Intersecting and competing discourses in Harvey Fierstein's Tidy endings

Cohen, Jodi R.

doi:10.1080/00335639109383952

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(13 reference statements)

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“…While The L Word may be considered a “feminine” text because the content and characters focus on lesbian, bisexual women, and female transgender individuals, the viewing audience was not strictly female or LGBTQ. Previous ethnographies about “queer” television or television with “queer” themes focused solely on meanings to the “queer” audience (Cohen, 1991; Malagreca, 2007) and those studies with feminine themes focused only on a female audience (Brown, 2004; Radway, 1987). This study builds upon critical feminist and queer ethnographies by exploring the negotiation of queer identities and queer media representation to an integrated socio-cultural audience.…”

Section: Fictional Television: Entertaining Negotiationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagining community: Visibility, bonding, and L Word audiences

Kern

2014

Sexualities

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This essay examines the ways in which L Word audiences engaged with each other, and used the text as a way to build community and find acceptance in hetero-normative privileged society. This is particularly apparent among marginalized sexual minorities: bisexual, transgender, older lesbians, and lesbians of color. Viewers found connection through representations, shared narratives, and discourse. The resulting imagined communities provided cultural visibility and worked to make all sexual and gender identifications accepted, visible, and safe.

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Section: Fictional Television: Entertaining Negotiationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagining community: Visibility, bonding, and L Word audiences

Kern

2014

Sexualities

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“…These are just a few of the important theoretical questions that concern all popular culture critics, and such questions will receive richer and more persuasive answers if critics are assisted by audience research. Of course, audience research should not be pursued to the exclusion of textual analysis-arguably the most interesting and persuasive studies combine both (see, e.g., Rarick, Duncan, Lee, & Porter, 1977;Cohen, 1991;Press, 1991). Indeed, Sonia Livingstone argues that both may be seen as "complementary and mutually challenging, each provoking the other to face neglected problems" (1991, p. 288).…”

Section: Theoretical and Argumentative Rationale For Audience Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Argumentative Burdens of Audience Conjectures: Audience Research in Popular Culture Criticism

Stromer‐Galley

Schiappa

1998

Commun Theory

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We define "audience conjectures" as claims about specific effects on audiences or claims describing the determinate meaning of a text for audiences. We note that audience conjectures are being advanced by rhetorical critics of popular culture texts without adequate evidence. Our thesis is that if critics make claims concerning the determinate meanings of the text or the effects those texts have on audiences, then the critic should support such claims with audience research. The essay begins with a theoretical and argumentative rationale for audience research. Next we note that audience research is an underutilized resource in rhetorical criticism that engages popular culture texts. We offer a series of examples of essays containing audience conjectures and provide an extended case study contrasting the audience conjectures in a text-centered criticism with audience interpretations gathered through focus group interviews. We conclude by noting three theoretical implications of our argument; namely, that wording in scholarly writing matters, that the lines between social scientific and humanistic research should be blurred, and that audience research enhances the connections between rhetorical and cultural studies.

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“…Such nce" have been fallaciously identified as liberating marginal groups, who may raise a multiplicity of voices in opposition to "the" voice affirming dominant culture. Indeed, the problems with considering resistant or oppositional readings of media texts as paths to or instances of political expression are becoming commonplace in the literature (Budd, Entman, & Steinman, 1990;Cohen, 1991a;Condit, 1989;Lembo & Tucker, 1990;Streeter, 1989;Wren-Lewis, 1983). Here, I will only summarize how the preoccupation with "resistant" and "oppositional" voices fails to meet the good intentions of those who embrace the concepts.…”

Section: Power and Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Grossberg (1986) points out, people "may win Only limited empowerment will ensue when minority voices are cast as something in the struggle against sexism and lose something in the struggle against economic exploitation; they may both gain and lose something economically; and while they lose ideological ground, they may win a bit of emotional strength" (p. 4). Cohen (1991a) illustrates the give and take of power in her study of how gay male television spectators actively resist oppressive heterosexual discourse, while simultaneously assuming a patriarchal discourse that is inimical to gay liberation.…”

Section: Power and Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Viewing and Participatory Democracy

Cohen

1994

Journal of Communication

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Contempora y critical cultural studies of audiences, through the language of "resistance, '' encourage political acts that are often reactiona y , evasive, and ra-trictive. m e language of "critical viewing, '' as it is employed in contempora y communication studies, although more inclusive in its recognition that all people have the potential to explore and promote diversity, is nevertheless as divorced from any direct relationship with participato y democratic lijie as is the language of resistance. mis essay attempts to realign the language of critical viewing with the goals of participato y democracy, by suggesting qua1itie.s of critical viewing that are conducive to achieving and maintaining social power in a democracy.Since Plato's distrust of the formal study of rhetoric, students of communication have held onto the view that "armed with knowledge of rhetoric, we are better able to combat demagoguery and chicanery; ignorant of it, we may stand powerless before them" (Hostettler, 1980, p. 340). The idea that understanding communication can he a form of social power thus continues to motivate socially conscious students of communication. In fact, much contemporary work within the field o f communication falls within the rubric of Cultural Studies, a multidisciplinary approach to culture that aims to understand the ways people can intervene in sociocultural processes and to further facilitate that intervention (C. Nelson, Treichler, & Grossberg, 1992). This paper, however, argues that many critical cultural studies of audiences in effect fail to promote the goals of participatory democracy and presents a case study of talk around the television in order to suggest an approach to critical viewing that is more meaningful to the reading, writing, and teaching of communication criticism.Many contemporary scholars believe that the ways audiences make Jodi R. Cohen is an associate professor in the Department o f Speech Communication at Ithaca College. The author wishes to thank Doty Owens from Ithaca College and several anonymous reviewers for their editorial assistance.

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Intersecting and competing discourses in Harvey Fierstein's Tidy endings

Cited by 14 publications

References 16 publications

Imagining community: Visibility, bonding, and L Word audiences

Imagining community: Visibility, bonding, and L Word audiences

The Argumentative Burdens of Audience Conjectures: Audience Research in Popular Culture Criticism

Critical Viewing and Participatory Democracy

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