"Obviously I'm not a dick, right?": positioning masculine identities on the mediated conversational floor of a television game show

Abstract

"In this essay the author will look at a group of four male students watching the dating and game show 'Take Me Out' and in this context analyze the construction of masculinities through conversational practice. The theoretical background of this study is provided by the analysis of media consumption as interaction on a 'mediated conversational floor' put forward by Helen Wood, and the positioning approach to gendered identities as developed by Neill Korobov and Micheal Bamberg. Synthesizing both perspectives he will approach the collected data to ask how the participants use the conversational frame of communal TV watching for positioning themselves; and in what way the recourse to masculinity, in relation to other features, becomes a significant object of these positionings. After starting with a further elaboration of this research question in the light of the mentioned theories, he will introduce the context and realization of the study. He will then go on to analyze selected sequences from the obtained data. Concludingly the author will summarize the results and briefly discuss their implications." (author's abstract)