Codes of Conduct: Understanding paratextuality and how the critical reception of Girls uncovered ideological codes in American culture
Summary
With the rapid growth and reach of the Internet, the influence of hype surrounding a television show is becoming more entwined with the artistic text of the show itself. The text outside of the show - the paratext - is analyzed in this thesis, as well as its influence on making meaning from television. By combining Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding principle and John Fiske's categorization of codes with Jonathan Gray's theory on fan- and antifandom, this thesis aims to look at the HBO television show Girls to understand what the critical online dialogue surrounding the show tells us about ideological codes in American culture and demonstrate how it was as much an influence on the artistic text of the show as the show was on the paratext.