Recreation Physical Activity in Popular TV Soap Operas

Abstract

The paper presents results of the study concerning patterns of participation in recreational physical activity in popular soap operas. The analysed material are the season 2014/2015 episodes of three soaps: „M jak miłość”, „Na dobre i na złe” and „Barwy szczęścia”. The applied research methods are quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The author wanted to answer the following questions: 1/ Do the researched serials encourage overcoming cultural stereotypes constituting barriers to participation in physical culture, or do they act in the opposite way? 2/ Do their content refl ects a late modern shift from the effi ciency-oriented and the ascetic pattern of somatic culture to the hedonistic and the aesthetic one? The conducted study proves that the analysed serials manifest a conservative attitude regarding the issue of sports participation of various social groups and categories. Males are shown in situations connected with recreational physical activity more often (94 cases) than females (74 cases) and the latter do not take up activities which are stereotypically recognized as masculine. Reproduction of conservative stereotypes takes also place regarding the age of physically active persons – in the analysed material there are only 4 cases of elderly persons’ sports activity (in comparison e.g. with 54 cases of young adults’ activity). Taking into account the second research question, the conducted analysis confi rms the supposition about the dominant role of the hedonistic and the aesthetic pattern of somatic culture, since they are referred to in almost two third (17 from 27) of justifi cations of recreational physical activity which appear in the analysed material.