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Media discourse analysis of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (journalist)

You are expected to apply key concepts from the following 5 chapters in your essay:
1. Narrative Structure and Binary Oppositions
2. Why Stories?
3. Feminism, Postfeminism, and Ideologies of Femininity
4. Ethnicity, Ideology, and the Media
5. Postmodernism
You are expected to structure your analysis into 3 sections (following an introduction and
before a conclusion):
1. (Structuring of the AOC) Narrative & Story
2. (AOC and Representations of) Gender / Ethnicity
3. (Mediatized Politics and) Postmodernism
Feel free to use sub-headings to organize your analysis. Your final essay should take the form
of a highly structured essay. If section-breaks help you do this, fine.
Please note while your analysis can concentrate on one narrative about AOC (either that
she is a force for good or the very opposite), it must acknowledge both sides of the media
firestorm around her. This is not purely an opinion piece it should critically analyze why AOC
is such a powerful symbol for both those who admire her and those who detest her.
2
You are recommended to pay attention to the following core concepts, applying those that
best allow you to critically analyze AOC media discourse:
Narrative:
– Narrative
– Structuralism (Binary Oppositions)
– Narrative Structure
– Structural Position of Characters in Narratives (6 questions to ask)
– Transmedia
– Emergent vs. Planned Transmedia
– Transmedia storytelling (news, marketing)
Stories:
– Morphology (7 spheres of action)
– Myth
– Monomyth (the heros journey)
– 7 basic plots (story archetypes)
Gender:
– biological essentialism
– social construction of gender
– gender politics (patriarchy; misogyny)
– feminism (3 or 4 waves)
– postfeminism
– performing gender
– queer
Ethnicity:
– race/racism
– ethnicity
– structuring absence (vs. misrepresentation)
– shadow history of the west
– orientalism / othering
Postmodernism:
– public screen (vs. public sphere)
– hyper-real(ity)
– postmodernism as cultural production (mediatization & simulacra)
– characteristics of postmodernism (irony; knowingness; cynicism; powerlessness;
pleasure; intertextuality-pastiche-appropriation-bricolage)
3
Please note you are not expected to address every one of these above concepts. It is
unfeasible to do so within the time and space constraints of this final essay. You choose which
elements of these you wish to highlight to make your own original point-of-view and analytical
sophistication shine through.
Key Ponderables for the Essay
Apart from listing concepts, some overall questions may help focus your analysis:
1. How can we understand the narrative structure of media coverage regarding AOC?
2. How does the AOC narrative take shape (who is guiding it; who are the main drivers of
action; how are audiences discursively positioned and interpellated you know, the questions
we can ask of any narrative)?
3. How is the AOC story constructed across media platforms, driving audience engagement
(using new media platforms and strategies)?
4. What is the morphology of the AOC (mythic) narrative? How can we identify Propps
spheres of action operating to drive this narrative forward?
5. Can we analyze AOC according to the monomyth?
6. How are audience members (wither followers or haters) encouraged to see themselves as
part of the AOC narrative?
7. Which story archetype helps fashion our understanding of AOC?
8. What binary oppositions and stereotypes fuel the dramatic nature of this narrative
(especially with regards to gender and ethnicity)?
9. Is politics (or media culture, in general) hyper-real in contemporary times?
10. How are AOC memes (both by fans and anti-fans) characteristically postmodern (using
topes such as irony, pastiche, parody, etc)? Do these contribute to the truth or the truthiness
of AOC?