

abstractions from the system of differences. For example, a 

set of traffic lights can be seen as a system of differences. 

The colours red, yellow, and green compose a structural 

relationship producing meaning through their difference from 

one another. Red comes to mean 'stop' set in a 

relationship to green which can only mean 'go' 

difference from red. The colour red abstracted 

differential 

through its 

from this 

system of differences loses its meaning, for without the 

colour green, it has nothing to define itself against (Fiske, 

1982: 63-64). 

Furthermore, structural analysis cannot isolate 

itself from the cultural context of the text, and this holds 

in the analysis of the mass media. "[T]he mass media clearly 

do not form a complete culture on their own: in other words, 

they·do not form an entirely closed system, like a language, 

but simply a fraction of such a system, which is, of 

necessity, the culture to which they belong" (Burgelin, 1972: 

317). The text is a cultural product embodying cultural 

meanings. It is only through interaction with the culture 



59 

surrounding the text, by way of the 'reader' of that text, 

that meaning is produced and ideology can work. As clarified 

previously, this analysis concerns itself with how the 

opera text constructs meaning as a cultural product 

'read' by the viewer. It is concerned with the text 

not a theory of the reader. 

soap 

to be 

itself 

Structuralism can reveal how a text constructs 

meaning; therefore, it makes visible the ideological 

structures. If the purpose of this analysis is to be 

realized, it is evident that a structuralist methodology is 

required. 

Structuralist Methodology and Soap Opera 

This analysis involves the case study of the soap 

opera Another World. This particular soap opera was chosen 

from among the many soap operas available because it was 

familiar to the researcher. This familiarity allowed the 

researcher knowledge of characters' pasts, knowledge of past 

and present storylines, and knowledge of the settings which 

proved valuable to the accuracy and proficiency of the 

analysis. 

Another World is one of the long-lived soap operas of 

television spanning twenty-four years (Allen, 

This researcher'S knowledge of Another World is 

approximately ten years of that span. In 

1985: 127). 

limited to 

that time, 



60 

characters and settings have changed, yet some have remained 

the same. This soap opera is set in Bay City located 

somewhere in the north eastern United states. The main 

families currently inhabiting Bay City are the upper class 

Cory's and Love's along with the working class McKinnon's. 

Class distinction is based here on occupation, 

property. 

status, and 

The Cory's are the most established family providing 

two of the soap opera's central characters, Mac and Rachel 

Cory. Their estate and Mac's publishing company have been two 

of the staple settings of the soap opera. Rachel IS son Jamie 

Frame, by a previous marriage, is one of the last remaining 

members of a once established family on Another World. 

The younger of the two upper class families, the 

Love's, provide a host of familiar characters. The most 

established being Donna, Peter, and Reginald. They 

old money with Peter having the only discernible 

represent 

occupation 

as a lawyer. Their mansion and the Love Tower {the location 

of the restaurant 'Tops'} are settings for the unfolding of 

many plots. 

The upper-class families have been the most 

on Another World with the working class families 

enduring 

changing 

over time. The Perrini's gave way to the Ewing's who are now 

replaced by the McKinnon's. This family provides four main 

characters: Vince, Mary, MJ, and Cheryl. Their home and 



61 

Vince's restaurant (Mary's Place) are now familiar settings 

on the soap opera. As families and individual characters 

leave and enter Bay City, the settings change. However, the 

staple settings include those associated with the established 

families, the police station, and Bay City General Hospital. 

A week's worth of Another World was video-taped for 

slow motion analysis. This amounted to five one hour 

episodes. Within one week of the soap opera, it can be 

estimated that there were 150 scenes. For, it was calculated 

that 35 scenes occurred in just one of the episodes taped 

(see Appendix). Thus, the sample size is extended within each 

episode of Another World since scenes were often the unit of 

analysis. 

Within these five episodes, eight storylines were in 

progress and three of these were major storylines. Of these 

three major storylines, one was chosen to be analyzed. The 

storyline chosen was distinct from the other two in that it 

had as its central figure an independent woman attempting to 

take charge of her life amid many oppositional men. It was 

the most appropriate storyline for structural analysis given 

the purpose of the research. 

The analysis of this storyline began by 

systematically identifying all of the relevant scenes within 

the five video-taped episodes of Another World which were 

important to the chosen storyline's narrative's progression. 



62 

This meant choosing only those scenes where the major 

characters appeared in the midst of dialogue and action that 

were a part of the narrative's progression. Scenes were 

eliminated where the major characters were only in subsidiary 

roles to other storylines, for these 

relate to the narrative being analyzed. 

storylines 

In turn, 

did not 

each of 

these relevant scenes were summarized for their contribution 

to the narrative's progression giving the over-all structure 

of the narrative. 

The structural analysis then began by dissecting each 

scene of the storyline into their various possible elements 

or signifiers: characters, blocking (i.e., character 

positions in relation to objects or other characters), 

dialogue, physical action, clothing, props, settings, camera 

shots, music etc. The purpose of identifying the signifiers 

within each scene was to discover how they combined to 

construct the meaning of each scene. The signifiers within 

each scene were reassembled into a 'structured whole' 

revealing how each scene constructed meaning. The structure 

of each scene was seen to be a complex chain of signifiers 

activating meaning. The chain of signifiers was predominantly 

set off by characters, for they were the carriers of many of 

the signifiers (e.g., dialogue, blocking, physical action, 

clothing, props). Thus, the relations between characters 

within each scene became important to how meaning was 



63 

constructed in that scene, for the signifiers that they 

carried attempted to construct meaning often in opposition to 

another character's. These relations between characters were 

seen as systems of differences constructing meaning through 

opposition. Emerging from this analysis was the obvious fact 

that the characters were the circulators of ideology, 

embodying many signifiers. Moreover, their circulation of 

ideologies became a contest to produce meaning among the 

ideologies that competed for preference. 

