1. TV Drama Notes
An Investigation in to the TV dramas
and what makes them succesful

2. Representation
• Representation, in a media sense, is how a group of
people, associated by their gender, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, social background ect. are portrayed in the
media. Usually these are stereotypical portrayals based
on old social ideas and conventions such as men being
superior or at least less flawed than women, or a
minority character being singled out for their
uniqueness. More recently these conventions are being
subverted (turned on their head) however it is still rare
to encounter a gay character, or a black one or poor
one, in the media without a point being made of the
fact that they are a minority or they conform to their
stereotypes.

3. Analysis
• To successfully analyze TV dramas and the
representations contained therein, we must
break our study down into two different types
of analysis.
Macro Analysis- macro analysis is looking at the piece as a
whole and seeing who effect it provokes from the audience
and why.
Micro Analysis- micro analysis is the detailed breaking down
of a piece if work, looking at it, frame by frame, at the
camera angles, the shot types, lighting ect.

4. Verisimilitude
Verisimilitude, is a sense of
realism created by a piece of
media. This doesn’t necessarily
mean that the piece has to be
grounded in reality, merely that its
elements must be able to
convince the viewer, or reader,
that they could be plausible. This
is essential in the media, as if
someone is unable to suspend
their disbelief they will loose
interest and change the channel
or not buy the film or book and
the piece will not be successful.

5. TV Dramas
• A TV drama is television series which focuses on the emotions and
events in the lives of it’s protagonist, usually in TV drama no one
character is the lead rather a whole host, so that there is defiantly
someone in the cast that the audience can relate to and project
themselves onto, so as they may live out he feelings of the
character.
• There are four main types of TV drama these are
• Hospital Drama
• School Drama
• Crime Drama
• Youth Drama

6. Hospital Drama
• These, as they names suggest, are dramas
set in the hospital or medial environment.
Examples include shows such as: Holby
City, House and numerous others. These
dramas usually focus on the staff inside
the hospital and plot lines usually follow
the relationships between these staff or
between doctor and patient. They are
successful because, as with soap operas,
audiences like to observe relationships
between people, as they can associate it
with their own lives and thus identify with
the characters plight. However, they are
also successful because, no matter how
much people deny it there is a little
sadism in us all and this engages the
viewer to want to find out what accidents
have drawn people into the hospital this
week or the next week.

7. School Based Drama
• Predictably, these are dramas set in the
school/educational environment. Famous examples
include: Waterloo Road, Glee and many others.
These dramas focus on the lives of the pupils and
staff of the school and how they react under the
pressures of balancing school and social lives and
perhaps darker elements like student-teacher
relationships and substance abuse. These usually
have the demographic of teenagers, as this group
can really identify with the characters as they are
going through the same experiences that characters,
perhaps look to the show as an example of how
they can manage with their own problems. However
they are successful with other groups who can
identify with the soap opera esk side of the show
and perhaps identify with the teachers who have
adult problems similar to the viewers own.

8. Crime Drama
A crime drama is one that deals with the criminal
world, usually from the perspective of the police or
detective type character, but can be shown from the
perspective of the criminal. Famous Examples include
shows such as Sherlock Holmes, Luther, Miss Marple
and others. They focus on the crimes being
committed and a heavy use of suspense and intrigue
being built to engage the viewer to want to discover
just “Whodunnit?”. As with the Hospital Drama an
audience is also created from the fascination with the
macabre and just what crime is being committed.
Plots vary from vary from just one or two episode
story arcs, as with ITV’s Midsommer Murders or
whole series story arcs as with the show 24.

9. Youth
• Youth dramas are TV programs centered
around the lives of groups of teenagers,
or young adults. Famous examples
include Hollyoaks, Skins and many
others. They have a similar demographic
to school based dramas as they deal
with some of the same themes.
However Youth Dramas usually appeal
to a wider audience, because away from
the school setting they can deal with
more adult themes and have more
developed characters, as there is no
graduation year for characters and so
therefore relationships can be more
developed and more themes can be
explored with familiar characters.