Applying Encoding/Decoding Hollyoaks is a soap opera. It is broadcast daily

at 18.00 on Channel 4 and an omnibus repeats all of the episodes on Channel 4’s: T4

Sunday. It is about the lives of teens and young adults that live in a small village next to

the city of Chester.

It typically centres on themes of difficulties surrounding young adult life, but occasionally has fairly extreme plots involving murder, kidnap, death and family

betrayal. The target audience reflects the age and interests (if not necessarily the lifestyles)

of the main characters in the soap.  

Preferred: The target audience would accept the assumptions and beliefs shared by the soap. That being a teen or young adult is as tough as it is fun. They would accept that relationships both sexual and platonic are central to life at this age and that if the wrong decisions are made then this can cause disastrous consequences. The preferred reading would be to accept that whilst life is for living - tragedy can be just around the corner and that you should live for the moment. However, there would also be an understanding that if you let your instincts take over to the point where you betray those close to you, then something bad will almost certainly happen in your life.

Applying Encoding/Decoding

Oppositional: Occasional audience members may entirely reject the ideologies and messages of the series. They may take the position that Hollyoaks promotes an unrealistic and irresponsible view of life for young people, that the constant arguments lies and infidelities represent young people as vain, materialistic and selfish. The oppositional reading may also reject the attempts at creating over elaborate dramatic situations as out of place for a soap opera which is traditionally supposed to represent reality and a ‘slice of life’.

Negotiated: Some audience members could still watch regularly or even avidly and still not accept the

dominant reading of the text. Instead they may see the soap as unrealistic and even superficial. Accepting that

the characters are nothing more than two dimensional vehicles for convoluted storylines -

however this audience may love the thrill and suspense of the plot lines and enjoy the twists and

turns that the narrative takes. They may suspend their disbelief at the wooden acting and unbelievable

dialogue in order to enjoy the levels of action and sex appeal that isn’t offered by other soaps.