Keeping Up With The Gay Bestfriend: A critical discourse analysis of women-LGBTQ relationships on reality show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians"

Malicdem, M. M. L. T. (2017). Keeping Up With The Gay Bestfriend: A critical discourse analysis of women-LGBTQ relationships on reality show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication.

Abstract

This study analyzed the semiotic framing of the show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” towards the interaction within women-LGBTQ relationships. The theoretical inquiry of this study is how discourses on women-LGBTQ relationships are mediated in mainstream reality television. Specifically, if the portrayal of women and LGBTQ characters, individually and together, in hit reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians (2007 – present) really do reflect reality. By analyzing how the select characters reinforced their genders and formed their relationship, the study looked at how constructed realities in television compare and contrast against the realities within the present social system. As a study on representation, the researcher employed textual analysis which looked at episodes from the first to the latest season wherein the selected characters had significant interaction. This was also done in order to describe and analyze reality television’s portrayal of women-LGBTQ relationships and its accuracy. Critical Discrouse Analysis was used as the skeleton theory tied up with Judith Butler’s Gender Performativity and F. de Saussure’s Structural Semiotics.

Keywords: women, LGBTQ, gender relationships, reality television, textual analysis

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