The use of media in constructing identities in the masculine environment of men’s prisons

This article explores the importance of media forms and content within a unique context: the prison. Although - in common with other studies of media use among prisoners - it is inspired by the uses and gratifications tradition, this study refines and develops the approach, synthesizing it with Giddens's theory of structuration and Bourdieu's notion of habitus in order to understand not only patterns of media consumption in prisons, but also to gain insight into the relationship between media, identity and power. Structuration theory is viewed as an important counter to the prison deprivation literature, the central tenet of which is that imprisonment is an inherently painful and dehumanizing experience during which the prisoner suffers a series of deprivations that fundamentally weaken his or her sense of identity. While this study supports the view that prisons are essentially mortifying environments, it nevertheless endorses Giddens's belief that subordinates are never entirely powerless even in the most bounded of locales. Indeed, this article presents evidence to show that the mass media provide a key source of empowerment for the confined, offering a range of material from which they can create new identities or maintain pre-existing identities, explore their inner selves, form subgroups based on collective fanship, and find autonomy and self-respect in otherwise humiliating and disidentifying circumstances

Empty Ritual: Young-Adult Stepchildren’s Perceptions of the Remarriage Ceremony

This qualitative study investigated 80 young-adult stepchildren’s talk about one of their parents’ remarriage ceremony. The remarriage event was celebrated in six types of ritual enactments, five of which celebrated the couple’s marriage and one of which was family-centered in its celebration of the beginning of the new stepfamily. Three factors led stepchildren to find the remarriage ceremony empty: (i) a ritual form that was too traditional or not traditional enough; (ii) a ritual enactment that failed to pay homage to either the stepchild’s family of origin or the stepfamily as a unit; and (iii) a ritual enactment that failed to involve the stepchild prior to and during the ceremony. Results support the characteristics of empty rituals posited in ritual theory

Constructing family: A typology of voluntary kin

This study explored how participants discursively rendered voluntary kin relationships sensical and legitimate. Interpretive analyses of 110 interviews revealed four main types of voluntary kin: (i) substitute family, (ii) supplemental family, (iii) convenience family, and (iv) extended family. These types were rendered sensical and legitimated by drawing on the discourse of the traditional family. Except for the extended family, three of four voluntary kin family types were justified by an attributed deficit in the blood and legal family. Because voluntary kin relationships are not based on the traditional criteria of association by blood or law, members experience them as potentially challenging, requiring discursive work to render them sensical and legitimate to others