Communication Commons^™

“You Better Redneckognize”: White Working-Class People And Reality Television, Tasha Rose Rennels

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project documents the complex and interwoven relationship between mediated representations and lived experiences of white working-class people—a task inspired by the author’s experiences growing up in a white working-class family and neighborhood and how she came to understand herself through watching films and television shows. Theoretically guided by Foucault’s recognition that people are constituted in and through discourse, the author specifically analyzes how reality television articulates certain ideas about white working-class people and how those who identify as members of this population, including the author, negotiate such articulations. A focus on white working-class people is important considering their increasing …