Media as nexus of practice: remaking identities in What Not to Wear

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Date
2012-06-15
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Taylor and Francis
Abstract
In this conceptual piece, we examine media as a nexus of a traditional schooling pedagogy and performance pedagogy to make visible how their overlapping elements produce media's pervasive educative force but also to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of using media in educational contexts. Nexus analysis examines a fashion makeover television program – What Not to Wear (WNTW) – as an embodied lesson that produces identity revision but also disjunctures and slippages that enable critical responses and productive remakings. WNTW is a dramatization of remediation of one woman's (portrayed) lived practices and clothing choices which are read on her body as personal expression of fashion trends. These globalized lessons with body texts require new ways of reading and responding that allow learners/viewers to see the power relations that construct particular identity performances as errors and cultural practices and ethnicities as unacceptable.
Description
This is a preprint of an article submitted for consideration in the journal Discourse: Cultural Studies in the Politics of Education © 2012 Taylor & Francis.
Keywords
gender, globalization, critical media curricula, identity revision, performance pedagogy, mediated discourse analysis
Citation
Wohlwend, K. E., & Medina, C. L. (2012). Media as nexus of practice: Remaking identities in What Not to Wear. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 33(4), 545-560. doi: 10.1080/01596306.2012.692961
DOI
10.1080/01596306.2012.692961
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Article