Media as nexus of practice: remaking identities in What Not to Wear

• Published in: Discourse (Abingdon, England) Vol. 33; no. 4; pp. 545 - 560
• Main Authors: Wohlwend, Karen E., Medina, Carmen L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis Group 01-10-2012; Routledge; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: critical media curricula; Cultural identity; Decision Making Skills; Discourse analysis; Ethnicity; gender; globalization; Identification; identity revision; Learning processes; Mass media effects; Mass Media Role; mediated discourse analysis; Negative Attitudes; performance pedagogy; Popular Culture; Power Structure; Selection; Self Concept; Social Influences; Teaching methods; Teaching process; Television; Television programs
• ISSN: 0159-6306; 1469-3739
• DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2012.692961

In this conceptual piece, we examine media as a nexus of a traditional schooling pedagogy and performance pedagogy to make visible how their overlapping elements produce media's pervasive educative force but also to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of using media in educational contexts. Nexus analysis examines a fashion makeover television program - What Not to Wear (WNTW) - as an embodied lesson that produces identity revision but also disjunctures and slippages that enable critical responses and productive remakings. WNTW is a dramatization of remediation of one woman's (portrayed) lived practices and clothing choices which are read on her body as personal expression of fashion trends. These globalized lessons with body texts require new ways of reading and responding that allow learners/viewers to see the power relations that construct particular identity performances as errors and cultural practices and ethnicities as unacceptable.