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<title> A substitue for friends </title>
This text is dealing with the soap - opera phenomena. Why does it attract people? What kind of people are most likely to watch this type of programme? How are the soaps benefitial/not benefitial to it's audience? These are some of the questions discussed below. The issue is presented with a certain irony in that the personality and social situation of the viewer is very much exaggerated and generalized. 

In Amusing ourselves to death Neil Postman writes that he believes TV is most useful when presenting junkentertainment. Wether one agrees with that or not one thing is certain, junkentertainment is very useful when it comes to providing "substitutes for friends" for those who need them. Especially soap - operas are excellent for this purpose, the episodes may be absolutely awful with lousy actor performances and exaggerated charachters, but still it has something that attracts viewers. With it's plots that focus on emotions and including as many intrigues as possible it engages and amuses it's audience.

What kind of people watch soaps? It's possible that lonely viewers that lack considerable experience of relationships, either with the opposite sex or with friends in general are more prone than others to watch this kind of TV - series. Soap - operas can thus give them a chance to get to "know" certain characters that they can relate to and follow over a long period of time. This means that when they are busy worrying about and rejoicing with the charachters on TV they forget about their own loneliness. The viewer has been given a substitute for the absence of person (s) to care about in his, or more likely her life (the majority of the viewers are probably female). 

Why do people chose to watch soaps? The soaps enable its viewers to indirectly experience, or rather observe, different social situations they might not get a chance to experience in their every day lives. Through the actors they learn how people might behave in those various situations. A person that has never been in love and is too shy or even unable to show strong feelings might find it interesting and safe to watch others deal with those feelings on TV.

One might argue that a movie could be equally useful but I believe, for this specific purpose of creating substitute friends, it's not. Because a movie is normally only between 90 - 180 minutes long wich is not enough time to become aquainted with the charachters in the film, furthermore when it has ended, the audience, in most cases, won't "meet" the characters of that particular movie again.

Another useful tool soap operas can give shy people is a better and more interesting ice - breaker than discussing the weather. Now they can discuss the incidents on the latest episode of their favorite soap instead. 

Of course there are also negative sides to the soap - opera phenomena. These lonely people that are sitting propped up in their sofas a certain time every day are in the risk zone of becoming addicted to the soaps, wich means that they might choose to give up other things in life just to make it home in time to watch their favorite show. So this soap that gives them an opportunity to experience love, friendship, deceit, hate...well pretty much all spectras of human nature actually prevents them from making contacts of their own and experience the world, they are living a second - hand life. Furthermore since soaps tend to be overdramatic and the charachters are either, good or evil, never inbetween, viewers obsessed with the show in question will most likely get a distorded view of reality. This will make it difficult for them when they are forced to deal with the real world and their view of life doesn't match reality. They might for instance have serious problems with finding a boyfriend since the men they meet most likely won't measure up to "Mr perfect" from this or that soap - opera. They might also be dissappointed when they learn that reality is not as spectacular, perhaps not even close to the fiction presented in the soaps.

Soap - operas can thus be both useful and create problems for an audience. Regardless what impact it has on the individual viewer they all have one thing incommon, they find this genre of TV shows incredibly entertaining.
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