Soap Opera Poster Analysis (Three)

The target audience for this soap opera would be broad females at all ages; therefore I will now analyse this poster using the theorists Laura Mulvey, who states that woman are sexual erotic objects to mens desires by the view of the camera and appearance of the female character. She also adds that men have the main acts in storylines whilst woman don’t. I will now begin to analyse this poster to see if this poster is suitable for encouraging the target audience to view this soap.

In terms of colour for this poster, there is a variety of colours from pink to grey, this could represent each star models personality in terms of the character on the pink gives a flirtatious facial expression and the character with the red could connote she’s feisty and firey. This will go against the Laura Mulvey theory (1975) because she could be one of the major roles within this storyline and will represent woman who are watching this programme, middle-class and therefore encourage them to watch it to see if predictions on who killed the victim is correct.

The female character upon the red  peg is wearing make up and has her hair all dolled up, this will fall under the Laura Mulvey theory because it will attract men and woman who find this character attractive and will be watching the soap to watch their star vehicle, once again representing woman who are watching this programme, middle-class and therefore encouraging them to watch this programme.

Looking at the image, in terms of graphology the black background makes the main characters stand out as if their all equally suspicious of this investigation about the drama that is happening within the soap. This could therefore be suitable for the target audience that this soap is aiming for; woman because this particular gender tend to get more involved in activities than men (stereotypically). This would therefore fall under the Blumer and Katz (1974) theory.

The Lexis used within this poster is quite detective like as it states “Who killed Tom King?” with a interrogative question, this could help involve the target audience more because it will encourage them to follow the storyline further, especially as it says “Conduct your own investigation at itv.com/emmerdale.” This will definitely get the audience more involved with the personal pronoun in use “your.” This will fall under the Blumer and Katz theory because they will watch and get more involved in the soap for their own reasons like; personal identity, diversion and etc.

The ITV1 logo is placed within the middle of the circle of suspects, this will be suitable to catch the audiences attention because it connotes that’s where the centre of all this action is taking place, on the channel ITV1 and the target audience will tune in to watch it. This will be suitable for the target audience who fall under the Blumer and Katz theory.

Also in terms of Lexis it states “Its far from quiet in the country” This agrees with the Higson theory because this soap opera is creating a new stereotype for the countryside giving people who are watching Emmerdale a different impression of Yorkshire. This could therefore mean that this soap is suitable for their target audience because … (got stuck)

Also in terms of images the characters within the image all look quite aged, there isn’t one young character there. This is once again creating a stereotype within Yorkshire and will have an affect upon the audience. This will be suitable for the audience who fall under the regional identity theorists Higson.

There isn’t as many female characters as there is male characters within the poster (2 woman and 8 men) this could also fall under the Laura Mulvey theory because she states that men are the dominant characters within an interesting storyline. Therefore this demonstrates that this will be suitable for the target audience due to how iTV1 has said they predict woman will be viewing this soap opera for entertainment.

Although you could argue this out number in men and woman is evidence of the theorist Marxist as he states that men who are straight, white and middleclass are the stereotypical people that run the media and they are running the media in this soap because there is more men within the storyline being suspicious of Tom Kings murder.

The storyline within the soap also declares that the murderer of Tom King was Carl King as he was ‘pushed’ out of the window. This will also support Laura Mulvey’s theory because she states that men are the dominant characters in an interesting storyline and within this plot of the Soap, there isn’t much of the female characters involvement.

Overall this soap has demonstrated that the majority of this poster will encourage the target audience to view this soap after viewing the poster because most of this after analysing it has shown that it supports Laura Mulvey. But also it has shown evidence of other theorists like; Blumer and Katz theory and Marxists.