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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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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
Coleman / Politicians and Politics in British Soaps 213
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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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Stephen Coleman is Professor of political communication at the Institute of Communications Studies,
University of Leeds. He has written widely on the relationships between popular culture and official politics,including work on the TV showsBig Brother, Have I Got News For You, and the Eurovision Song Contest.
Coleman / Politicians and Politics in British Soaps 219