Publication Date

5-2014

Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)

3-19-2014

Type of Culminating Activity

Thesis

Degree Title

Master of Arts in Communication

Department

Communication

Supervisory Committee Chair

John McClellan, Ph.D.

Supervisory Committee Member

Natalie Nelson-Marsh, Ph.D.

Supervisory Committee Member

Julie Lane, Ph.D.

Abstract

This study examines presentations of women in the media through Foucauldian critical discourse analysis in order to explore dominant ideas of gender and femininity embedded within D/discourses that constrain the lived experiences of women. Specifically, this study explores the television show Girls as a text presenting particular knowledge of femininity. By engaging in an interpretive analysis of the ways femininity is presented in both public and private presentations of gender in Girls, I reveal how women make sense of past and negotiate future public performances of femininity in private. Further, I deconstruct a specific scene of Girls to reveal hidden meanings of femininity and expose how performing docility conforms with normalized expectations of being a woman. This study uses a poststructural feminist lens to critically inspect the suppressed meanings of gender within the text of Girls and offers hope for opening up multiple meanings of femininity within the D/discourses of gender and media.

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