S.coleman_The Depiction of Politicians and Politics in British Soaps

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Television & New Media

DOI: 10.1177/15274764083154992008; 9; 197 originally published online Mar 5, 2008;Television New Media

Stephen ColemanThe Depiction of Politicians and Politics in British Soaps

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197

Authors Note: I would like to thank the Electoral Commission for having the imagination to support this

research. I was very fortunate to have willing articulate interviewees from the production teams of themajor British soaps. I am indebted to my research team from the Institute of Communications Studies at

the University of Leeds: Jenifer Curren, Shaun Sutton, and Richa Wadhera. Thanks also to Mirjam Werner

and Agnes Hellmuth for their work on the open-ended survey questions and to YouGov for conducting the

survey. Any errors are, of course, my own responsibility.

Television & New Media

Volume 9 Number 3

May 2008 197-219

2008 Sage Publications

10.1177/1527476408315499

http://tvnm.sagepub.com

hosted athttp://online.sagepub.com

The Depiction of Politicians

and Politics in British SoapsStephen ColemanUniversity of Leeds, United Kingdom

This paper explores ways in which politicians and political themes are depicted in

British soap operas. A three-dimensional definition of the political is employed, and the

distinction between the personalized communities depicted in soaps and the impersonal

world of politics is investigated. The study draws upon interviews with producers andscriptwriters from the major British soaps; a representative survey of the British popu-

lation, 59 percent of whom described themselves as regular soap viewers and/or listen-

ers; and two focus groups.

Keywords: politics; politicians; popular culture; citizenship; stereotypes; soaps

I. The Ubiquity and Invisibility of Politics

Politics surrounds us, but remains slippery to the touch, intangible, and distant in itsomnipresence. Hardly a day passes without news of political happenings, but few know

much about where they take place, or why, or what life would be like if they did not.

It is this everywhere-and-nowhereness of politics that leaves people bewildered, suspi-

cious, and ultimately inclined to regard the political as a contemporary taboo: a subject

to be avoided, thereby exacerbating its cultural marginality (Eliasoph 1998).

In the everyday experience of most British citizens, politics, in the formal sense of

the term, is encountered only occasionally and peripherally. The rules of the political

game strike most people as opaque, and its main players appear to be remote and inac-

cessible. While most British people (61 percent) say that they frequently (22 percent) orevery so often (39 percent) discuss politics in the safety of their families, very few of

them ever discuss politics with the politicians they elect to represent their interests, pref-

erences, and values. Most people (88 percent) have had no face-to-face contact with

their Member of Parliament (MP) within the past year. Over the same period, three-

quarters claim never to have seen their MP on television, 80 percent have not written to

their MP, and 84 percent have not visited their MPs Web site (Coleman 2005).

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198 Television & New Media

In a survey conducted for this research,1 a representative sample of the United

Kingdom (UK) population, of whom 59 percent were regular soap viewers and/or

listeners, were asked about whether they had had contact in the past month with arange of people. A total of 78 percent had been in contact with a next-door neighbor

in the previous month, 44 percent with their general practitioner (GP), and one in

four (25 percent) with the landlord/lady of their local pub. But only 8 percent had

any contact with their local councilor and 6 percent has contact with their MP. Asked

about which three of a range of people they knew best, respondents were most familiar

with their next-door neighbor (62 percent), their GP (44 percent), and their local pub

landlord/lady (19 percent). Asked who they knew least, almost two-thirds (62 percent)

of respondents chose their MP, 49 percent chose asylum seekers, and 45 percent

chose their local councilor.The disconnection between most people and the world of politics has profound

consequences for trust: whereas most people (79 percent) trust their local hospital

(with this figure increasing the more recently that they have visited it), only a minority

trust their local council (48 percent), the British Government (43 percent); politicians

in general (18 percent), or political parties (16 percent).

The publics images of politics and politicians are drawn fleetingly from the mass

media, which tends to represent the political sphere in two different, but equally alien-

ating, ways. Firstly, there is the tendency of high-minded journalism to depict politics

as a game for insiders, who understand its rules and enjoy its culture. Much politicalcommentary in the broadsheet press and serious broadcast news programs is

idiomatically exclusive and self-referential, operating around an assumption that its

audience is familiar with its historical narrative and sufficiently close to the whispers

of the court to understand the hints, evasions, and ironies that characterize sophisti-

cated political discourse. There is, of course, a circularity about this approach: those

who can follow its abstruse codes are deemed to be an interested minority, while those

left scratching their heads in bewilderment are criticized for lacking civic attention.

The other, rather more popular and populist representation of politics by the media,

embeds political stories within a metanarrative of disenchantment and derision. JohnLloyd (2004). has argued that the media are ravenous for conflict, scandal, splits,

rows and failure. This self-prophetic search for duplicity and dissemblance generates

a steady stream of negative stories about politics and politicians, which leaves the

public feeling distaste and distrust as a default position. Both of these approaches to

the mediation of politics, it should be understood, are constructed forms of telling a

story: the first addressed to an audience that is already in the know; the second to an

audience trained to expect the worst. As Schudson (1995) has observed,

News is not fictional, but it is conventional. Conventions help make . . . culturally con-sonant messages readable and culturally dissonant messages unsayable. Their function

is less to increase or decrease the truth value of the messages they convey than to shape

and narrow the range of what kinds of truths can be told. They reinforce certain

assumptions about the political world. (55)



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These modes of constructing the political narrative shape the way that citizens

arrive at subjective orientations towards politicians and the political environment.

Lacking direct, experiential contact with politicians, citizens turn to the media toprovide them with sense-making representations of the political realm. Indeed, the

less opportunity people have to form assumptions through first-hand experience, the

more likely they are to be influenced by media images (Gerbner and Gross 1976).

The better informed minority of the population, who are most likely to come into

direct contact with formal politics, are provided for by broadsheet newspapers and

serious current affairs programs, which address them as insiders who are expected

to have a rational-cognitive orientation towards politics, a capacity to make historical

connections as the political narrative unfolds, and a willingness to think beyond the

personal, local, and immediate. In contrast, the majority of citizens depends onpopular/populist journalism for their civic knowledge and are recipients of a political

narrative which is affective, episodic, and oriented towards matters of personal and

local relevance.

