The Bo~d and the Beauti£u~ and Generations: A comparative ethnographic audience study of Zulu-speaking students living in residences on the University of Natal's Durban campus. By Michele Tager Supervisor: Professor Ruth Teer Tomaselli This thesis has been done in terms of the requirements for a Doctoral degree in Cultural and Media Studies in the Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Natal , Durban. CONTENTS TITLE PAGE DEDICATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS DECLARATION ABSTRACT CHAPTER 1 . 1 INTRODUCTION Background to the study Re-a sse s sing the soap opera genre Global v e rsu s local The viewing environment Local v e r s us global: What makes this study relevant? Wh y Gener ations and The Bold and the Beautiful? Presentation of Research Inclusion o f interview transcriptions The dev e l opment of television broadcasting in South Africa: An over v i e w of the SABC The SABC today and viewer profiles of SABC1, ·2 and 3 The Bold and the Beautiful: A brief synopsis of the storylin e : The Foresters The Spectras Summary Generations: A brief synopsis of the storyline CHAPTER 2. 18 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Why students living in campus r e s i denc e s ? The interview process Finding people to interview and defining the interview process Fieldwork: Finding out more about Generations and The Bold and the Beautiful Formulation on the research design Gathering empirical data CHAPTER 3 . 47 SOAP OPERA AUDIENCE RESEARCH Criticism of local productions Soaps and social realism Talking about soaps: The pleasure of gossip The 'hermeneutic circle' of understanding The viewing context: The residence television room Viewers occupies roles in the act of viewing Identification and establishment of intimacy . Watching and talking The use of stereotypes in soap operas Viewing of soaps and loneliness Soaps and the creation of parasocial relationships How Dallas captured the global imagination Ien Ang on Dallas "What makes viewers diverge when interpreting narrative?" (Livingstone, 1995: 174) CHAPTER 4 . 104 INSTITUTIONAL AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT An overview of audience measurement in practice in a global context Radical Contextualisation The Appreciation Index Quantitative research and its inability to capture divergent audience interpretations Institutional Audience Measurement is South Africa: a local context TAMS: a synopsls The Mark 1 Meter The Mark 2 Meter The 1990s: the next generation of meters The advent of satellite channels in South Africa TAMS: Methodology TAMS sample design How the TV rating is measured How the TV Rating (TVR) is calculated How much do the audience figures actually tell us? Why is it that an American soap opera appeals to a wider portion of the South African population than a locally produced soap like Generations? Divergence in retelling of specific narrative events Summary CHAPTER 5 . 145 WHAT IS ETHNOGRAPHIC AUDIENCE RESEARCH? "The Circuit of Culture" 'Everyday Life' Filling in the gaps Ethnographic audience research in practice David Morley: The Nationwide audience The viewer as critic The Tubingen Soap Opera Project The Southall Project CHAPTER 6 . 174 PRODUCTION The cost of producing a daily soap The production process behind The Bold and the Beautiful and Generations Naming the characters Casting The Bold and the Beautiful and Generations: defining plot characteristics Romance Glamour Tackling social issues Fusing fiction and reality Set Design Clothing CHAPTER 7 . 215 CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSUMPTION OF SOAP OPERA The o rigins of soa p opera Soap opera: gene ral c haract eristics Soap operas: n ever- end i n g stor i e s Soap opera: the plot thickens Characters Primary Types Secondary Types In Pursuit of pleasure CHAPTER 8 . 242 CONCLUSION Soaps: international p roducts Family Ties Moral quandary Communal viewing How soaps are structured to facili t a t e soc ial viewing pleasure Why do they watch? Fantasy Soaps and the creation of ide n t i t y What relation do soaps bear t o the lives o f the students? Patterns of involvement The moral viewer Is America 'bigger', 'bolder' and mor e 'be autiful' than South Africa? In conclusion APPENDIX 1 .... ......... 269 TOP 20 SHOWS ON SABC IN 1997 APPENDIX 2 . ...... .... ... .. 271 AMPS FIGURES BIBLIOGRAPHY . 289 Dedicated to: The memory of my late father. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people: }o- My supervisor, Professor Ruth Teer Tomaselli for her invaluable guidance and encouragement. }o- My Mother, for everything! }o- My brothers, for their love and support. }o- Susan Govender, for her patience and assistance - always! }o- The 40 students I interviewed, who graciously gave of their time. ~ The Generations production team, particularly Mfundi Vundla, Elsja Starck and Maynaard Kraak, who generously granted me interviews. ~ Professor Keyan Tomaselli for his ongoing interest and support. ~ The National Research Foundation (NRF) for their financial contribution in the form of a scholarship. Declaration I, Michele Tager, hereby confirm that this thesis is my own work. Any other works have been duly acknowledged. I have not submitt~d this work for a previous degree, except where acknowledged within the thesis. ABSTRACT This thesis is an ethnographic s t udy of t he soap opera viewing patterns and interpretations of Zul u -spe aki ng students living in residences on the Natal University/s Durban campus who watch Th e Bold and t h e Bea utiful (an American soap opera ) a nd Generation s (a South African soap opera). It presents an a nalysi s of how t he viewing practices of the students compare with t he findings of soap opera audience s t udie s conducted abroad. The students ' motivations and reasons for watching both s oap operas a r e invest igated . The reason for choosing black students a s subjects is that I wanted to determine how a soap opera (Generati ons ) which is comprised l a rge l y of black cast members and designed with a young black audience in mind, is interpreted and impacts on the lives of said audi enc e, when compared with an Amer i can soap opera ( Th e Bold a nd the Be a u tiful) which has an almost exclusively white American cast, and i s popular with young black viewers in spite o f the fact that i t ap p e a r s on the surface to be unrelated to their everyday lives. Individual one - on- on e interviews were conducted with 40 students, 20 male a nd 20 f ema le . The interviews were analysed to gauge how the v iewing b ehaviour of the students differs from, or is similar to/ s oa p opera studies conducted elsewhere in the world. It emerged that t he s tudents watch in groups and not alone, and that watching Gen e r a t i ons and Th e Bold and the Beautiful is a social activity, not motivat ed from loneliness or isolation. The ways i n whi ch the students relate to the characters and s i tua tion s of both soap operas is also examined, in an attempt to e s tablish t h e r ole that these two shows play in the creation of the students' identities. The students displayed a tendency to be more critical o f Genera t i o n s than of The Bold and the Beautiful i n the sense t hat the y compared it (unfavourably) in terms of quality of p r oduc t i on, to its American counterpart, as well as in the sense that they ana l ysed s torylines in terms of their own lived experiences and were qui c k t o c rit i c i s e Generations when they felt t ha t it did not c on f o rm t o t he ir notions of the reality of being a black South African. They accepted s i t ua t i ons and characters on The Bold and the Beautiful far l e s s c rit i c ally, although they did voice objections to certain c haracters and s itua t i ons which they felt were morally questionable i n t e rms of their understanding of right and wrong . It also became apparen t that t he r e was a greater emotional involvement with the character s on The Bold and the Beautiful than with those on Generations . The student s int e rpr e t a tions of (and level of involvement with) s ituations, charact e r s a nd storylines are examined, as well as the wa ys in which they derive p l e a s u r e f r om both s oaps and incorporat e them i n t o thei r own l ives. In summary, this t hes i s examines the consumption of an American and a Sout h Af rican soap opera by a black South African a ud i e nc e . Chapter One Introduction Background to the study The existing body of literature on soap opera audience research is imposingly large, so the idea of being able to extend or expand it, is a daunting one. When I wrote my Masters dissertation as part of my coursework Masters degree in 1995, I examined the immense popularity of an American daytime soap opera screened on South African television, with black Zulu speaking nurses at King Edward Hospital and black Zulu-speaking students (male and female) at Natal University's Durban campus (Tager, 1995). At the time, South Africa had just undergone major political change and reform with the country's first democratic elections being held in 1994. The country's national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) revised its local content policies to reflect the changing environment of the country and encourage local television productions.