ORDER: "The Survival of Soap Opera"

The Survival of Soap Opera: Transformations for a New Media Era" is now available at Amazon.com. Edited by Sam Ford, Abigail De Kosnik and C. Lee Harrington, the academic book, from University Press of Mississippi, is officially out on December 1.

The soap opera, one of U.S. television's longest-running and most influential formats, is on the brink. Declining ratings have been attributed to an increasing number of women working outside the home and to an intensifying competition for viewers' attention from cable and the Internet. Yet, soaps' influence has expanded, with serial narratives becoming commonplace on most prime time TV programs. "The Survival of Soap Opera" investigates the causes of their dwindling popularity, describes their impact on TV and new media culture, and gleans lessons from their complex history for twenty-first-century media industries.

I contributed an essay to this book entitled "AS THE WORLD TURNS' Luke and Noah and Fan Activism."(starts on page 293) A large number of wonderful soap journalists and critics and writers also contributed to the book including Patrick Erwin, Lynn Liccardo and Tom Casiello.