Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Although Mormons have been featured as characters in American media since the nineteenth century, the study of the performance of the Mormon religion has received limited attention.As Mormonism (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) continues to appear as an ever-growing topic of interest in American media, there is a gap in discourse that addresses the implications of performances of Mormon beliefs and lifestyles as performed by both members of the Church and non-believers.In this thesis, I closely examine HBO's Big Love television series, the LDS Church's "I Am a Mormon" media campaign, Mormon "Mommy Blogs" and the personal performance of Mormons in everyday life.By analyzing these performances through the lenses of Stuart Hall's theories of encoding/decoding, Benedict Anderson's writings on imagined communities, and H. L. Goodall's methodology for the new ethnography the aim of this thesis is to fill in some small way this discursive and scholarly gap.The analysis of performances of the Mormon belief system through these lenses provides an insight into how the media teaches and shapes its audience's ideologies through performance.iv For Caity and Emily.Story after story, idea after idea; she smiles, brews another cup of tea, and is ready for more.
Author: Lauren Zawistowski McCool
Institution: Bowling Green State University
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2597604453