"One Life to Live" Taken Off Life Support

ABC announced today that it is canceling two of its soap operas, "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," because of declining ratings. Apparently daytime drama isn't the draw that it once was because programming tastes have changed and "many of the women who made up the target audience [are] now in the work force."

The passing of these two former broadcasting heavyweights is somewhat sad for me because it represents the demise of a communication research subject that was once so very rich. A quick search for soap operas in the library catalog yields a plethora of books from the 1970s, 80s, and into the 90s. You also find soap opera articles in our databases such as "Soap opera viewing motivations and the cultivation process" which was in a 1985 issue of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. I guess what I am trying to say is that in their heyday, soap operas like "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" helped us better understand communication so it is somewhat tragic to watch something that was once so vital fade into oblivion.

But time marches on and so does research. So if you want to study soap opera's younger, hipper sibling (reality TV) we have resources for that too :-)

Researching Egypt and Communication

If you're hungry for more information about what's behind the chaos in Egypt, Cook Library has you covered.

We have a new guide on researching countries and cultures, which you can use to get background information and international news.

These are a few of our books that look at Egypt and communication:

• The Global Public Relations Handbook
• Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt
• Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East

And to find out about the history of and the current state of press censorship in Egypt, look at the Committee to Protect Journalists' website.

Broadcasting, interpersonal communication, and the job hunt

I think at least once a week, I come across some kind of communication phenomenon that I would like to scientifically investigate. My moment for this week came early when I saw an announcement on ABC2 offering viewers with resume help. The program allows people to e-mail their resumes to Good Morning Maryland and each week, three people will tape a 20-second video pitch as to why they should be considered for a job.

This made me wonder: It seems that successful resumes (the ones that don't automatically end up in the circular file) are often tailored to the specific organization and even the specific job. So how can the people making these 20-second videos balance this need for specificity with the fact that their pitches are being broadcast and could potentially reach a large number of potential employers? I'd love to study which resumes/videos are the most successful at landing people jobs.