As most people learn about social reality through prime-time television

(Holbrook and Hill 2005), any social group wishing to be understood and liked has

an interest in cultivating a benign mediated identity for itself. Although the media

does not tell people what to think (as rather simplistic media effects theorists once

thought), they do tell them what to think about (Cohen 1963). That is to say, the

media contribute to the creation of a public mood towards particular individuals,issues, and themes, which leads to them being thought about in terms of respect,

derision, or suspicion.

Images are neither produced nor received in a simple fashion, but, as Kellner

(1995) has noted, comprise contested terrain in which different groups inflect their

meanings in different ways (151). Since the 1970s, monitoring and managing nega-

tive media stereotypes has become central to reflexive projects of identity formation.

For example, a significant scholarly literature has examined media depictions of

black people (Downing and Husband 2005; Entman 1992; Giroux 1996), youth

(Frazer 1987; Best and Kellner 1998; Miles 2000), older people (Healey and Ross2002; Robinson and SKill 1995), gays (Battles and Hilton-Morrow 2002), the poor

(Clawson and Trice 2000), the physically disabled (Cumberbatch and Negrine 1992;

Ross 2001), and the mentally disabled (Hallam 2002; Philo 1993). Other studies

have explored media stereotypes of police (Chong and Arrigo 2006), nurses (Bridges

1990) lawyers (Pfau 1995), accountants (Friedman and Lyne 2001), psychiatrists

(Clara 1995; Gabbard and Gabbard 1999), sport stars (Whannel 2002), and foot-

ballers wives (Clayton and Harris 2004). All of these studies suggest that the repre-

sentation of groups by the media, both in news reports and fictional depictions, has

major consequences for the way in which they are perceived by people in the realworld. Indeed, for many people, the mediated image is as close as they are likely to

get to knowing what a certain group of people is like; the representation constitutes

their reality.

Coleman / Politicians and Politics in British Soaps 199



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Media images of politicians are rather more complicated, as there are two con-

flicting interests at stake. Politicians pay a great deal of attention to the cultivation

of theirpersonal media images and employ a range of techniques to ensure that theirpolitical competitors are seen in the worst light: as incompetent, inactive, and

untrustworthy. This political image war of each against all results in a tragedy of the

commons in which the rhetoric of negative campaigning serves to undermine the

reputation of politicians as a groupan impression that is energetically reinforced

by journalists. In short, the instrumental strategies adopted by individual politicians

serve to corrode their collective image as a profession.

Politicians, as a group, are regularly depicted in the media, but mainly in news

and current affairs coverage, which attracts a diminishing proportion of the UK

media audience. Politicians are commonly ignored in mass-media entertainment.When they are depicted, they tend to be shown as comically duplicitous (Yes Minister,

In the Thick Of It), unprincipled, or corrupt (GBH, Our Friends in the North, House

of Cards), or thinly-disguised impersonations of real-world political figures (The

Deal, A Very Social Secretary.) In most of these representations, politicians are encoun-

tered as one-dimensional figures whose lives revolve around specialized institutional

settings that are walled off from the familiar rhythms and roles of everyday life.

Television dramas about a family in which the mother or father happens to be a

councilor or MP are not only unknown, but hard to imagine ever being produced. It

is as if politics is something rather eccentric and embarrassing, which is best notmentioned without a health warning: What you are about to see ispolitical and best

viewed with a broadsheet newspaper close to hand. This expurgation of the political

from the medias dramatic accounts of everyday reality raises intriguing questions for

research. Why are politicians and political issues so rarely depicted at the most pivotal

intersection between popular culture and media-constructed reality, the soap opera?

What happens when they are depicted? How might a mature democracy integrate

recognition of politics into its most popular dramatic genre?

Some evidence from the survey conducted for this research will help to clarify the

extent to which politicians are absent from the everyday world as depicted by soaps.A total of 59 percent of the nationally-representative sample described themselves as

regular soap viewers. When asked to recall whether they had seen a politician, a

criminal, a publican, or a businessman in their favorite soap within the past six

months, most (53 percent) recalled seeing a publican, more than four out of ten (43

percent) recalled seeing a criminal or a businessman, but fewer than two out of ten

recalled seeing a politician. In short, soap viewers were more than twice as likely to

be exposed to criminals than politicians. Crime has long been a staple feature of

British television, with about 25 percent of the most popular television shows being

police or crime series (Reiner 1997). According to Reimer, depictions of criminalson television drama are unrepresentative of typical criminals and distort the nature

of most commonly committed crimes (Reiner 1997). The point here is not to argue

that fewer or different types of criminals should be portrayed in soap operas, or that




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more politicians should be, but that dramatized reality is, in this case, and most

others, a cultural illusion; a constructed parody, rather than a mimetic reflection, of

the real world. It is to the construction of the soap illusion and the exclusion of pol-itics that we now turn.

II. Soaps and the Shadow of Politics

It is easy to be deceived by the apparent banality of soap opera. Unlike politics,

with its rich and lofty symbolism of unnerving potency, soaps seem to be little more

than lowly and ephemeral simulations of the relentlessly ordinary. But, as Raymond

Williams (1989) well reminded us, culture is ordinary; that it is within the sphere ofthe mundane that social relationships are represented, contested, and given meaning.

From their origin in the 1930s as daily distraction for housebound American radio

listeners, twenty-first century soaps have become stages upon which the aspirations,

fears, prejudices, and routines of contemporary society are rehearsed. Governments

have come to recognize this, and soaps are seen as potential spaces in which they can

reach the consciousness of ordinary people. According to The Sunday Times, soaps

have . . . been accused of tailoring storylines to raise the profile of government

campaigns.EastEnders, for instance, ran a storyline on domestic violence at the same

time as a government campaign to raise awareness. Coronation Street, meanwhile, rana story to promote volunteer workers during the governments Year of the Volunteer

(The Sunday Times 2006).

On the face of it, politics and soap opera occupy antithetical positions on the

cultural spectrum. The idea that one can support the otherbe it the young Tony

Blair supporting the campaign to release the incarcerated Deirdre Barlow or the

Governments Women and Work Commission calling for more tough and ambitious

female characters in Coronation Street(Mail on Sunday 2006)seems to some like

cynical populism. Upon consideration, however, politics and soaps have much in

common. First, both are experienced through mediation rather than direct experi-ence. The soap audience and the political public see what is shown to them. Both

soaps and (democratic) politics become significant and acquire meaning through

their interactions with a public that is prepared to trust the authenticity of their per-

formances. Much as the public depends upon the media for what it can see of these

dramas, the soap producers and politicians are just as dependent on the public to

identify with their claims to speakforthem, in the case of politics, and as them, in

the case of soaps.

