University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/77130 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Becoming Stardolls: Untangling Postfeminist and Romantic Childhood (re)Positionings in Tween Girlhood By Isobel Charlotte Gutteridge A thesis submitted to the University of Warwick for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Warwick, Department of Sociology April 2015 iii Contents Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2. Childhood, Girlhood and Tween Culture .............................................. 17 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 17 2.2. Theoretical framework: Romantic discourses of childhood ....................... 19 2.2.1. Contemporary childhood and the death of childhood discourses ....... 23 2.3. Theoretical framework: postfeminism, neoliberalism and contemporary discourses of girlhood ........................................................................................... 26 2.3.1. Postfeminist and neoliberal theoretical framework ............................ 27 2.3.2. Contemporary girlhood ........................................................................ 33 2.3.3. Moral panics and contemporary girlhood: The sexualisation of girls and the commercialisation of childhood ................................................................. 38 2.4. Defining ‘the tween’ and tween culture ..................................................... 56 2.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 67 Chapter 3. Digital childhoods and digital girlhoods ............................................... 69 3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 69 3.2. Digital culture and childhood ...................................................................... 69 3.2.1. Technologisation of childhood ............................................................. 70 3.2.2. Children ‘at risk’ online ........................................................................ 72 iv 3.2.3. Digital Natives ...................................................................................... 78 3.2.4. Conclusion: digital childhoods ............................................................. 81 3.3. Mapping children’s use of the Internet ...................................................... 82 3.4. Digital girlhood studies ............................................................................... 84 3.4.1. Commercial tween spaces online ........................................................ 85 3.4.2. Defining aged and gendered spaces online ......................................... 87 3.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 90 Chapter 4. Introduction to case studies: Stardoll, The Ugly Side of Stardoll and Miley Cyrus ............................................................................................................. 92 4.1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 92 4.2. Stardoll: ‘fame, fashion and friends’ ........................................................... 92 4.3. The Ugly Side of Stardoll ........................................................................... 101 4.4. Tween celebrity case study Miley Cyrus ................................................... 103 4.1. Girls’ fandom ............................................................................................. 107 4.2. Digital fandom ........................................................................................... 110 4.3. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 112 Chapter 5. Methodology ...................................................................................... 113 5.1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 113 5.2. Situating research online .......................................................................... 114 5.3. Rationale for case studies ......................................................................... 115 v 5.4. Research design: combining the cultural analysis of websites and ethnographic traditions ...................................................................................... 119 5.4.1. Stage One: Immersion in digital spaces ............................................. 119 5.4.2. Stage Two: Systematic data collection ............................................... 123 5.4.3. Archiving Stardoll and the Ugly Side of Stardoll opportunities and challenges ....................................................................................................... 125 5.4.4. Organisation and presentation of data .............................................. 128 5.5. Ethical considerations in online spaces ..................................................... 129 5.5.1. Online social research ........................................................................ 129 5.5.2. Ethics: researching children’s cultural spaces .................................... 136 5.6. Analytic methods ...................................................................................... 137 5.6.1. Media studies approach ..................................................................... 138 5.6.2. Analytic tools ..................................................................................... 145 5.7. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 147 Chapter 6. (De) Constructing Stardolls: Interrogating the Construction of Tween Culture and Discourses of Tween Girlhood on Stardoll .......................................... 149 6.1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 149 6.2. Digital bedroom culture on Stardoll ......................................................... 151 6.2.1. Stardoll’s tween target audience ....................................................... 151 6.2.1. Digitalising bedroom culture: Stardoll’s uses of established offline girl culture ........................................................................................................... 154 vi 6.2.2. The ‘pinkification’ of tween girlhood: a semiotic analysis of Stardoll 157 6.2.3. Embedded consumer culture on Stardoll: signifying tween spaces .. 162 6.3. Becoming Stardolls: tween femininity on Stardoll .................................... 168 6.3.1. Becoming Stardolls: consumer based play and the construction of tween identity on Stardoll .............................................................................. 169 6.3.2. Creating a participatory celebrity culture on Stardoll: The ‘celebritisation’ of the tween self ................................................................... 177 6.3.3. The Can Do Girls: education and career opportunities on Stardoll ... 190 6.3.4. Stardoll’s tween girlhood: discourses of Girl Power and Becoming Stardolls .......................................................................................................... 197 6.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 200 Chapter 7. Commanding Representations of Cyrus: Counter Discursive Speech Modes on Stardoll’s Starblog .................................................................................. 202 7.1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 202 7.2. Stardoll’s representation of Cyrus through their Starblog articles ........... 205 7.2.1. Cyrus as Disney Tween Starlet: September 2008 – September 2009 207 7.2.2. Quiet period December 2009 to March 2012 .................................... 211 7.2.3. Romance: Cyrus as girlfriend and fiancée: November 2009 – March 2013 ........................................................................................................... 216 7.2.4. The governance of ‘tween speech’ through the Starblog articles on Cyrus ........................................................................................................... 222 vii 7.3. Counter discourses of Cyrus: Unpacking representations of Cyrus in the girls’ comment threads ....................................................................................... 226 7.3.1. The articulation and use of Cyrus’ sexuality in the girls’ comments .. 229 7.3.2. Tweens articulating ‘tween speech’ .................................................. 251 7.4. Conclusion: Governing wholesome representations of Cyrus .................. 259 Chapter 8. Stardoll’s ‘Safe Haven’: Negotiating Risk Understanding, Management and Responsibility ................................................................................................... 262 8.1. Introduction .............................................................................................