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While the inclusion of gay and lesbian individuals in the media is not a recent phenomenon, the increased representation of families headed by gay and lesbian couples is somewhat new. Research has shown that mediatized representations of gay and lesbian individuals and couples more often than not adhere to stereotypes and perpetuate ideas that the constructors of these representations want their audiences to consume. Research has also focused on audiences’ reception and processing of the messages that these representations may carry. This study, instead, focuses on the construction of representations of gay and lesbian couples and their families, bringing to the forefront the importance of discursive practices that are used to construct visual, linguistic, and aural elements of the media consumed by audiences. Looking specifically at advertisements (both for and against) concerning California’s Proposition 8, a ballot measure proposing to ban same-sex marriages, this study shows how elements of the composition of the advertisements coalesce and mutually enhance each other to create particular understandings of gay and lesbian families. Using Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Semiotics, this study uncovers the underlying ideologies that inform the discursive and semiotic choices that have been made. Together, the music, the visuals, and the language are formed into a coherent whole, the advertisement. This thesis argues that how gay and lesbian people are represented is equally as important as the overt messages that are being disseminated to the audiences. By studying the discursive practices utilized by these advertisements, we are able to see that ideologies of idealistic family life and heterosexual relationships influence both advertisements in their characterisation of gay and lesbian couples and their respective families. / Graduate / 0626 / 0628 / df.tabangcura@gmail.com

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L'objectif de cette thèse de doctorat est de montrer comment la victoire de la liberté dans le domaine matrimonial a permis à la communauté LGBT de se mettre en ordre de bataille, Etat après Etat, pour mettre fin à une citoyenneté de seconde zone, sensibiliser et éduquer les américains sur les réalités de la vie homosexuelle, marquée par une longue histoire de discrimination et de préjugés hostiles aux homosexuels, souvent véhiculés par des chrétiens fondamentalistes. Nous reviendrons sur les origines historiques de cette guerre culturelle contre l'homosexualité pour montrer comment celle-ci structure encore aujourd'hui le système de gouvernement et alimente la polarisation politique, en partant du postulat que la brèche dans le mur de séparation entre l'Eglise et l'Etat est en partie responsable de nombreux blocages institutionnels et d'un patchwork de lois inégalitaires à travers le pays. Le combat pour l'égalité des droits de la communauté LGBT se révèle être, en définitive, un formidable observatoire de la démocratie américaine qui continue d'affecter l'efficacité du système démocratique des contre-pouvoirs par différents processus dynamiques liés au changement et à l'affirmation de la liberté religieuse / The ojective of this PhD dissertation is to show how the victory for the freedom to marry enabled the LGBT community to gear up for a national State-by-State campaign to put an end to second-class citizenship, raise awareness, and educate the American people to a reality that is marked by a long history of discrimination and hostile prejudice against homosexuals, with such hostility often being expressed and disseminated by fundamentalist Christians. We will revisit the historical origins of the culture war against homosexuality to show it still structures the system of government tody, and fuels political polarization, starting from the premise that the breach in the separating wall between Church and State is partly responsible for the numerous institutionnal deadblocks as well as a patchwork system of unegquel laws across the country. the LGBT community's fight for equal rights ultimately turns out to provide a particularly powerful insight into American democracy, and continues to affect the democratic system of checks and balances through various dynamic processes which are bound up with change and with the assertion of religious freedom