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Name: Isabel Rentoul
Proposed Title of Research Project: A Critical Analysis of Depictions of Asexuality and Aromanticism in TV from 2010 to Present
Aims of the Research
I intend to research the depiction of asexuality and aromanticism (a-spec identities, to use the umbrella term) in film and TV, focusing on the extent to which these depictions reflect or challenge dominant societal beliefs about sex and relationships. The primary research question for this project is “How do societal attitudes impact depictions of asexuality and aromanticism in TV?” In order to answer this macro question, my research will address the following sub-questions:
Outcome
My intended outcome for this project is a written thesis synthesising analyses on how a-spec identities are depicted with insights from interviews with students. This will aim to identify attitudes towards a-spec people and how these attitudes are reflected in the media. This could potentially provide creatives with insights on the dominant narratives about a-spec identities in contemporary media and how these can be challenged in a positive way.
The Context
The relationship between media and the values of the society they are created in is a subject that has been widely discussed in academia, especially in how it relates to the portrayal of different social groups. Feminist writers such as van Zoonen ([1991] 2012) and Tuchman ([1978] 2012), as well as more general media theorists like Kellner (2015) have discussed at length how media “articulates the dominant values, political ideologies, and social developments and novelties of the era" that it is created in (Kellner, 2015, p.8) and the potential effects of this media ideology on audiences.
Within the field of media studies, queer theory has become a hugely influential approach to analysing media ideology. Beginning with discussions of early depictions of the LGBT+ community by writers in the 1980s like Dyer ([1983] 1993) and Russo (1986, quoted in Cooper, [2002] 2012, p.364), this has continued into present day with more recent analyses of contemporary representations of queerness. Much of this analysis focuses on how specific parts of the LGBT community are represented, such as Cooper’s ([2002] 2012) analysis of how Boys Don’t Cry depicts its transgender protagonist, or Farrell’s ([2006] 2015) analysis of how HIV positive gay men are portrayed in the TV show Queer as Folk.
There is very little academia written about a-spec identities compared to other parts of the LGBT+ community, compounding the lack of depiction of these identities in mainstream media. While in recent years there has been some increase in academic writing around these identities, such as Chen (2020), Brown (2022), and Young (2023), these texts largely focus on asexuality as opposed to aromanticism, leading to a noticeable blind spot in queer theory academia. Furthermore, with the exception of Sinwell (2014), there is almost nothing written specifically about how these identities are portrayed in mainstream media, meaning that the developments in the landscape of a-spec representation in the past decade have gone largely unexamined in detail.
I believe that this is a subject well worth researching, not only because the experiences of asexual and particularly aromantic people have so often gone unaddressed in academia, but also because it will provide a new lens through which to analyse media ideology, and expand our understanding of how media depicts gender and sexuality. A-spec identities inherently overlap greatly with other social and cultural issues, such as consent, hypersexualisation, desexualisation, race, gender, disability etc. As such, understanding attitudes to a-spec identities leads to a more complete understanding of these broader issues.
Proposed Methods
I will undertake my research through a combination of academic sources, analysis of contemporary TV shows, and firsthand interviews with students at Arts University Bournemouth and Bournemouth University.
I intend to perform my analysis through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods like content analysis will allow me to identify broad patterns across a large number of different media texts (Davis, 2008, p.57) such as the frequency of characters that are asexual, aromantic, or both, trends in how often a-spec characters are depicted as certain genders and races etc. I will then use qualitative analysis methods to analyse select case studies in further detail, as these methods are appropriate for “assessing the significance of particular ideas or meanings” (Jupp, 2006, p.297).
In addition, I aim to conduct primary research through a combination of interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires with students, to investigate their attitudes to and beliefs about a-spec identities, and how they respond to media depicting these identities. My plan is to organise screenings of certain case study episodes, which will then be followed by giving attendees the option to be part of a focus group discussing the screening, an individual interview discussing the screening, or to fill in a questionnaire about the screening. This will hopefully allow me to get a range of responses from people regardless of how confident they feel to speak in person or in a group setting.
Ethics
Conducting interviews around a sensitive topic like sexuality comes with a wide range of ethical implications. It is my responsibility to create an environment where participants feel able to speak freely on sensitive and personal issues, particularly in a focus group environment. I aim to achieve this by using “homogenous focus groups” – with one group being made up of participants who identify as a-spec and one group who do not (Jupp, 2006, p.121). This will have the further benefit of allowing me to make “inter-group comparisons” (Meyer, 2008, p.74) and gain a greater insight into how people’s personal experience affects their attitudes and their response to depictions of a-spec identities.
It is also vital that confidentiality is maintained and that participants have a full understanding of the benefits and risks of taking part, as participating will likely involve sharing sensitive personal information, for example about their sexual orientation or personal experiences. To avoid the dangers of outing participants or revealing private information about them, I will give participants the option to be pseudonymised in the thesis and and have any identifying information removed. This is in addition to storing their information securely so it can only be accessed via a password on the Arts University Bournemouth OneDrive.
Works Cited