Models as cultural intermediaries: a discourse analysis of the program Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model

• Main Author: Jones, Jenna
• Other Authors: Bookman, Sonia (Sociology)
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: discourse; cultural intermediary; modelling
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/23213

This thesis addresses the question of whether the participants of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model act as cultural intermediaries. There is a gap in the literature surrounding the role of participants in reality television programs. Through this analysis, I found the ability of the participant-models to act as cultural intermediaries on BINTM is limited because of their lack of experience, knowledge, and skills. Although they develop their skills throughout the program, they are unable to move up the entrenched hierarchy that exists in the program and that is actively maintained by the judges and other program participants. The participant-models’ positions are constantly challenged as they struggle to prove themselves as models. Methodologically, I undertake a discourse analysis of series eight of BINTM and include two other data sources to give my research greater context and validity. By drawing on the work of Bourdieu and more contemporary scholars of cultural intermediaries, I examine how the participant-models struggle to gain cultural capital and briefly act as cultural intermediaries before the authority and status of the judges is reasserted. In order to address issues related to gender, I also draw on the work of feminist scholars who have expanded on the work of Bourdieu. The hierarchy of the program brings to the surface how the ability to act as a cultural intermediary can best be understood in terms of a continuum, and an individual’s position on the continuum is constantly shifting depending on their ability to frame goods, their level of expertise, and their impact on others. In other words, the ability to act as a cultural intermediary changes depending on the level of acquired cultural capital. Based on my findings, I argue that all models are not cultural intermediaries; rather, only the models that have a high status, acknowledged expertise and level of legitimacy are able to act as cultural intermediaries.