Analysis of Soaps: Emmerdale

Similarly to Eastenders and Coronation Street, Emmerdale is an award winning soap set within the dales of Yorkshire, hence Emmerdale. Emmerdale uses relatively similar codes and conventions previously outlined by manyu other soaps, yet does differentiate these, albeit it primarily on location. Most major soaps tend to be set in urban areas, as stereotypically this where most of the audience originates from and thus means that they have far more to relate to within the characters and their location. This theory is based upon national statistics which show that the majority of the British opulation live within sub-urban or urban areas and as such are going to be inclined to the way of thinking present within these districts. Emmerdale however is not set and located within an urban environment and is in fact set in the Yorkshire dales and thus would theoretically attract a seemingly different audience. This is where Emmerdale shines with the fact that it not only attracts people who live in rural areas, but it also attracts people from urbanised locations. This is primarily due to the fact that people get the chance to feel like they're escaping city lfie and become centralised around the rurual characters and structures.

Despite distinct filming differences, Emmerdale still makes use of the typical codes and conventions present in Soaps such as Coronation Street, Eastenders and that of Hollyoaks. These coes and conventions being the fact that ther community is relatively close together not just mentally and relationship wise, but also in a physical sense. For example, Coronation Street has the Rovers Returns as its local pub, and Emmerdale likewise has the Wolpack.
The layout of the village itself is perfect in terms of its layout, having locations such as:

- The Pub
- The Café
- The Local industrial works
- The Corner Shop
- Launderettes

Although this may not sound like a great deal of locations, it is effectively all that is needed to create a well liked and workable soap. For example, each one of these locations will have various people not only in charge of them, but those that work at the locations or for that matter simply visit them. This then broadens out as people related to those people then potentially visit the location and thus you have an active soap which is constantly being refreshed with new faces.

Character wise, Emmerdale has relatively modern characters considering the location. Stereotypically it is not uncommon for their to be characters that are very conservative in their approach to life due to effectively being isolated (to a certain extent) from the rest of the more industrialised world. Jack Sugden is a perfect representation of being in his mid-50's and having pretty conservative views upon the world, bearing in mind that he owns and runs a farm and as such is very protective of it considering that it effectively been his life work. Unlike Eastenders and Coronation Street, the cast reprsented within Emmerdale is relatively white and for that matter, British. This is likely to be to do with the fact that in order to move into the countryside you have to be relatively wealthy, and stereotypically members of ethnic miniorities are not of wealthy backgrounds. As such, this is seemingly well presented by the Soap and it's location