Coronation Street controversial storylines

 why soaps are a good vehicle to explore issues?  This is what I think my title will be for my EPQ.  - media representations  -case studies  conclusions

  October -  Begin my EPQ and work out a clear guideline November - Begin research and list out all essential storylines from 60's -2010's and talk about there significance and compare similar storylines from earlier dates to more modern stories.  December - Research the reasoning behind why soaps do issue based stories, and stories that had positive and negative reactions.

As part of my research I reached out to a coronation street podcast that I listen to occasionally that have been running for 9 years. I emailed them and asked what they thought the most significant issue and controversial storylines have been from each decade from the 60's to current times. This is what they replied with. 60's  -  There were a couple of suicide attempts this decade that would have probably been quite shocking at the time, and very taboo - Christina Hardman and Sheila Birtles (the latter was rewritten after it got out that she'd take her own life and there was massive uproar) - Generally the battle between Ken and his dad about upward mobility of working class people, and early activism (Ken's ban the bomb protesting) - When Harry Hewitt and Concepta Riley got married, it was a bit of a big deal as having a Catholic marry a Protestant at the time would have been quite shocking. They had quite a few complaints, it sounds like! 70s - There was an interesti

  For my research I have watched a variety of of videos and documentaries. These include; Corrie Controversies (2004) - This documentary was made in 2004 at the height of the first major gay character, it starts with telling cum about how the current storyline came about with writers and actors talking how they first heard about the story and there thoughts, as well as journalists talking about how they spoke about the storyline. It then talks about previous controversial storylines   including transsexuals, bigamists, arranged marriages, rape, teenage pregnancies and homosexuality. This research and information is quite reliable as we have the information straight from the actors and writers of the storylines, although they might be slightly bias as the documentary was also trying to promote the storyline of the first homosexual. From the documentary I will only use the rape, gay, teen pregnancy, transsexual storylines, as well as maybe the arranged marriage storyline, this is beca

  For soaps to exist they have to have a continuous story with different story lines interwoven with each other. Due to this soap operas have a lot of conventions. These being that the shows runs usually multiple times a week all year round and feature continues story lines that deal with personal personal, family and domestic relationships. The casts are bigger than a normal TV drama but only usually focus on a limited set of characters at a time.  Soaps don't end and don't seem to have an ending to a story line compared to a film or TV series, as we see a build up to the story, then the actual story, then we see how the event has affected the characters, before it not being mentioned as much, as the characters have moved on as real people do. While this is happening, other story lines have being building up in the background with multi- narrative strands, so once a story line 'ends' we are already engrossed in another story that has been building. Sometimes the story

 How do soap operas challenge or represent taboo topics?  An analysis of how UK Soap Operas have represented controversial social and cultural issues with a focus on Coronation Street.  Key characters in Coronation Street  Context of the time 1960s -  1970s -  1980s -  1990s -  2020s - Sophie Lancaster  Storylines - euthanasia, transgender,  Criticisms of the approach or way in which they covered an issue  Other key moments and character EastEnders - Michael 1980s reflected AIDS epidemic; Piers Morgan -  Around gambling (Arthur Fowler)  Brookside - first lesbian kiss on daytime TV  For each one - look at context at the time, reaction to the storyline/issue and how it is represented Introduction -  methodology what I have learnt