Second, soaps and politics share the characteristic of always being there, but only

sometimes witnessed. Both depend upon impressions of permanence: we are led tobelieve that the usual characters are drinking in the Rovers Return or Queen Vic,

even on those nights when the cameras do not record their presence; we assume that

MPs are sitting in the House of Commons or in rarely-televised select committees,




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even when they are not deemed important enough to be shown on the nightly news

bulletin. Permanence suggests stability, but more importantly, it confers upon these

ongoing dramas a sense of history: a confidence that present events emanate from anexperientially registered past and will lead to future events in which people will look

back knowingly upon our current shared reality. Political junkies and soap fans have

in common an understanding of these historical narratives and a powerful sense of

change as being a drama characterized by continuity and unpredictability.

Third, both soaps and politics give personality to otherwise abstract relationships.

Soaps represent the macro-social complexities of family and community life as an

accessible, micro-social story; politicians attempt to personify the aggregated values

and interests of thousands of electors. Both soap producers and politicians seek to

disclose the world to its lay inhabitants, employing techniques of empathy, metaphor,and rhetoric.

Despite these aspects of common purpose, soap producers remain inclined to

regard politics as a danger zone. Politics hangs over soap reality like a haunting

specter, which can be neither exorcised nor acknowledged. In a series of interviews

with soap producers and scriptwriters, they expressed deep anxieties about the impli-

cations of trying to mix soaps and politics.

The first area of unease relates to an assumed tension between dramatic and

didactic forms of communication:

Whether its a health issue or a social issue or anything, we can never put the issue first. We

want . . . it to be borne of the character, so it has to come out of the characters interests and

beliefs. (Steve Frost, Coronation Street)

Im very comfortable with drama which, through character, deals with issues. Im

very uncomfortable with drama which rolls its characters around the issue in order to

deal with an issue. Its as simple as that . . . The big principle of radio drama and, I

imagine, any other drama is that you start with character and so you dont start with

issue. (Vanessa Whitburn, The Archers)

On the surface, this concern to protect dramatic integrity from political interferenceseems eminently reasonable; the awful prospect of plots devised by civil servants and

dialogue penned by spin doctors would most likely produce drama that was bland,

disingenuous, and deeply unpopular. It would be a mistake, however, to accept too

simplistic a contrast between the ideological strategies of political communication

and the signifying conventions of dramatic realism. Both are engaged in the work of

representation, seeking to convince the public of the plausibility of particular models

of social reality. Soap narratives are not, after all, what Harris has called unsponsored

texts (Harris 1989); when the public finds them credible, they are signing up to a

particular set of claims, emphases, evasions, and approximations rather than amimetic image of the real world. Conversely, when a soap is rejected by the public

as being unbelievable, as was the fate of ITVs Crossroads and the BBCsEl Dorado,

this can be compared with a political party losing its deposit in an election. They

have failed to convince the public of their representative claims.




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A second anxiety expressed by soap producers was that acknowledging politics

might damage their reputations as impartial broadcasters. The Archers, Britains

longest-running soap, which was first broadcast in the 1950s, was conceived originallyas a vehicle for the Ministry of Agriculture to pass on public information to farmers.

Its current editor was eager to explain that

We no longer do the scene where Phil Archer sits on a park bench and says, Ive just

had a manual, Ill read you a bit or words to that effect and that did happen in the 50s.

(Vanessa Whitburn, The Archers)

Early episodes ofThe Archers were indeed unapologetically didactic, as can be

seen in the following excerpt from an episode of December, 8, 1965, when Dan and

Phil Archer attended the Smithfield Show:

DAN: My word, Phil, theres some folks here at Smithfieldyoud wonder if there was

anybody at home to do the farming.

PHIL: Theres so much to seeone days hardly enough.

DAN: (OFF MIKE) Hey, look at this sheep rearing equipment, Phil.

PHIL: Times have changed, compare this lot with the hand operated shearer I sweated my

guts out with thirty years agowhen I was hardly tall enough to reach the blinking thing.

DAN: Funny thing, this equipments made by the very firm that made the one youre

talking about.PHIL: I must say, theyve moved with the times.

They get into conversation with the man at the sheep-shearing equipment stand:

DAN: I was just telling my son here, I bought my first hand-operated shearing machine

from you.

SWIFT: Well, thats not surprising, weve been showing at the Smithfield since it first

started. Its a great show yknowand it does a great job.

PHIL: You mean as shopwindow for the agricultural industry?

SWIFT: Yesits not just a local shopwindow eitherthe world comes to Smithfield,

we shall get . . . overseas visitors at least to this show.

DAN: Which means a boost for the export drive, eh?

SWIFT: It certainly helps a great deal. When you think that in 1948 when the show

started here, we were exporting fifty million pounds worth of agricultural products

and now the figures one hundred and sixty-four millionit makes you think.

PHIL: Must put us farmers high up on the export list then.

SWIFT: Fifth largest exporting industry weve gotmind you, without a busy and

expanding home market we couldnt export as we doso every farmer whos fill-

ing this show today helpsbut Im sorryIm getting on to my hobby-horse . . .

Producers expressed worries that their duty to remain politically impartial could

lead to formulaic scenes in which the need to give voice to all sides of every argu-

ment would undermine dramatic realism.




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. . . it would be impossible for the show to create one politicianwhich political party

would we choose to represent? . . . Our commitment to impartiality would make it

unworkable to reflect all voices in British politics withinEastEnders and to also ensure

each of the many political characters was viewed by the public in the same lightthat

is, we couldnt make a Green councillor a likeable, fun character yet portray a Labour

MP or councillor as a rogue! (Claire Powell,EastEnders)

That the representation within soaps of pluralistic public opinion is not always

impossible can be seen in the BBCs Welsh-language soap, Pobol y Cwm, which has

attempted to address the problem of balance by having characters express a variety

of political views.

