A Modern Family: The Performance of ;;Family;; and Familialism in ContemporaryTelevision Series.

Family on Television;Familialism;Fatherhood;Social History of the American Family;Women"s and Gender Studies;Communications;Humanities;Social Sciences;Communication

Fogel, Jennifer M.Morantz-Sanchez, Regina ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Family on Television;    Familialism;    Fatherhood;    Social History of the American Family;    Women";    s and Gender Studies;    Communications;    Humanities;    Social Sciences;    Communication;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/91389/fogelj_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation addresses the complexities inherent in contemporary television articulations of family life and organization that construct the discourse on the American family since the mid-1990s. In addition to surveying the history of a number of television genres, such as father-centered series, teen-oriented programming, multigenerational family series, and reality TV, the dissertation uses textual analysis to examine how television frames and constructs ;;the family,” while also attempting to locate this construction within larger political, social, and cultural contexts. I argue that the socio-cultural evolution and construction of parenthood, marriage, and childhood have led to alternative definitions of ;;family” in contemporary television programming; however, specific case studies indicate a seemingly resilient commitment to, or performance of, a particular familial idealism. Each chapter concludes with notable case studies that offer an in-depth examination of various depictions of families, the kinds of ;;family values” they promote, and the way they continue to perform familialism even as they depict modern-day familial realities. The goal of this dissertation was to provide a better understanding as to both why a mythic ;;ideal” family has inhabited our cultural consciousness for so long, and how recent television series offer a space to question the appropriateness, authenticity, and usefulness of the dominant familial ideology to the twenty-first century family. In the end, what it found was that even amidst a multitude of diverse sentiments and structures of families on television, the most successful images of family continue to be bound to a performance of familialism that reaffirms the values deeply rooted in the nuclear family.