Louie Harding
Soap Operas and consuming ‘ordinary’ fashions through online digital cultural practice
Email address
Supervisors
Dr Sarah Thomas, Dr Craig Haslop University of Liverpool
Research topic
My thesis examines the impact of digital online cultures within the British soap opera genre. It looks at the fashions of ‘aspirational characters’ in soaps and how, since the 2010s, fans and media practitioners have launched websites revealing purchasing information of those characters’ fashions. This phenomenon, combined with soaps ongoing broadcast pattern of new episodes plus viewers longstanding para-social relationship with soap characters places the genre in a unique position to provide discourse on TV fashion in this age of online digital culture.
To understand this contemporary phenomenon my thesis explores key historical elements surrounding the soap opera genre. This includes; soaps and advertising historical symbiotic relationship across different mediums from the 19th century to the present day, how characters who dress in aspirational styles have been presented since the 1950s through the influence of trends within the wider television landscape, and how soaps regional characteristics and portrayal of everyday predominately working-class environment have set British soaps apart from soaps produced overseas in that they generate familiarity and realists, subsequently making the fashions in British soap appear realistic and obtainable for viewers.
My research engages with a variety of methods including interviews with media practitioners working on soap operas, open-ended questionnaires sent out to soap opera viewers, observing online discourse of fashion seen in soap opera on social media platforms, and textual analysis of ‘aspirational’ characters through examining how their styles and tastes have been presented in particular episodes.
Research areas
5 or 6 key words related to your research areas: Soap Opera, Participatory Cultures, Convergence Cultures, Media History, Genre Studies, Fan Studies, Place Identity, Branding and Promotional Cultures, Stardom and Celebrity Studies, Fashion Studies, Television Studies
Academic achievements: Presented paper “Grit and glamour: Aspirational British soap characters onscreen since 1954” at the conference “Bonkbusters and Soap Operas: Representing Sex, Glamour, and Melodrama on Screen” at Falmouth University June 2025
Teaching experience
COMM328 Entertainment Media and History on Screen