Student motives for watching soap operas

Soap operas recently have begun to receive scholarly attention commensurate with their importance. Despite the ascendancy in the number of shows produced to attract a younger audience, reasons for exposure remain unclear, especially for student viewing. This investigation used two alternative procedures to elicit motives. It identified 16 categories, reported their prevalence in two data sets, and considered the degree of convergence in findings of the two procedures. The diversity of motives and the resultant implications for subgroup analyses also were discussed.