Date of Award
5-2005
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
Sociology
Department
Sociology
Major Professor
Jenkins, Pamela
Second Advisor
Luft, Rachel
Third Advisor
Mann, Susan
Fourth Advisor
Baxter, Vern
Abstract
In this paper, I expand on poststructuralist and feminist theories of the body, gender, and subjectivity through an analysis of media discourse on childhood obesity. Through textual and narrative analyses of news segments on childhood obesity, I demonstrate that the obese child's body, as an abnormal body, is represented as a text of the 'abnormal' conditions in which that body is produced. Thus, the single-mother family structure and/or nonwhite and working class families -- families saturated with the excessive, out-of-control subjectivity of the Other-- are visible on the excessive, out-ofcontrol body of the obese child. I will argue that the discourse surrounding childhood obesity is indicative of a moral panic, where children's bodies are used to express a fear of the destabilization of the normative family structure and a fear of an irrational, excessive, over-consuming society saturated with the subjectivity of the Other.
Recommended Citation
Chatelain, Elise, "The Discursive Production of Subjectivity in Television News: Reflecting the Other on the Obese Child's Body" (2005). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 221.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/221
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.