From "Ma Perkins" and "One Man's Family" in the 1930s to "All My Children" in the 1980s, the soap opera has capture the imagination of millions of American men and women of all ages. In Speaking of Soap Operas, Robert Allen undertakes a reexamination of the production and consumption of soap operas through the use of a unique investigatory model based on contemporary poetics and reader-response theory.
Although a considerable amount...