Edinburgh Research Archive logo

Edinburgh Research Archive

University of Edinburgh homecrest
View Item 
  •   ERA Home
  • Social and Political Sciences, School of
  • Sociology
  • Sociology thesis and dissertation collection
  • View Item
  •   ERA Home
  • Social and Political Sciences, School of
  • Sociology
  • Sociology thesis and dissertation collection
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

“But they’re gay though”: how LGBTQ+ audiences are queering contemporary drama

View/Open
Davenport2019.pdf (1.000Mb)
Date
08/07/2019
Author
Davenport, Alexandria Douglas
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
Previous research and the existing literature on LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender, Queer) representation in the media has neglected to examine how LGBTQ+ audiences are actively queering media in order to fill gaps in representation and to find relatable characters and experiences in the media they consume. While we have seen a rise in research looking at increased representation, especially on television, and the online presence of fans, including LGBTQ+ audiences and their reactions to media representation, and the results of queering media (or “messing up” media for their own purposes), we have failed to see a rise in research examining how audiences react to this lack of representation and how they come to queering. My contribution to the literature provides empirical evidence of how people are actively queering media. This study uses purposive snowball sampling to gather participants, and the combined methodologies of participant observation and in depth semi-structured interviews, which were carried out in Edinburgh, Brighton, and London from 2014 to 2016. The resulting thesis argues that LGBTQ+ audiences are queering contemporary drama to address a lack of representation and for their own personal enjoyment. We can understand their queering practises take the form of careers that progress through time, many of them reflecting major life changes and life stages, starting in adolescence and discovering their sexualities and gender identities, changing as they go away to university, and then again when they start or settle into adulthood. Their queering practices are done according to personal ethical guidelines, which prohibit practices they find taboo, but also maintaining intersectionality in representation and queering. Their practices are also emotional; allowing them to explore their identities and interpersonal relationships, as well as examine emotional events in their lives; this is not reflective of the previous assumption that fans are crazed, but that they experience a range of everyday emotions. Finally, they expand the domains of queering to expand representation beyond dyadic relationships, which dominate LGBTQ+ representation in the media, to include more romantic and sexual orientations such as aromatic, asexual, and polyamorous, as well as trans and non-binary identities. This study points to the need for continued research in this area to fully understand how and why LGBTQ+ audiences are queering media, and the need to broaden the exploration of queering outside of urban centres in the UK, and across all backgrounds and age groups.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/36048
Collections
  • Sociology thesis and dissertation collection

Related items

Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

  • Regulation and negotiation of queer subjectivities in post-Soviet Kazakhstan 

    Levitanus, Mariya (The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-27)
    There is a limited amount of academic research within social sciences investigating the experiences of queer people in post-Soviet Central Asian countries. My study aims to address this gap in the literature by focusing ...
  • Viscosity of stigma: media experiences, intersectionality, and the life-course of LGBTQ+ consumers 

    Nölke, Ana-Isabel (The University of Edinburgh, 2018-07-07)
    For six decades, consumer researchers have relied heavily on Goffman’s (1963) seminal work on stigma, often limiting themselves to a one-dimensional treatment of it as a static variable that determines the behaviour of ...
  • Shakespeare's fair youth behind the Iron Curtain: censorship of same-sex affection in Czech and Slovak sonnet translations 

    Spišiaková, Eva (The University of Edinburgh, 2018-11-26)
    Since the cultural turn and the publication of André Lefevere’s Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame (1992), the field of translation studies has increasingly focused on the question of ideological ...

Library & University Collections HomeUniversity of Edinburgh Information Services Home
Privacy & Cookies | Takedown Policy | Accessibility | Contact
Privacy & Cookies
Takedown Policy
Accessibility
Contact
feed RSS Feeds

RSS Feed not available for this page

 

 

All of ERACommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsPublication TypeSponsorSupervisorsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsPublication TypeSponsorSupervisors
LoginRegister

Library & University Collections HomeUniversity of Edinburgh Information Services Home
Privacy & Cookies | Takedown Policy | Accessibility | Contact
Privacy & Cookies
Takedown Policy
Accessibility
Contact
feed RSS Feeds

RSS Feed not available for this page