The series has a wide cross section of characters, including one who has a particular polit-ical view, which is broadly nationalist. The counterpoint to his arguments is always given

via other characters . . . We have also featured local elections, but our mainand winning

candidateshave always had to be independents. (Bethan Jones, Pobol y Cwm)

But, according to the producer ofCoronation Street, allowing any characters to

express political views risks alienating audience members who do not share them.

Were trying to make a show that appeals to a mass marketto as many people as possible

and immediately we start espousing certain opinions of kind of political values, werealienating, or at least kind of putting off, a certain percentage of the viewers. So we shy

away from it for that reason mainly. (Steve Frost, Coronation Street)

The producers accept that being lobbied by government bodies and NGOs, urg-

ing them to weave particular issues into their plots, is part and parcel of their jobs.

But they remain cautious about the risk of being hijacked by either government or

pressure groups.

What they [the Department of Agriculture] would need to understand is that they are

one of many and that we will look at it like we look at anything else and that it may or

may not come out the other side. . . . Im never interested in just getting the word out.

Im not interested in messages. (Vanessa Whitburn, The Archers)

Also, soap producers face a temporal conundrum: soap reality is pre-written and

pre-recorded, whereas political reality evolves rapidly and unpredictably.

Topicality generally is difficult because, even though were only six to four weeks

ahead in shooting terms, were scripting two months ahead and storylining four months

ahead. We did have some brief scenes about the smoking ban in public places, whichwe got wrong and then had to very hastily reshoot some stuff because we were assum-

ing, as most people were, that thered be an option on keeping smoking in pubs where

food wasnt served, and that was the kind of line we were taking with Fred Elliott in




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the pub. Of course, that didnt go through and suddenly we had to change everything

at the last minute and reshoot some scenes that had already been shot, as we were

immediately out-of-date. So its a real problem with any sort of topicality. (Steve Frost,

Coronation Street)

It is much easier for radio soaps, which involve less pre-production, to be topical.

AnArchers scriptwriter explained how quickly topical events can be reflected.

Its always made a point of being a topical series. I think being able to do so lends

authority to our fictional stories. In the case of major political eventsparticularly if

they involve countryside issuesoccasionally scenes are recorded the same day and

inserted into the broadcast. (Simon Frith, The Archers)

The producer of the BBC Asian Networks daily soap, Silver Street, regards top-

icality as an essential ingredient of the urban reality he aims to depict.

We wanted to be topical . . . We have been able to do that. That was one of the things

that we wanted to do differently and we certainly covered the London bombings and

I dont just mean mention themthe script was majorly rewritten in order to cover that.

The tsunami as well was something that we reflected with a topical insert. That was

done very quickly . . . I think it would have been hard for our programme to carry on

with any credibility last year if we hadnt covered, first of all, the Tsunami because itwas bound to affect some of characters or they would fear about loved ones or what-

ever it might be and then, you know, if we hadnt mentioned in any way the London

bombings, I think wed have lost credibility. (James Peries, Silver Street)

Despite the producers reservations about the dramatically disruptive influence of

politics, most of them accepted the inevitability of reflecting politics in some fashion,

usually at the margins where it can do least damage to dramatic integrity:

It creeps in very much around the edges now and again, but is unlikely to be ever a big

subject. (Steve Frost, Coronation Street)

For the editor ofThe Archers, the key priority is to reflect issues that people are

talking about rather than follow politicians agendas:

GM crops became heatedly debated in Parliament. We did a story about it, I would say, a

year before it appeared in Parliament. And it was great fun and we did give every point

of view. Now, they werent party political point of views but they were political. And we

were quite happy with that and we thoroughly enjoyed it and we gave it a good airing. I

love it when The Archers is debating and can prove that its debating fairly somethingthats in thezeitgeist, which is of political interest. (Vanessa Whitburn, The Archers)

For the chief editorial adviser toEastEnders, the avoidance of politics is justified

as a response to public demand:




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Our viewers complain vociferously if they feel a political agenda is being forced upon

them. (Claire Powell,EastEnders)

III. Research Questions and Methods

To understand how politics is represented in British radio and television soaps, a

research team was assembled to monitor Coronation Street, EastEnders, Hollyoaks,

and The Archers over a sixteen-week period between January 1 and April 21, 2006.

These were selected because Coronation Street and EastEnders are regularly

amongst the most watched programs on British television, with audiences of over 9

million, reaching over 40 percent of homes on four nights each week;Hollyoaks isspecifically made for the 1624 age group, who are the least likely to be engaged

with formal politics; and The Archers, with a weekly audience of 4.8 million, is

Britains longest-running soap opera, having been broadcast continuously for over

half a century.

The empirical question of how often and in what ways these four soaps refer to

politics prompted at the outset the theoretical question of how to define the political

in the context of soap opera representations. Three dimensions of the political were

identified, which served as a useful typology for the empirical research. First, there

was the depiction of the political process, including the role of politicians and thenature of political structures and events, such as election campaigns, MPs surgeries,

and council meetings. These were classified as Process Politics. Second, references

to issues from the real-world political agenda, ranging from the Iraq war to geneti-

cally modified (GM) crops, were classified as Issue Politics. Third, and most tan-

gentially from the perspective of traditional politics, were storylines relating to

interpersonal power relationships, often taking place within the private sphere. These

were classified at Everyday Politics.

The decision to adopt a three-dimensional conception of the political reflects a

growing rejection by democratic theorists of the institutional focus of traditionalpolitical science (Bang and Sorensen 2000; Young 2000). It makes no more sense

to assume that politics is only projected via institutions such as legislatures and par-

ties than to imagine that economics can only be observed by looking at banks or tax

offices, or that the workings of the law can only be witnessed in police stations or

courtrooms. Rather than seeing politics as a story exclusively about politicians and

their rather exclusive environments, the definition adopted for this study acknowl-

edges the pluralistic and protean forms in which people behave politically, ranging

from collective action about issues of public concern to the micro-relationships in

which power is contested and negotiated within families and workplaces, amongstfriends and strangers, on a daily basis. This expansive conception of the political is

not intended to imply that all human behavior is political, but that power is a

socially ubiquitous rather than institutionally circumscribed phenomenon, which

seeps into almost all aspects of human interaction.




