Independent Study: Neighbours

The media text that I have chosen to analyse for my independent study is the Australian soap opera Neighbours, first aired in Australia in March 1985 then later in the United Kingdom in October 1986. It focuses on the daily lives of several families who live in Ramsay Street, a middle class suburb of Erinsborough. The storylines explore romance, family problems, domestic disputes and other key life events. Neighbours is renowned for having a large proportion of younger characters, effectively attracting a young teenage audience to the soap opera.

For my independent study I plan to focus on the roles, representation and ideological values of women in the soap opera.

I decided to analyse Neighbours because I am very familiar with the programme, therefore have a wider knowledge of the text in general. I also have good knowledge on soap operas, as it was a topic we have covered for film and broadcast fiction for AS Media Studies relating back to the key concepts used. I have decided to focus mainly on the episodes shown in the UK on the BBC and the following of UK audiences, and to refer back to it’s Australian roots.

I have chosen to explore this topic as there are many cases in the programme that I can comment on, especially in recent episodes, such as the dominance of Janel Timmins in the street and the recent vulnerability of Susan whilst her husband Karl has gone over to England to help out with his new-born baby from his previous partner Isabel (Izzy) Hoyland. There are also many other women and issues in the soap that can be explored, and how this can relate back to the soap opera’s main target audience of teenagers and why they introduced more characters to appeal more to that target audience. Neighbours also appealed to me to study as it is set in Australia, but still attracts worldwide audiences especially in the United Kingdom, which shows its popularity and success. To analyse Neighbours successfully I will select a weeks worth of 5 episodes to explore specifically in detail.

Each woman in Neighbours lead unique lifestyles and are usually based upon stereotypical and generic character types. This will allow me to make comparison between individual characters in the soap and analyse how each are portrayed to its audience. Other aspects I can draw upon are the stereotypical views of the younger characters, such as Bree Timmins, also known as “Trinity Black” to fit her “gothic” persona. She can also be categorised into the “geeky kid” with her keen passion of books, and prized winner of the Spelling Bee in 2005.

In my research so far, I have found a lot of information that is relevant to the institutions of the soap opera, such as the network switch from BBC to Channel Five in the UK due to funding, as well as various sources based specifically on women in Neighbours, as there is lots of information that can be related to issues in society.