Monson, Olivia; Donaghue, Ngaire and Gill, Rosalind. 2016. Working hard on the outside: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of The Biggest Loser Australia. Social Semiotics, 26(5), pp. 524-540. ISSN 1035-0330 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

The Biggest Loser (TBL) is a reality television weight-loss programme that positions itself as a response to the so-called "obesity crisis". Research on TBL has thus far focussed on audience responses and its effect on viewers' beliefs about weight loss. This article focuses instead on how meaning is constructed in TBL. We conducted a multimodal critical discourse analysis of a key episode of TBL (the 2012 Australian season finale) to examine how the textual, visual and auditory elements combine to construct meanings beyond the ostensible health messages. Although the overt message is that all contestants have worked hard, turned their lives around and been "successful", examination of editing choices, lighting and colour, clothing and time spent on contestants allows us to see that the programme constructs varying degrees of success between contestants and provides accounts for these differences in outcomes. In this way the programme is able to present itself as a putative celebration of all contestants while prescribing narrow limits around what constitutes success. TBL reinforces an ideology in which "success" is a direct result of "the work" of weight loss (both physical and emotional), which can apparently be read straightforwardly off the body. TBL's "celebration" of weight loss thus reproduces and strengthens the widespread view of fat bodies as physical manifestations of individual (ir)responsibility and psychological dysfunction, and contributes to the ongoing stigmatisation of obesity.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2015.1134821
Additional Information:	"This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Social Semiotics on 17/01/2016, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2015.1134821. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited."
Keywords:	The Biggest Loser, obesity, fat studies, reality television, multimodal critical discourse analysis
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Institute for Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship (ICCE)
Dates:	Date Event 17 January 2016 Published Online 2016 Published
Item ID:	37626
Date Deposited:	26 Sep 2024 10:45
Last Modified:	26 Sep 2024 11:12
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/37626

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