Creating Social Reality: Template or Mirror?: An Industry Perspective

While much has been written by academics about television strip serials and telenovelas, a perspective less frequently discussed is that of these programs' writers and creators. What aspects of social realities do the writers, story editors and script producers of soap operas and telenovelas invest in their writing? This article draws together the views of practitioners from three very different backgrounds. Cuauhtemoc Blanco, a leading Mexican writer of telenovelas, Felicity Packard and Greg Haddrick of Home and Away, and Gillian Arnold of Going Home discuss their understanding of the ways they create social reality on television.