Making Black Motherhood (In)Visible: The Importance of Race, Gender, and Nation in the Mediation of Meghan Markle on Instagram

TY - JOUR

T1 - Making Black Motherhood (In)Visible: The Importance of Race, Gender, and Nation in the Mediation of Meghan Markle on Instagram

AU - Ward, Jon

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Organization for Research on Women and Communication. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/6/22

Y1 - 2021/6/22

N2 - This article examines Black motherhood within digital media and how the cultural mediation of Meghan Markle’s pregnancy and motherhood online can be understood. In considering the cultural meaning(s) attached to the Duchess of Sussex, this article uses visual semiotic and discourse analyses of @SussexRoyal Instagram posts to examine how the incursion of a Black woman into the British royal family reveals some of the anxieties that circulate around race, gender, and the nation-state in British popular culture. It also examines the ways in which these anxieties are, in part, managed by the illusion of intimacy or access constructed through social media, which obfuscates the bounded division between the British public and the monarchy.

AB - This article examines Black motherhood within digital media and how the cultural mediation of Meghan Markle’s pregnancy and motherhood online can be understood. In considering the cultural meaning(s) attached to the Duchess of Sussex, this article uses visual semiotic and discourse analyses of @SussexRoyal Instagram posts to examine how the incursion of a Black woman into the British royal family reveals some of the anxieties that circulate around race, gender, and the nation-state in British popular culture. It also examines the ways in which these anxieties are, in part, managed by the illusion of intimacy or access constructed through social media, which obfuscates the bounded division between the British public and the monarchy.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85108261916

U2 - 10.1080/07491409.2021.1912532

DO - 10.1080/07491409.2021.1912532

M3 - Article

SN - 2152-999X

VL - 44

SP - 231

EP - 251

JO - Women's Studies in Communication

JF - Women's Studies in Communication

IS - 2

ER -