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IV. Staging the Political Process

Elections are central democratic moments. Real-world elections tend to come andgo without acknowledgement from soap characters. What happens to their realities

during these periods? Do they watch the campaign news on television or talk about it

in the pub? Are they victims of a social taboo, which allows anything to be discussed

in public except for politics? When Tony Blair visited the Rovers Return in February

2005, did its regulars know who he was? As the producer ofCoronation Streetpondered,

You think, well, actually, if theyre watching the news at 7, what do they watch at 7.30

when everyone else is watching Coronation Street? What do our characters actually

watch on TV? So . . . we dont really get involved in that kind of really genuine topi-cality just because it starts to create too many logistical . . . and philosophical problems

about where exactly this kind of fictional world crosses with the real world.

Just occasionally, however, political events from the real world find their way into

soaps. During the period of this research, a parish council election campaign took

place in Ambridge, the fictional village in which The Archers is set. This provided a

valuable opportunity to see what political democracy looks like when it coincides

with soap opera.

In the first episode of 2006, listeners witnessed Ambridge busybody, Lynda Snell,

campaigning for a council seat. The people she meets are not keen to discuss parish

politics with her. Usha is irritated by being woken by Lynda on New Years Day,

while a hung-over Alistair is in no mood to listen to her policies about traffic calming

in the village. Undeterred, she visits the caravan to try and secure Emma and Susans

votes, but both make it clear that they have more important worries on their minds

than local politics. We are presented at the outset of the campaign by an indifferent

electorate and a somewhat over-zealous and insensitive political campaigner.

In the days running up to the election on January 12, the campaign is dominated

by the comedic rivalry between two candidates, Lynda Snell and Lilian Bellamy.

Lynda accuses Lilian of copying her campaign literature and stealing her policies.

Lilian wins most votes in the election, but, after a recount, both candidates are

elected. When a photo of Lynda and Lilian appears on the front page of the local

newspaper, a customer in the post office remarks, It must be a very slow news week

if the parish council elections make the front page . . . The suggestion is that none

of this matters very much, except to the rather self-obsessed politicians.

A verbal report of the first meeting of the parish council, from David Archer,

another newly-elected councilor, conjures an image of long-winded, backbiting

politicians.

Tom: So Lyndas maiden speech went on a bit, did it?

David: Just a bit! Im starting to regret suggesting she force a by-election.

Tom: I bet. Especially since it landed you with Aunty Lilian too.




13/24

David: Well, yeah, that was one good thing, at least she wasnt there.

Tom: She bunking off already?

David: Shes on holidaya fact that Lynda took great pleasure in pointing out.

Tom: I can imagine.

David: She said that she took her commitment to the village very seriously, unlike some new

councillors who seem to have decided to celebrate winning the election by going abroad.

Tom: Well, that wasnt very fair.

On 7 March The Archers gave its listeners a rare glimpse of the parish council in

session. Chaired by David Archer, the meeting soon turns into a comedy skirmish

between Lynda and Lilian, each seeking to prick the pomposity and upset the meddling

of the other. Messages to The Archers website following this episode suggested that

not all listeners were happy with this as a realistic depiction of local democracy:

In a meeting ofVicar of Dibley absurdity, we had Lilian and Lynda bickering, and then

Davids pathetic so called chairing of the whole proceedings. Where was the clerk in

all this? Why didnt David declare an interest and leave the room when the evidence

came to light? In villages Parish Councils are important legal institutions, but judging

from tonights hilarity you wouldnt think so. Where has the careful research gone?

Why are so many of us so furious about the sheer ineptitude of so much at the moment?

But it isnt village life! The parish council I am on works hard to do things for the

community, and more importantly, conducts itself properly. What I was trying to say,not very well I admit, is that at the moment so much of what is going on is so badly

researched and implausible.

Parish Councils do a lot of hard work and are often derided for their efforts.

Portraying the Ambridge Council as a family gathering at which people try to score

points off one another is not what local government is all about.

When recorded excerpts from these episodes ofThe Archers were played to two

groups of people between 20 and 60 years of agethe first based in Leeds, comprising

people who regularly watched or listened to at least one soap; the second, based inOxford, comprising people who claimed not to be regular soap viewers or listeners

three principal reactions were expressed. First, group members regarded the publics

indifference to the parish council election as realistic. I think its how it would be

most folk couldnt care less about local elections and all that was expressed by one

group member. Second, most group members thought that Lynda and Lillian were

typically vain and insensitive politicians. One group member, who regularly listens

to The Archers, stated that Theyve shown political activists for what they are

interfering know-alls. Most group members had never seen a parish council in

action and were pleased that The Archers included the scene on March 7. But whenasked what impression of local democracy this scene left them with, they used terms

like disorganized and farcical. One non-soap viewer suggested that the depiction

should be regarded as comedy rather than realism, but this was not picked up by

others. Third, when asked whether more soaps should refer to similar aspects of




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political life, most group members were in favor, but would not want such scenes to

distract from the main storylines.

What are we to make of these reactions? While The Archers probably reinforcedrather than shaped public views of local politics, it certainly did not challenge them.

Given that soaps have historically played a role in challenging stereotypical images

of particular groups, it seems a pity that this brief excursion into local politics

appeared to be playing to the prejudices of an already disenchanted audience. The

editor ofThe Archers argued (as discussed later in this paper) that the presence of

David Archer as a third member of the parish council helped to show that sensible,

civic-minded people can also participate in local politics. The extent to which this

message stood any chance of successfully challenging the Punch and Judy version

of local politics which dominated this storyline must remain a matter for doubt.

V. Dealing with Political Issues

Most people do not engage very much with the formal political process, but they

do from time to time discuss political issues, especially when the issues concern

them directly. Such issues are not always acknowledged explicitly as being political,

but still they lead to typically political behavior: conflicts of values; the expression

of views; the search for evidence to support particular positions; and attempts todiscuss and resolve disagreements. Sometimes drama can play an important role in

articulating and opening up space for the public to think about complex social issues.

Most famously, South American telenovelas have contributed to the democratization

of Brazilian culture and politics by presenting a plurality of perspectives and actors

that tend to be absent from or marginalized by TV news (Hamburger 2000; La

Pastina 2004; Porto 2005; Straubhaar 1982; Tufte 2000).

