A Critical Discourse Analysis of the “Secret Life of Girls”
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Gender in Commercial Radio in New Zealand: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the “Secret Life of Girls” Stephanie Mearns A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy 2013 School of Communication Studies Table of Contents Attestation of Authorship ............................................................................................. 8 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 9 Abstract ...................................................................................................................... 10 Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................... 11 Purpose ............................................................................................................... 11 Context: The New Zealand Radio Environment .................................................... 11 Deregulation and Rogernomics ........................................................................ 11 Deregulating the Radio Industry ....................................................................... 12 The Radio Industry Today ................................................................................. 12 Women in New Zealand Radio ......................................................................... 14 My Experience of the New Zealand Radio Industry .............................................. 15 Studying Gender in New Zealand Radio ............................................................... 16 Overview of This Thesis........................................................................................ 16 Chapter Two: Literature Review .................................................................................. 20 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 20 Critical Studies and Political Economy .................................................................. 21 Political Economy and Feminism .......................................................................... 22 Gender Studies and Feminism.............................................................................. 23 The Waves........................................................................................................ 24 Postfeminism ................................................................................................... 27 “Sex” and “Gender” Today ............................................................................... 29 Gender and Language Research in New Zealand .................................................. 30 Gender and the Media ......................................................................................... 31 2 The Historic Context of Gender and Media Studies .......................................... 31 Gender Representation in the Media Today ..................................................... 32 Media Pleasures ............................................................................................... 33 Consumption, Media, and Gender ....................................................................... 34 Consumer Capitalism........................................................................................ 34 Consumption, Advertising, and Gender ............................................................ 35 Consumption, Appearance, and Gender: Critical Concerns ............................... 36 Gender and the Media in New Zealand Academe ................................................ 37 Radio ................................................................................................................... 38 Contemporary Radio Research ......................................................................... 38 Radio Talk......................................................................................................... 40 Radio Research in New Zealand ........................................................................ 41 Gender and Radio ............................................................................................ 42 Gender and New Zealand Commercial Radio .................................................... 44 Delimitations of Study.......................................................................................... 45 Literature Review Concluding Remarks ................................................................ 46 Chapter Three: Methodology ...................................................................................... 47 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 47 Choosing Critical Discourse Analysis ..................................................................... 47 The Critical Paradigm ....................................................................................... 48 Qualitative Research ........................................................................................ 49 Discourse Analysis, Media and Gender ............................................................. 50 Discourse Analysis, Media Effects and Audiences ............................................. 51 Choosing Fairclough’s Social Theory of Discourse ............................................. 52 Key Terms in a Social Theory of Discourse ........................................................ 53 3 Fairclough’s Social Theory of Discourse: Three Levels .......................................... 54 Text .................................................................................................................. 54 Discursive Practice ........................................................................................... 55 Social Practice .................................................................................................. 57 Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis ...................................................................... 59 Critical Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis .......................................... 61 Critiques of Critical Discourse Analysis and Fairclough ......................................... 62 Critical Discourse Analysis and New Zealand Radio .............................................. 64 “Doing Discourse Analysis” .................................................................................. 65 Chapter Four: Data Analysis ........................................................................................ 66 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 66 Isolating the Data .................................................................................................... 67 ZM.................................................................................................................... 67 The Secret Life of Girls ...................................................................................... 69 Isolating the Sample ......................................................................................... 71 Discourse as Text ..................................................................................................... 73 Setting the Scene ................................................................................................. 73 Polly Kicks Out the Boys ................................................................................... 73 A Women’s Space............................................................................................. 75 The Title “Secret Life of Girls” ........................................................................... 76 Girls and Youthfulness ...................................................................................... 76 Directing the Feature ........................................................................................... 77 Polly in Control: As Host ................................................................................... 77 Polly’s Politeness: As Hostess ........................................................................... 79 Contributions ....................................................................................................... 80 4 Girl Talk and Chat ............................................................................................. 80 “You” ............................................................................................................... 82 Synthetic Personalisation ................................................................................. 83 Advice .............................................................................................................. 84 Hedging ............................................................................................................ 86 High Modality ................................................................................................... 87 Commercial Discourse ...................................................................................... 89 Scripts .............................................................................................................. 90 SmartBalls: A Crux................................................................................................ 93 SmartBalls and Fairclough’s Cruces .................................................................. 93 Conventional Secret Life of