Talking White Trash

Mediated Representations and Lived Experiences of White Working-Class People
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-138-48634-8
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 170 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 409 g

Reihe: Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives

Talking White Trash documents the complex and interwoven relationship between mediated representations and lived experiences of white working-class people—a task inspired by the author’s experiences growing up in a white working-class family and neighborhood and how she came to understand herself through watching films and television shows.

The increasing presence of white working-class people in media, particularly within the genre of reality television, and their role in fueling the unprecedented rise of Donald Trump, has made this population a central subject of U.S. cultural discourse. Rather than relying solely on analyses of mediated portrayals, Dunn makes use of personal narratives, interviews, focus groups, textual analysis, and critical autoethnography to specifically analyze how popular media articulates certain ideas about white working-class people, and how those who identify as members of this population, including herself, negotiate such articulations.

Dunn’s work provides alternative stories that are rarely, if ever, found in popular media—stories that feature the varied reactions and lived experiences of white working-class people; stories that talk to, talk with, and talk back to mediated representations and dominant cultural ideas; stories that illuminate the multidimensionality of a population that is often portrayed in one-dimensional ways; stories that move inside and outside the white working-class to better understand their role within, and influence upon, U.S. culture.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dunn, Tasha R.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Empirische Sozialforschung, Statistik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Introduction. Mediated Buffoons as Political Stakeholders: Welcome to the White Working-Class

Chapter 1. Becoming "White Trash": The Formation and Historical Mediated Representations of the White Working-Class

Chapter 2. Digging in the "Trash": Contemporary Mediated Representations of White Working-Class People

Chapter 3. From Insider to Insider/Outsider: An Autoethnographic Account of Returning to My Working-Class Roots

Chapter 4. "It’s Like Watching a Car Accident": When the Lived and Mediated Experiences of White Working-Class People Intersect

Conclusion. Taking Out the "Trash": A New Beginning for the White Working-Class

Index

About the Author

Über Autor(innen)

Tasha R. Dunn, Ph.D. is a scholar and professor of communication. Her research addresses the relationship between mediated representations and lived experiences, with a particular focus on qualitative inquiry, critical/cultural studies, popular culture, performance studies, whiteness, class, and gender.