The episode ofSilver Streeton September 14, 2005 included a scene set in a local

community center. The local MP (who is a regular character), an imran, a police officer,

and several Asian youths meet to discuss the effects of the recent London terrorist attackupon community relations. The scene raises an interesting question about how well soaps

can translate major national (and even global) issues into the context and vernacular of

the local. Bearing in mind the producer ofSilver Streets comment that it would have

been hard for our programme to carry on with any credibility last year if we hadnt . . .

mentioned in any way the London bombings. the question raised by this scene is the

extent to which it merely replicated a national political debate within a local forum or

added to the debate by embedding it within the experiences of known characters.

The Leeds and Oxford groups were provided with copies of the script for this

scene. (A recording was not available.) Asked whether they thought that discussionson themes of this kind belonged in soaps, the response from both groups was unan-

imously positive. One regular soap viewer said that, They seemed to be treating

their audience like adults who can make up their own minds. Another commented

that, Its really important to show people holding different views but not coming to




15/24

blows about it. The one qualification to the general approval for this scene, expressed

in both groups, was a sense that perspectives were represented didactically, giving

more weight to formal arguments than to the subjective dispositions of roundedcharacters. As one group member put it,

Youve got your politician, your cop, your Asian youth . . . all very right on, all very PC . . .

it was a bit like something on a magazine programme. (Non-soap viewer, Oxford group)

VI. Making the Political Personal

Soaps personalize power. Their drama revolves around the mundane challengesand modest victories experienced by characters as they seek to make sense of,

accommodate themselves to, and resist situations that they cannot control. Inverting the

feminist maxim that the personal is political, in soaps the political is always personal;

social power is experienced biographically rather than historically. In the spirit of

kitchen-sink drama, which had a defining influence on early British television soaps,

the social is illuminated from the perspective of the private sphere. But at what cost

to audience understanding of how political power actually works? To what extent

does this prism of individual experience distort the reality of politics?

In April 2006Hollyoaks included a story about a protest against employment dis-crimination. Jessica and Olivia, both students, work part-time as waitresses in a

restaurant owned by Tony Hutchinson. Jessica had to take time off work because she

had viral meningitis. On her return to work, Tony sacks her because he thinks that she

might still be contagious. Olivia stands up for her friend and is promptly sacked by

Tony, as well. Jessica and Olivia decide to hold a protest against their unfair dismissal.

By any standards, this is a modest and parochial power conflict. It is hardly Germinal.

Nonetheless, it raises interesting questions about how a soap which is targeted at

1624 year-olds represents a power conflict between an employer and his employees.

The idea of politics was invoked in Hollyoaks by the use of exotic language,usually identified with events occupying a different kind of stage. The self-conscious

allusions to the political produce a coded effect of characters acting a part; rather like

children dressing up for a mock battle that will only ever involve the firing of

peashooters. A comedic tone serves to distance them from the sharpness of a real

conflict of interests, just as the daft goings-on in The Archers parish council meeting

served to undermine its significance as democratic representation. Note the use of

the italicized terms in the Hollyoaks episode of April 7; these signal a turn to the

political as both necessity and burlesque.

Jessica: [To Olivia] Apicket?

Olivia: You know what apicketis dont you? The last resort of the working man, huh,

woman, to withhold their labour.

Jessica: What? Weve been sacked Tony doesnt want our labour.




16/24

Olivia: The principles the same. Were going to go back to the flat and make some

banners.

Jessica: Out of what?

Olivia: I dont knowsome bed sheets or something.

Jessica: What, just the two of us?

[Nicole walks by]

Olivia: Maybe not. [Stops Nicole] Hey, are you a student?

Nicole: Er, Im in the sixth form. Why?

Olivia: Ever been on a demonstration?

Nicole: Er, no, I cant say that I have.

Jessica: Well nows your chance.

Nicole: Im really sorry Im just a bit busy.

Jessica: Er, kids today!Nicole: But, if youve got apetition or something then I dont mind signing it.

Olivia: A petition, now theres a good idea. [Gets a pad and pen out for Nicole to sign]

You can be our first signature.

Nicole: [signing] Whats this for? Is it some college thing or something?

Jessica: Were asking people to boycottIl Gnosh.

Nicole: Il Gnosh! [Looks concerned]

Jessica: Well. Tony sacked us with no good reason.

Nicole: Yeah, I heard about that. Um . . . listen, about this signature . . .

Olivia: You are going to support us arent you?

Nicole: Yeah, course I am.Olivia: Thanks.

Jessica: Stick it to the bosses!

This is a portrait of political activism being invented from scratch. Jessica has to

explain to Olivia what a picket is; their efforts at banner-making are so unprofessional

that they plan to tear up their bed sheets; Nicole, who is too busy to demonstrate,

agrees to sign their petition before she even knows what it says. Viewers are left with

the impression that politics must be re-invented for each new local injustice.

The protest culminates in a naked sit-in in which Jessica and Olivia strip off todeter customers from entering Il Gnosh. Predictably, their gesture attracts more

customers and leaves the girls embarrassed, demoralized, and finally arrested for

exposing themselves in a public place. The implication of this eccentric protest is

that injustice can only be fought by personal ingenuity and that the girls possess

nothing but their own bodies as resources of communication. There is no reference to

unions, courts, or elected representatives. For its audience, it is an amusing story, but one

which diminishes the scope for effective action in the face of workplace injustice.

The employer, Tony, is given a number of lines which disparage the efforts of the

two girls:

Well lets face it youre a couple of dead beat students, nobodys interested in what you

do or say.




17/24

I sacked them because they werent doing their jobs properly. Theyre a couple of

lazy, barf-brain students.

Im not going to give in to a couple of whining layabouts.

Its me that should be sorry. Sorry for that pitiful protest attempt you made yesterday.

I mean forget Paris 1968, forget Tiananmen Square, bring on the Hollyoaks two!

Of course, such comments may well reflect the integrity of Tonys character, but the

absence of any credible response from Jessica and Olivia leaves a strong impression

that even when they are unfairly victimized, activists are not to be taken seriously.

Most members of the Leeds and Oxford groups found these scenes implausible.

As one put it, Its more sit-com than soap. The naked sit-in was seen by some as

conveying an unfortunate message that caricatured young female students as people

who could only make a point by exposing their bodies. A couple of the regular soap

viewers found the story hard to follow and several of the references obscure. One

group member referred to earlier storylines inBrookside (a Channel 4 soap that is no

longer produced) and commented that Its not like trade unions are outlawed. Why

couldnt the producers have shown us that there are ways of getting things put right

without the two girls having to humiliate themselves?

