The representation of gender and emotion in docusoaps

The representation of gender and emotionality in the major public media has long been the subject of much discussion and research. This thesis sets out to assess the impact on this field of representations of docusoaps, a television programme form, which by crossing generic boundaries has the potential to unpick the ties binding the chain of dichotomies that organise everyday mental maps around the binary oppositions between male/female, reason/emotion, rational/irrational, and public sphere/private sphere. This question is explored in four main ways; historical and theoretical research on changing concepts of gender and emotionality; contextual research on the origins and development of docusoaps as a genre; detailed textual analyses of the organisation of meaning in three programmes chosen to represent the major sub genres of contemporary docusoaps; and explorations of audience understandings and responses to these programmes using focus group methodology.