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Full-Text Articles in American Popular Culture
Whovians And Directioners: Challenging The Fangirl Identity, Brianna Vancant
Whovians And Directioners: Challenging The Fangirl Identity, Brianna Vancant
Cultural Studies Capstone Papers
Using notions from fan blogs and fan theory, this project analyzes the inconsistencies surrounding the phenomenon of so-called fangirls in the Doctor Who and One Direction worlds. The term fangirl is usually defined as an irrational adolescent female who is only a fan of very specific types of entertainment because of factors that are perceived by other fans as superficial and irrelevant. In contemporary music and television fandom, these fangirls are often criticized and policed by other fans, many times disregarded as not ‘true’ fans. The project studies this distorted perception and how it leads to misconceptions about the wider …
The Queer Blogger: Interrogating The Commodification Of Identities, Anne Lacy
The Queer Blogger: Interrogating The Commodification Of Identities, Anne Lacy
Cultural Studies Capstone Papers
Using Queer blogs found throughout American blogging networks, while drawing upon Marxism, Michel Foucault’s notions of confession and coming out, and Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, this project is a materialist analysis that unveils how Queer identities are being consumed and commodified. In contemporary American society a phenomenon is occurring online: Queer blogs are acting as a platform where subjectivities are attempting to resist hegemonic notions of identity while they are simultaneously being incorporated into a capitalistic agenda of subject formation. This project ultimately calls upon an act of resistance, as these Queer blogs are in fact a negotiable space for …
Take Off Your Masc: The Hegemonic Gay Male's Gender Performance On Grindr, Duncan Shuckerow
Take Off Your Masc: The Hegemonic Gay Male's Gender Performance On Grindr, Duncan Shuckerow
Cultural Studies Capstone Papers
The hegemonic Grindr clone is a gay male Grindr user who enforces the privileging of traditional masculine gender performance and condemns effeminacy. Through this project’s own field work along with the website “douchebagsofgrindr,” the hegemonic Grindr clone is here within analyzed. Drawing upon the theory ofhegemony articulated by Gramsci, a historical analysis of the 1970s urban gay male clone, and contemporary analysis and research, the project argues that the hegemonic Grindr clones, while only a minority group of Grindr users, rules over the cyberspace as sexual gatekeepers. Hegemonic Grindr clones maintain their privileged status on the application through depicting and …
When Ana Becomes The Protagonist: Eating Disorder Narratives, The Pursuit Of Thinness And Social Resistance On The Internet, Nadezh Mulholland
When Ana Becomes The Protagonist: Eating Disorder Narratives, The Pursuit Of Thinness And Social Resistance On The Internet, Nadezh Mulholland
Cultural Studies Capstone Papers
There is media concern that books about eating disorders are harmful to young readers. However, there is little research on how readers interpret the content of novels and memoirs featuring characters with eating disorders. This project considers the thinspiration images used as motivation to lose weight on so-called pro-ana and pro-mia social networks for people with eating disorders, and draws parallels between thinspiration and images used on the covers of eating disorder books. This paper uses a Gramscian lens to dismantle media claims by analyzing the interactions between members of eating disorder social networks, showing that website users tum to …