My project will be tackling the research question “How do societal attitudes impact depictions of asexuality and aromanticism in TV?” I believe this research is necessary due to the lack of discussion of the asexual and aromantic spectrums in academia. These groups and their experiences are highly underrepresented in both popular media and in academia, and I believe it is important to bring these perspectives into the light. By understanding asexual and aromantic perspectives, we can gain a more complete understanding of issues such as consent, hypersexualisation, desexualisation, race, gender, and disability.
My goals with this research project are to develop a greater understanding of asexual and aromantic experiences, as well as a greater understanding of media ideology and how it relates to depictions of these identities. I hope to achieve this through three main objectives: identifying dominant societal beliefs about sex and relationships, analysing whether media tends to reflect or challenge these beliefs, and investigating how media impacts people’s beliefs. This will be done through a combination of textual/thematic analysis of depictions of asexuality/aromanticism, and primary research through focus groups and interviews.
Resources needed: Transcription software – Adobe Premiere
