Queering in the Years: Gay Visibility in the Irish Media, 1974-2008

This dissertation examines the queer visibility and discourses surrounding that visibility as they have unfolded on Irish television, film and alternative activist media between 1974 and 2008. The thesis argues that LGBT activists originally deployed media visibility for the liberatory potential of advancing LGBT rights. However, mainstream media institutions exploited queer identities for economic purposes; that, coupled with the eruption of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, disrupted the mainstreaming goals of queer visibility. This resulted in queer visibility becoming caught up in a shifting power dynamic, or as this thesis terms it, a tug-of-war, between Ireland’s LGBT community and media institutions. As this thesis will argue, the development of queer Irish media visibility was informed by local activism, legal changes, viral epidemics, international media influences along with the development of Ireland’s media landscape. The thesis traverses time periods, media forms and Queer and Media Studies theoretical frameworks to provide an overview of the dynamic of queer Irish visibility, pursuing connections across current affairs programming, documentary, chat shows, soap opera, television drama, film, magazines and broader print media. The methodology of this thesis is predominantly archival research, textual analysis and semi-structured interviews, a mixed-methods approach that uncovers the relationship between the proliferation of queer visibility and alternative queer media and the processes by which such media are produced. Using these forms and practices, the thesis will explore how varying Irish gay civil rights groups influenced the types of queer media images that manifested on screen and within their alternative media economies; how the changing social, cultural, economic and legal context of the historical period saw the transition of queer visibility from current affairs to narrativised, fictionalised representations and illuminate how queer Irish visibility transformed from localised activism to aspirational attempts of participating in a global media economy.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Kerrigan, Páraic

Language dc:language

en