Using a media text as a key example, evaluate selected techniques of fictional production which contribute to a sense of realism consistent with genre or format used. Many have defined the term realism but these definitions by Watt and Williams can be easily applied to my choice of media text, which is the British soap opera. Fiske writes that Watt and Williams “….tend to define it by its content. Watt traces its origins to the rise of the novel in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” And Williams “…whose historical perspective covers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, lists three main characteristics of realism in drama: he finds that it has a contemporary setting, that it concerns itself with secular action … and that it is “socially extended”.( Television Culture, John Fiske, Routledge, 1997, P.21 – 22)To expand on Williams’ three characteristics, the contemporary setting means that the drama should be set in the present day or at least modern times that the present audience are likely to have lived in. When the drama “concerns itself with secular action” this means that the events that take place within the drama are about people and described in human terms. The term “socially extended” means that the events in the drama revolve around the lives of ordinary people and not kings or social leaders. Williams definition can be seen to relate to the working class and their experience of subordination in industrial society.These are three of the generic characteristics found in the British soap opera. Coronation Street is one of Britain’s most successful soap operas where all of these characteristics can be seen clearly. The contemporary setting can be seen through the iconography used such as the modern cars, the clothes and issues that are discussed in the programme such as gen...
