Tv Drama Comparison -

'Eastenders' and 'Coronation Street' Comparison -

Both 'Coronation Street ,(Corrie), and 'Eastenders' are the medium of TV and are both soap operas. Eastenders is set in London in the south of England whilst Coronation Street is set in the north of England somewhere near Manchester. Therefore the regional identity represented in both programmes varies largely.

Both soaps primary purpose is to entertain; however in specific scenes / episodes of both programmes there are often secondary purposes that can be decoded by an audience. For example the scene from Eastenders that I studied had a secondary purpose to educate an audience about racial discrimination and prejudices within society. Both television shows feature stereotypes but these vary largely in the two programmes studied. Eastenders depicts age related and racial stereotypes whilst Coronation Street displays dialect stereotypes, unemployment and teenage or single parent stereotypes. Examples of this can be found in the representation of the Jamaican born character 'Patrick' in Eastenders; this character often makes references to rum and uses dialect associated with his home country such as stereotypical expression such as "yeah maan". An example of stereotypes found in Coronation Street include the accent of "taanight"and the dialect used when a character says "brew" for tea.

Furthermore, Eastenders and Coronation street both employ a realist and conventional style that focuses on actors and actresses portraying roles of common people. Many media forms tend to focus on the lives of the rich and famous but soaps do not usually adhere to this convention. The realist style allows audiences to become emotionally attached to the characters as they feel they share many similarities as the common people.

Finally, the tone of both soap operas are serious with comical elements that tend to be informal. The implementation of these themes also allows the audience to relate to the characters but also achieve a sense of happiness and relaxation as the occurrences in the lives of characters are not their own. As such, the producers of soap operas are able to create a hyper-reality which an audience can delve into and leave when they wish.

In conclusion, both TV dramas share many similarities but also have differences that means different target audiences are attracted to the programmes apart from a few soap opera fans who may be a fan of both.