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Sad affects and contemporary women's media: depression, anxiety, and neoliberal (post)feminism in the post-recessionary West
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Thelandersson, Anna Fredrika. Sad affects and contemporary women's media: depression, anxiety, and neoliberal (post)feminism in the post-recessionary West. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-7jqn-hv17

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TitleSad affects and contemporary women's media: depression, anxiety, and neoliberal (post)feminism in the post-recessionary West
NameThelandersson, Anna Fredrika (author); Bratich, Jack Z (chair); Dalbello, Marija (internal member); Chayko, Mary (internal member); Gill, Rosalind (outside member); Rutgers University; School of Graduate Studies
Date Created2020
Other Date2020-10 (degree)
SubjectSadness, Communication, Information and Library Studies
Extent1 online resource (xiii, 265 pages) : illustrations
DescriptionThis dissertation examines discourses of mental illness and sadness in women’s media culture during 2008-2018. It shows that there was an increase in conversations around mental illness in popular culture and on social media from 2015 and onwards. To understand what this increase looked like I examined three sites – women’s magazines, female celebrities, and social media – as purveyors of scripts for how we come to think about and experience mental health and illness. I conducted a textual analysis of the mental health coverage in the online editions of Cosmopolitan and Teen Vogue; a discourse analysis of first-hand confessions of mental illness by female celebrities; and online ethnography of communities that focus on these issues on social media.

This multi-methods approach revealed a multifaceted mental health awareness. Cosmopolitan tended to approach mental illness in a distanced and tongue-in-cheek way that acknowledges difficult topics but never veers too far into uncomfortable territory, exemplifying the “relatable” self that upholds the feeling rules of neoliberalism (Kanai, 2017; Gill and Kanai, 2018). Teen Vogue, in contrast, adopted a straightforward and earnest tone and frequently made connections between mental health and structural inequalities, with a recurring concern to provide support to their readers around issues of mental health. Among celebrities, my research shows that there was a move from media speculation about the state of female stars’ mental health, to them speaking out about diagnoses and experiences themselves. Here, increased confessions and firsthand accounts of living with mental illness can be traced to a larger shift in marketing strategies towards more relatability and intimacy. On social media, young women write about their sadness and mental illness diagnoses in a variety of ways. For some sad girl figures, the feeling-rules of neoliberalism are promoted. Others contest them explicitly while others are seeking precarious forms of solidarity. Regardless of the platforms, there is a key tension that runs through sad girl aesthetics and communities: there is a risk here of glorifying sadness and mental illness, but paradoxically in the very act of sharing one’s feelings online one also learns that one is not alone.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-7jqn-hv17
LanguageEnglish
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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