WKU graduate co-editor of The Survival of Soap Opera

Sam Ford, a 2005 graduate of Western Kentucky University, is co-editor of a new book coming out Dec. 1 that looks at the current state and possible futures of the U.S. soap opera industry.

The Survival of Soap Opera: Transformations for a New Media Era looks at the decline in viewership of U.S. soap operas, the ways in which they have resonated with their audiences for the past 80 years, and the potential futures of the genre.

Ford lives in Bowling Green and serves as Director of Digital Strategy at New York City-based public relations firm Peppercom. He is a research affiliate of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, where he obtained his master’s degree in 2007. Ford graduated from WKU with four bachelor’s degrees — news/editorial journalism, communication studies, mass communication and English (writing).

He is also teaching a course on U.S. soap opera in Spring 2011 as part of the popular culture studies program at WKU.

The book contains four sections, first looking at the challenges facing soap operas today and then proposing three areas of continued innovation and promise for the genre: capitalizing on history, experimenting with production and distribution, and learning from diverse audiences.

The collection includes perspectives from prominent industry figures (iconic General Hospital and Young and the Restless actor Tristan Rogers, Bold and the Beautiful writers Kay Alden and Patrick Mulcahey and Young and the Restless writer Tom Casiello), industry critics and reporters (Fancast’s Sara Bibel, A Thousand Other Worlds’ Patrick Erwin, Red Room’s Lynn Liccardo and We Love Soaps’ Roger Newcomb), and a variety of established and emerging scholars on television and fan communities. The collection also includes pieces from soap opera fans.

The Survival of Soap Opera, published by the University Press of Mississippi, is co-edited with Abigail De Kosnik, assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; and C. Lee Harrington, a professor of sociology and a women’s studies program affiliate at Miami University.

The book is available on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Soap-Opera-Transformations-Media/dp/1604737166.