Women’s Education. Bait and Switch Marketing Tool in Indian Soap Operas

An Inquiry into Women's Educational Outcomes and Marriage in Indian Soap Operas

Abstract

The aim of the study was to trace the goal of female protagonist and antagonist’s education and analyze their professional lives in relation to marriage in Indian soap operas. The study sample included 51 daily serials: a) 25 daily serials (in Hindi) with the highest television viewers’ ratings from May 25, 2012 to June 2, 2012 were sampled to examine the current soap operas, b) 33 soap operas that were nominated for the award of Best Daily Serial (Popular) by Indian Telly Awards (since 2001) were sampled to record the temporal trends in the past one decade. Content analysis was performed: the specific characteristics of 51 Indian daily soaps were identified, recorded in the predetermined categories, and coded. The major findings were: a) Female protagonist’s education and working outside home is uncorrelated. b) Marriage affects the protagonist’s professional life negatively, even in serials that explicitly focus on the young unmarried female protagonist’s education. c) Marriage doesn’t play as significant a role in the female antagonist’s professional life; nonetheless it does. d) The female antagonists are often shown as financially independent. e) In the past one decade, focus on protagonist’s education has been recurring. Using Cantor (2004)’s empathy hypothesis, the paper contends that the serials use bait-and-switch strategy: daily serials that explicitly focus on the theme of girl’s education lure the young females; as the serials progress, the focus switches from education to universally and culturally relevant themes like love, romance and marriage. No non-parametric test has been conducted and the thematic analysis hasn’t been included in the report.