With the ideological structures of each scene made 

visible, the structure or sequence of the scenes themselves 

was analyzed. This gave more depth to the structural 

analysis. Each scene was seen as a self-contained signifer 

linked in a chain of signification by their real sequence. 

The sequence of scenes became a system of signifiers often 

related in a system of difference, for the over-all meaning 

of a scene that preceded or fOllowed another scene was 

frequently in opposition. The relationships of scenes 

constructed further meaning in the soap opera text. 

The structural analysis was concerned not only with 

what happened within scenes in terms of meaning construction, 

but also what happened across scenes which signified opposed 

meanings. Thus, the structural analysis exhausted the 

possibilities for how the text constructed meaning. Finally, 

the results of this structural analysis are generalizable to 



64 

other soap opera texts in as much as they adhere to the 

particular characteristics of the genre 

content) as does Another World. 

The Reflexive Researcher 

The position of this researcher in 

structural analysis of the soap opera text 

both hegemonic patriarchal culture and 

(Le., form and 

relation to the 

is informed by 

the feminist 

subculture. As a member of the hegemonic culture, this 

researcher is implicated in the hegemonic process, and, as a 

member of the feminist subculture, this researcher engages in 

an oppositional reading of the soap opera text. The 

researcher's use of her placement in such a cultural context 

is useful to the methodological strategy of structuralism. It 

is not just the purpose of this research to reveal what the 

soap opera text means, but also how dominant meanings operate 

through the structures of the text. Thus, membership in the 

hegemonic culture allows structural analysis to take place 

(the how of meaning) as such an analysis cannot isolate 

itself from the cultural context. Moreover, the feminist 

subculture allows an oppositional reading further revealing 

the how of meaning. 

As will be seen in Chapter Six, a dominant reading by 

the female viewer is concluded. However, no single female 

reader may make a complete dominant reading. Yet, even 



65 

negotiated and oppositional decodings presume a dominant 

reading. In order for a reader to position herself in such 

relations to the soap opera text, she must 'get' the dominant 

decoding. The dominant reading is a basis against which to 

construct negotiated and oppositional decodings. Thus, the 

dominant ideologies are always reproduced but not always with 

acceptance. 



Chapter Four 

Another World: The Construction of a Social Imagery 

Introduction 

The first function of the mass media in their 

reproduction of ideological hegemony is the construction of 

an imaginary social totality that appears whole, not 

fragmented (Hall, 1977). Social cleavages that would point 

out antagonisms between disparate groups are masked. The 

construction of this social imagery is related to the 

theoretical interest in patriarchal ideology, for the social 

imagery provides a site for the hegemonic process. 

In this chapter, it will be shown how the soap opera 

Another World fUlfills this function of the mass media. A 

social imagery is created through the process of 

personalization which, in turn, creates an intersubjective 

view of the social world. This particular view of the world 

equalizes characters at the personal level masking 

differences. The importance of the 'talk' of soap opera to 

the personalization process will be discussed. Attention will 

then turn to three major threats of fragmentation to the 

intersubjective social of Another World: class, the 

public/private spheres, and social problems. Each will be 

discussed showing how their threat of fragmentation is 

66 



67 

alleviated. Finally, an analysis of a major scene will be 

undertaken to support the contentions concerning the process 

of personalization. 

The Process of Personalization on Another World 

The process of personalization creates a social 

imagery for Another World that is intimate, internal, and 

interior. It is thus an intersubjective social world where 

characters and their relationships are extremely 

personalized. All characters are ready-made subjectivities 

emanating their essential characteristics through talk. As 

Newcomb (1974: 169) says, the soap opera "is a world of 

words .... Dialogue is all-important." In the process of 

personalization, talk is used to establish intersubjectivity. 

Relationships between characters are intersubjective. 

They are not institutional, structural, or objective. 

Relationships are emotional investments established through 

talk. They are the encounters necessary for ready-made 

characters to talk, expressing ready-made subjectivities. The 

emphasis on intersubjectivity creates a psychological world 

where inner emotions are revealed through talk and signified 

through close-up camera shots of emoting faces. All are 

equalized at the intersubjective emotional level. 

Talk is the main currency for exchange on soap opera. 

The exchange of talk·on soap opera is the means by which 



68 

characters weave interrelationships into a social imagery. It 

is primarily through talk that a community of characters is 

established. A disruption in one character's life is felt as 

a disruption to the whole soap opera community, for talk 

spreads the disruption to all characters. Through talk, a 

"personal and caring universe is repeatedly affirmed with 

expressions of concern and offerrings of love" (Intintoli, 

1984: 57). 

On Another World a community of caring characters is 

established through talk. Vicki Love is a young woman who is 

having family problems surrounding the unfaithfulness of her 

mother, Donna, to her father Michael Hudson. When Vicki is 

arrested for speeding, talk spreads the mishap to other 

characters who express concern. Vicki is brought into the Bay 

City Police Department at the same time two of her friends 

are there. Jamie Frame expresses concern. 

Jamie: I'll walk you out. 

Vicki: No, I want to be alone. 

(Vicki exits with Jamie following.) 

Jamie: Wait a minute. 

Vicki: I don't want to talk Jamie. 

Jamie: Where are you going and what's bothering you? 

Vicki: