Art 610 Research Dissertation
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The schizoid construction of Miley Cyrus: Reframing media sexualisation discourse and media effects on children Haylee Nicole Ruwaard This thesis is presented as part of the requirements for the Masters Degree in Communications Management at Murdoch University 2017 DECLARATION I declare that this dissertation is my own account of my personal research and contains as its main content work which has not been previously submitted for a degree at a university or other tertiary institution ________________________________ Haylee Ruwaard 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the media sexualisation debate in Australia and the potential effects that sexualisation has on children’s identity formation. It analyses pop culture images via semiotics, to gauge the subjectivity inherent in the media’s representation of identities. Via the theoretical work of Rosi Braidotti, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, this thesis locates an emerging human equipped with multiple identity subjectivities, surpassing the limits of the organic body. Subsequently, the body that is dangerously sexualised is only one potential signification among many, that exist simultaneously within texts. This research questions societal concerns about the impact of sexualised media on children’s identities. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Kathryn Trees for her guidance during the process of completing this thesis. Kathryn helped me to develop my ideas and provided me with so much encouragement during the writing process. Her writing and thesis structure tips will be forever etched in my mind. A special thanks goes to my four-year-old son Arloe, who continually inspires me to better myself everyday. I will never forget his patience as I completed this project. Thank you Craig for listening to me go on about my ideas as I tried to make sense of my research. Also a big thank you to my mother Vicki, who helped me with Arloe when I was on deadline. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................6 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................17 1.1 DEFINING KEY TERMS ...................................................................................................17 1.2 QUANTITATIVE STUDIES: SEXUALISED MUSIC CULTURE.............................................20 1.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF SEXUALISED MEDIA CONSUMPTION ...........................23 1.4 GIRLS AS CRITICAL AND SOPHISTICATED MEDIA CONSUMERS ..................................24 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY...............................................................................29 2.1 SEMIOTICS: DEFINITION AND HISTORY ........................................................................29 2.2 FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE ...........................................................................................30 2.3 CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE ..........................................................................................31 2.4 ROLAND BARTHES ........................................................................................................33 2.5 SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THREE SEMIOTIC SCHEMES....................................................35 CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS ........................................................................................37 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................37 3.1 DENOTATION ................................................................................................................38 3.2 CONNOTATION .............................................................................................................40 3.2.1 The gender fluid body.............................................................................................40 3.2.2 The sexualised-infant and sexualised-infantilised-woman ....................................45 3.2.3 The post-human and the cyborg.............................................................................48 3.3 MYTH.............................................................................................................................51 3.3.1 The becoming machine and body without organs ..................................................53 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................57 CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSION.....................................................................................58 4.1 MORAL PANICS AND HUMANISM ................................................................................58 4.2 SUBJECTIVITY AND POSTMODERNISM ..........................................................................60 4.3 THE POST-HUMAN AND NOMADIC SUBJECTIVITIES ....................................................63 4.4 PANOPTICISM AND DOCILE BODIES .............................................................................66 4.5 GAPS IN RESEARCH AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT ....................................................69 CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................72 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................76 APPENDICIES......................................................................................................................80 5 Introduction Whether increasingly sexualised images of people in the media are harmful to young people’s sense of themselves, has been contested by parents, academics, psychologists and others since the new millennium. Academics alarmed by what they identify as dangers of these images, have spurred multiple moral panic discourses. Yet simultaneously, other academics have critiqued the moral panics, creating a division; for instance between some in psychology and media studies. Differences of opinion signal the need for further research, to examine and understand the effects of sexualised images on young people’s identity formation. Currently, the effects remain unclear. Moral panics and media sexualisation The debate surrounding media effects of the sexualisation of children in Australia, was intensified when public policy research group The Australian Institute (AI), released a report in 2006 named Corporate Paedophilia: The sexualisation of children in Australia. ‘Corporate Paedophilia’ is a metaphor coined in 1995 by The Australian columnist Phillip Adams, to describe the selling of products to children before they can understand the advertising, and consent to the process of corporate led consumption (Rush and La Nauze 2006, 11). The metaphor draws a parallel between two things: the use of children for adults’ sexual pleasure and corporate use of children to financially benefit adults (Rush and La Nauze 2006, 11). 6 By conducting a content analysis of images across three types of cultural material, advertising (print and television), magazines and television programs (including music videos), researchers produced evidence that children are being sexualised at increasingly younger ages (Rush and La Nauze 2006, 7). They cited concern with the pressure on girls under 12 years to adopt certain forms of adult sexuality (Rush and La Nauze 2006, 11). The analysis revealed that girls are sexualised to a greater degree than boys. The report noted that in the past, sexualisation occurred through exposure to representations of teenagers and adults in popular culture (Rush and La Nauze 2006, 11). However, Rush and La Nauze (2006, 11) found children were directly sexualised through modelling adult sexual behaviour, across media platforms, using clothing, accessories, long hair and cosmetics. Affrica Taylor (2010, 50), whose research focuses on geographies of education and childhood, identified that as marketers increasingly target children and as media becomes increasingly important in their lives, sexualisation has a compounding effect. The AI report galvanised public recognition and was immediately criticised by several sources. The report used images from David Jones’ advertising to highlight its claim that sexualisation of children is damaging. David Jones responded by threatening to sue Clive Hamilton, the director of the AI, over its use of images from David Jones to claim that advertising eroticised and exploited children (Taylor 2010, 50). David Jones later dropped the case. 7 Competing opinions led to the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) debating the issue on the show Bratz, bras and tweens and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Sex sells – but at what cost to our kids? (Taylor 2010, 50). Channel 9’s Sixty Minutes program aired Little Women and Channel 9’s nightly show aired the Sexualisation of Children (Taylor 2010, 50). Taylor (2010, 50) pointed out, an online public lobby campaign called Kids Free 2B Kids launched by Melbourne mother Julie Gale, emerged in 2007. The lobby group succeeded in pressuring the Government to launch a senate inquiry called The Sexualisation of Children in the Contemporary Media in 2008. The senate committee’s report recommended further research and increased education (Taylor 2010, 50). In 2010, a sequel paper by the authors of the AI report, Let Children Be Children: Stopping the sexualisation of Australian children, was released (Taylor 2010, 49). According to Taylor (2010, 51), media and journalism academic Catherine