Award Date

5-1-2022

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies

First Committee Member

Kevin Stoker

Second Committee Member

Christopher Harris

Third Committee Member

Linda Dam

Fourth Committee Member

Julian Kilker

Fifth Committee Member

Tiberio Garza

Number of Pages

72

Abstract

This study observed the ways Black females on Instagram perform sociopolitical humor online to push back against the dominant culture in this digital age – maintaining the Black comedy tradition. It explores and illuminates the strategies of resistance exhibited by Instagram comediennes through a textual analysis informed by minor discourse, intersectionality, and critical feminist theories. Each comic’s personae were investigated and their content on Instagram was randomly selected and coded then grouped into themes. Black insta-comediennes shared Black feminist thought, modified beliefs about Black females or conventionality, and negotiated with the industrial demands of show business to earn subjectivity on Instagram and their actions revealed how the platform is uniquely adjacent to mainstream media. This gave Black women room to forward Black women's epistemology in cyberspace to ultimately subvert negative stereotypes of Black women and give voice to the modern Black female experience – with millions of views.

Keywords

Black comedy; comic personae; feminist humor; Instagram; intersectionality; minor discourse

Disciplines

Broadcast and Video Studies | Journalism Studies

File Format

pdf

File Size

780 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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