VII. Producing Politicians

Much has been written about politicians as performers. Edelman (1967) has

shown how politicians employ symbolic and dramaturgical strategies to win the

affective support of the public. Van Zoonen (2005) has traced the way in which soap

metaphors provide narratives and perspectives to express and make sense of politics.

Perhaps politicians have always been in the business of constructing their own images

and projecting their relationships with one another within narratives curiously rem-

iniscent of soap opera, but in the early twenty-first century there is a sense in which

these tendencies have come to define the ways in which politicians are seen. In

Britain, the Tony (Blair) and Gordon (Brown) story has all the hallmarks of an ongo-

ing soap plot. Inside reports from the Clinton and Bush White House rival anything that

has come out of the fictional West Wing. Political journalists, once the monarchs of

lofty journalism, have now become sketch writers and compete to produce daily

anecdotes that shape affective impressions rather than cognitive knowledge. It is

little wonder that most people see politicians as actors.

But what happens when soap actors play politicians? How does one play the part

of someone who is playing a part? How do soaps depict characters that seem to be

part of a soap opera? The plausibility of most soap characters derives from their not

appearing to be actors and their impression of being real people rather than soap-created

caricatures. What happens, though, when the real is deemed to be phony?

As part of the survey conducted for this research, respondents were asked to

describe how they would expect the character of an elected politician (such as an MP




18/24

or councilor) to be portrayed were they to appear in their favorite soap. Of the 1,317

regular soap viewers/listeners in the sample, 650 submitted responses that could be

analyzed.2 Of these, 510 were clearly negative images, and 140 were positive.

Of the 78 percent of negative responses, over half described the soap politician as

a dishonest character, thirty-nine as a criminal or crook; thirty-six as sleazy,eighteen as a con-man, fourteen as slimy, and ten as shady. More than one in ten

respondents (13%) described the politician as an arrogant character, with thirty-three

using the termspompous and sixteen stuck up. As a map of the contemporary public

imagination, these are worrying findings for political democracy. If teachers, nurses,

or soap producers had similar images, they would be doing their utmost to repair them.

But the strategy of repair, which entails depicting politicians as well-rounded char-

acters within popular soaps, would, according to these findings, be likely to meet with

deep public skepticism from the outset.

Talking to the soap producers about this problem was revealing. When the editorofThe Archers was asked how Lynda Snell came to be selected as the dramatic

representation of a local politician, she explained that


Figure 1

Negative Categories in Percent of Total 510 Responses

16.08%

3.53%

4.31%

8.24%

54.12%

13.73%

Other

Unpleasant

Stupid

Pompous

Dishonest

Arrogant



19/24

Shes got a characteristic which is manifested in all kinds of leaders, whether it be

public life or your local amateur dramatic director . . . You know, that one has a certain

style, which some people interpret as caring more about themselves than what theyre

doing. And we get humour out of that. But I like to think that were sophisticated

enough show that shes an interesting, three-dimensional character who does have that,

if you like, slight flaw, which creates humour, but who we also know gets things done.

(Vanessa Whitburn, The Archers)

So, although Lynda is regarded as being potentially effective as a local politician,

her general character traits conform to the publics image of someone who cares

more about herself than what she is elected to do. Most local politicians would resent

that image of themselves. They would see themselves as good communicators who

are motivated by civic rather than self-aggrandizing motives. The editor of TheArchers was eager to point out that a third character in the parish election, David

Archer, was not like Lynda or Lillian. He is represented as a man of reason, rather

out of his comfort zone in the in-fighting world of parish politics. According to the

editor, the decision to give him this role was a conscious one:

David took a long time to agree to go on the parish council because he had the attitude

that he didnt have the time. He was too young and too busy. And we pulled him around

slowly . . . to the point of view that maybe he could do this and that he would enjoy it

. . . We were quite happy as we got into the story that we were saying, get involved inyour community and get something done. Very happy about that . . . And youll have

noticed hes an Independent, hes not, I mean, you know, you dont get parties . . . we

are very careful. . . . (Vanessa Whitburn, The Archers)

In a similar vein, the producer ofCoronation Street, speaking about the character

of Audrey Roberts, who is a Wetherfield councilor, pointed out that

Audrey would be a reasonable kind of role model. Shes fairly level-headed and a

sensible kind of woman. But inEmerdale, the local councillor there was Eric Pollard,

who was obviously a wheeler-dealer kind of low-life who ended up as Mayor. And our

take on politics was that it was all rather crooked and run by the likes of Eric Pollard,

who did everything for backhanders and favour. (Steve Frost, Coronation Streetand

former producer ofEmmerdale)

Again, the producer ofEastEnders envisaged the appearance of two types of

potential political character:

Ian Beale stood as Independent in a local council by-election in 1997 on a platform of

improving rubbish collection . . . The story ran for about three weeks. . . . If Ian Beale,now an even more pompous local businessman set himself up as a politician it would

be to aggrandise himself and to put himself in a position of power over his fellow locals

and we might well have a bit of fun at his expense. However, I could equally imagine




20/24

someone fighting for cause that the audience might well feel sympathetic about, say if

Little Mo had campaigned for a Womens Refuge for example after the domestic vio-

lence story of a few years ago.

In all these cases, producers minds turned, almost as a reflex, to a dichotomous

political image: the self-serving object of ridicule or contempt (Snell, Pollard, and

Beale) and the decent voice of the ordinary person (David, Audrey, and Mo.) This

split-image reflects broader public anxieties about the nature of political representa-

tion. On the one hand, there is a widespread perception of the representative process as

skewed or distorted by the failure of political elites to communicate with, understand,

or respect ordinary people. All of the survey and anecdotal evidence points to a popular

belief that political representatives have lost confidence in the public. Brechts wry

proposal that perhaps the government should dissolve the people and elect a new one

seems appropriate in describing the current disconnection between politicians and

the represented. This mood is captured by portraying politicians as people whose

self-belief overwhelms their capacity to listen, learn, or change their minds. On the

other hand, there persists a normative model of representation which sees the ideal

politician as a true voice of the people. Like David Archer or Little Mo, such represen-

tatives are thrown into power by circumstances not of their own making or choosing.

