Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: 2226. Adviser: Pat Gill. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-177) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> This study examines class and gender representations in Nollywood films through textual analysis of a sample of films retrieved from the website of the largest Nollywood streaming service, irokoTV. The study investigates patterns in class and gender representations in terms of similarities in portrayals, instances of stereotypes, and value assumptions in terms of who has power by answering the following questions: (1) What class stereotypes are portrayed in Nollywood films? (2) What gender stereotypes are portrayed in Nollywood films? (3) What hegemonic ideas of power are portrayed in Nollywood films as a result of class and gender representations? The study uses an exposure approach to select a sample of convenience of the top 5 films most attended to by the audience on iROKOtv and relies on close reading and a distancing technique called the "commutation test" to discuss the meaning of class and gender representations in the films. Findings indicate that even when they appear to subvert dominant ideologies, the films still reinforce long established societal norms about the importance of wealth and female gender stereotypes such as submissiveness in domestic households. The tales are often aspirational but the films lack grand ideological narratives to make them relevant to social transformation. These findings support Stuart Hall's Theory of Ideology which allows for a subversive agenda in media texts while retaining the flexibility needed to critique connections between dominant ideologies and social practices and structures.</p>

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Telecommunication, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 3651. Adviser: Julie R. Fox. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 5, 2008).

This study examines the ideologies of gender, race, and class present in Martha Stewart’s unprecedented popularity, beginning with the publication of Stewart’s first magazine in 1990 and ending in September 2004, after Stewart’s conviction for her involvement in the ImClone scandal. My approach is built on the intersection of American mass communication research, British cultural studies, and feminist theory, and utilizes Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model to examine how social, cultural and political discourses circulate in and through a mediated text and how those meanings are interpreted by those who receive them. Drawing from textual and ideological analysis of over thirteen years of Martha Stewart Living magazine and twelve weeks of Stewart’s four television programs, I investigate the ways in which the mode of address in Stewart’s media texts positions her simultaneously as a close friend and respected teacher. As the model for “living” in her media texts, Stewart uses these modes of address as the foundation of her messages about women’s roles, racial and ethnic traditions, and social mobility. To understand how readers and viewers make sense of these messages, I conducted focus group interviews with thirty-eight fans of Martha Stewart Living between October 2002 and July 2004. Two distinct types of fans emerged as my interviews progressed, and the participants, who have a range of different gender, race, sexuality and class identifications, expressed a variety of positions on the messages about gender roles, racial representations, and class aspiration they observed in Stewart’s texts. I was uniquely positioned to examine how fans’ feelings about Martha Stewart and Martha Stewart Living changed when Stewart was indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison because of her sale of ImClone stock; as a result of my observations, I argue that scholars should take a closer look at how fan practices and beliefs function in fans’ lives and in the larger culture. In total, this examination of Martha Stewart’s media texts and audience members offers a rich account of the ways in which discourses of gender, race, and class influenced American culture at the turn of the twenty-first century.

This dissertation is an account of cultural change associated with incorporations of digital media and LGBT media into the commercial domain. As a production study of LGBT digital media at two networks, Bravo and Logo, it takes a multi-methods approach, including interviews with cultural workers, attendance at industry events, analysis of primary documents and site content, and the use of secondary sources. In addition to LGBT channel content, in recent years Bravo and Logo have purchased or launched LGBT-focused websites that began with the involvement of non-media professionals. A new cohort of LGBT cultural workers has emerged through economic and cultural convergence, bringing fan producers and writers from gay print into the networks. At the same time, with the increasing professionalization of digital media labor, boundary crossings associated with convergence have declined. The professional dispositions of Bravo's and Logo's cultural workers have informed programming strategies decentering LGBT-focused material. Besides commercial considerations, these developments reflect 'post-gay' integrationist discourses that also comprise mainstream narratives of gay identity. Furthermore, while digital media facilitates the targeting of specific audience segments, the expectation for web material to be "fluffy" militates against critical analysis at highly trafficked sites. Although social networking and crowdfunding platforms enable some content diversity, the potential of digital technologies is tempered by the interaction of norms for commercial online content with the habitus of key LGBT gatekeepers.

This study investigates the transitioning terms of lesbian visibility and identity in the distinctive spatio-temporal context of Northampton, Massachusetts in the 1980s. Drawing on interviews with a diversified sampling of lesbian-, bisexual-, and queer-identified participants, I consider the coalescing of two lesbian communal formations – a social community and a social audience – as mediating sites for the interrelations between subculture and dominant culture. Informed by the literatures and methods of queer theory, cultural studies, and feminist film criticism, I examine the 1980s queer crossover from lesbian subcultural separatism to mitigated assimilation by the end of the decade. The 1980s crossover was a constellation of interlocking factors manifested through the entrance into national visibility of gay liberatory and feminist politics, the incorporation of overt lesbian sexuality into Hollywood and independent films, and the surfacing of the conservative and feminist backlashes alongside “Reaganomics.” These converged in an anti-lesbian backlash produced in Northampton in the 1980s through the interrelations between the rapid revitalization of the city’s downtown and the increasing visibility and concentration of the lesbian population. The emergence into public visibility of a lesbian social community and a lesbian social audience in 1980s Northampton prefigured questions about the desirability of a goal of cultural assimilation for lesbian and gay people along with concerns about the role of consumption in the assimilative process that were to become important to LGBT politics in the 1990s and 2000s. In this project, I consider the multidimensional and conflictual aspects of assimilation as well as the gender-specificities of lesbian film consumption and the lesbian Sex Wars as part of the crossover from subcultural separatism to mitigated assimilation. In spite of the strides in the acceptance of the lesbian population in Northampton in the 1980s, I argue that such changes were laden with tensions negotiated through the contradictions between appearances of tolerance and acceptance versus experiences of discrimination and violence. The constellation of factors that manifested in the 1980s queer crossover provided symbolic materials not only for a realignment of lesbian subjectivity, but also for a realignment of heterosexual subjectivity.

<p> Employing a critical discourse analysis as a methodology, the study provides information into the intersection of male student development, video games, and two-year higher education institutions. Using a sample of 13 participants, this research study examines how male students at two year higher education instructions use video games to construct their masculinity. This study provides evidence that college men construct multiple definitions of masculinity by playing video games. Further, the benefits explored include academic and workplace strategies for success. Finally, opportunities for two year institutions to further engage this student population is included.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Paul Duncum. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 209-226) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.