En riktig he-man : Multimodal kritisk diskursanalys av genusnormer i Hotell Romantik

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines how gender norms are (re)produced in the series Hotell Romantik. The Swedish series Hotell Romantik portrays a new age group in reality TV, people over 65. According to previous research, ageism has permeated the media and affected the ways in which society views elders – by creating stereotypes and misconceptions about them. Gender and age are seldom studied together and therefore an interest emerged to investigate gender norms in a series about elders. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to understand how Hotell Romantik contributes to the (re)production of gender norms as well as to understand how the intersectional category age might be connected to gender (re)production. The research questions aim to deepen our understanding of older people and gender in order to avoid ageism and gender norms. To perform the analysis, a model – based on Yvonne Hirdman’s theories The Gender System and Making Gender, Roland Barthes’ theory on semiotics, Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, and ageism – was created. The steps included in the model are: (1) Goal-oriented sampling, (2) Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, (3) Identifying discourses, and (4) Discourses in relation to theory. The result indicates that two discourses (connected to two gender theories) were prominent in sequences highlighting both the participants and the hosts: the dominant male (the male as norm) and differences between men and women (separation between gender roles). This was made clear from the ways in which the participants spoke and acted. Neither the participants nor the hosts questioned when gender norms were clearly (re)produced. The result also indicated that an intersectional connection between the (re)production of gender norms and ageism (stereotypes) was present. Positive and negative stereotypes (about elders in media) were found in 6 out of 10 discourses (5 highlighting the participants and 1 highlighting the hosts). The positive stereotypes were:  active and leisure-oriented, and “the adventurous golden ager”. The negative stereotypes were: fragile and vulnerable, as well as difficult.