Like Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, democratic

representatives are seen as being most astute and effective when they are outsiders,

bewildered by a system that seems designed to frustrate their pragmatic, but eminently

sensible and selfless demands. In the rare glimpses of politicians in British soaps,

both of these images can be found, although the former is stronger and closer to the

dominant perception of the audience.

To what extent do these two dramatic characterizations describe local and national

politicians as we witness them in real life? Without seeking to judge politicians

virtues and vices and the extent to which they are justly represented in soaps, it is

not difficult to identify three ways in which soaps fail to represent politicians as they

really are. First, the overwhelming majority of elected politicians in Britain are

members of political parties. Britain has party-dominated elections and, beyond the

most local level, party-dominated governments. Although parties are the principal

connecting channel between the public and the state, they do not feature at all in

British soaps. As long as parties remain off limits and soap politicians are only ever

presented as independents, they will offer an eccentric representation of real-world

politicians. Secondly, most elected representatives come from a relatively narrow

social stratum, more so now than at any previous time in democratic history. They

tend to be university-educated, professional, and experienced in public affairs. British

soaps have not been successful at producing strong middle-class characters that

might have followed the kind of career path that tends to lead to elected office. Third,

political personae are increasingly mediated constructions (Corner 2003). For soaps

to represent via the mass media characters whose aim in life is to be represented to




21/24

the public via the mass media is not easy. Thus far, it is a challenge that has been taken

up by comedy writers. (The political realism ofIn the Thick Of Itsometimes seems

closer to fly-on-the wall documentary than satire.) Soaps are characterized by whatPierre Macherey (1978) has called structuring absences, which make it legitimate

to ask of every production what it tacitly implies but also what it does not say. In

the case of British soap opera, while politicians are not entirely absent, politicians as

they exist in the real world are.

VIII. Personal Drama and ImpersonalPoliticsCan They Be Reconciled?

Soap reality is networked: everyone knows everyone else. As in the world of the

modernist novel, community members repeatedly come together fortuitously, in

what Jameson (1981) has called providential encounters. In real life, when long-

separated relatives are reunited, it is because national and global agencies have spent

months bringing them together; in soaps they bump into one another in the local pub.

In the real world, most of our social contact is with strangers whom we cannot pos-

sibly hope to know well; in soaps, strangers take the form of silently-miming extras

or new arrivals whose presence threatens potential revelation and social disruption.

The need for politics results from a mass society in which we can never hope to knowmost of the fellow citizens upon whom we depend for social order and economic

prosperity. Because soap communities are cohesive, local problems are usually

solved by one character having a word with another or by collective gatherings in

which a leading character stands up on a chair in the local pub and urges everyone

to Listen up. Theres something going on we need to do something about. In short,

soaps depict a fantasy community in which networks of acquaintances are more

important than representative processes, and the limits of social relevance are set at

the community boundary. This is not the world in which most British people live.

The general absence of politics from soaps is part of a wider necessity: the absenceof the rest of the world from soaps. While real-world happenings, such as the World

Cup or a Royal Jubilee, are occasionally permitted to penetrate the fictive sanctum

of the soap community, they must first be stripped of cultural complexities that could

force those within the soap bubble to respond to causes not of their own making. In

realist soaps there is always a world outside, but it is outside, witnessed from within;

it cannot be permitted to disrupt the interior stability of the soap-created community.

It is of this principle that soap producers speak when they say that soap storylines

must be character-driven. In reality, being governed by laws or being sacked or finding

oneself the victim of a terrorist attack are not character-driven occurrences. Indeed,most political engagement entails a retreat from the relative certainties of the self

into a socially anonymous world of strangers and chance events. Such a world is

hard to dramatize, precisely because its dominating relationships are impersonal and




22/24

amorphous. The narrative of politics is abstract, aggregated, and impersonal; soap

narrative proceeds on first-name terms.

Soap characters tend to relate to one another on three levels: as members of afamily; as inhabitants of a defined community; or as employers and employees. They

rarely interact as citizens, sharing common interests in a wider world that cannot be

avoided. The challenge for soaps is to depict citizens. This should not be seen as a

strategy for the soft promotion of citizenship education, smuggling into popular dramas

dull messages about how to vote or why communities should interact harmoniously.

But there are aspects of democratic citizenship that could be illuminated through

soap drama. First, there is the problem of acknowledging strangers. In soaps, strangers

are either ignored or sucked into the orbit of communitarian friendship, i.e., they

become known and unstrange. Contemporary democracies suffers from major problemscaused by the inability of strangers to meet one another, rehearse their disagreements

in civilized ways, and respect that which they cannot necessarily understand. Exploring

such miscommunications within the context of soap drama could provide an ideal

space for such protocols of cultural and political interaction to be thought through in

public.

Second, it would be valuable for soaps to cast light upon the ubiquity and power

of the media. This would not be unprecedented. In the 1980s, Coronation Streets

Ken Barlow edited the local newspaper and there were several storylines exploring

journalistic dilemmas. The media are such a common presence in most peopleslives, both as consumed and, increasingly self-produced, ways of seeing the world,

that their general absence from soaps leaves an impression of a world adrift from the

connecting channels of real life. Just as soap audiences contest and make their own

sense of soap messages, it would be interesting to watch the ways in which soap

characters reading of the media shapes their own world, for better or for worse.

Third, soaps could do more to reflect the fact that change is more often the result

of collective action than individual will. One of the merits of Channel 4sBrookside

was its recognition of organizational activism, albeit of a narrowly political kind. If

collective democratic action is rarely witnessed in popular drama, citizens can beforgiven for forgetting that such possibilities exist. Dramatizing the potential that can be

unleashed by public engagement in politics (of any kind) is one way of representing

democratic reality without trying to tell people what to do or think.

In conclusion, soaps cannot afford to regard themselves as above or beyond the

political world. The reality they represent is constitutive. The democracy in which

they exist is in need of a shot in the arm.

Notes

1. The survey was conducted by the online polling company, YouGov, between June 5 and 7, 2006.

The sample size was 2,239, of whom 1,317 (59 percent) were regular soap viewers and/or listeners.

2. Only positive or negative images were analyzed. Some respondents submitted meaningless

answers, such as A Politician or MP or Dont know. These were excluded from the analysis.




23/24

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