Defense Date

8-3-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Degree Name

Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media

First Advisor

Janine Morris, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Juliette Kitchens, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Melissa Bianchi

Keywords

Composition, Rhetoric, Digital Media, thesis, LGBTQ+, Queer Composing, Fort-Lauderdale

Abstract

The following case study focuses on the implicit and explicit rhetorical messages in LGBTQ+ focused travel advertisements following Waitt and Markwell’s (2014) observations of LGBTQ+ advertisements increasingly gaining prominence within the mainstream promotional material. The case study investigates the queer messaging within Fort Lauderdale’s national 2015-2017 Hello Sunny Campaign; heralded for its groundbreaking LGBTQ+ and Trans representation. The scholarship that informs this study are at the intersections of composition and rhetoric, queer composition, and queer tourism studies. The methodology for the case study includes a rhetorical analysis incorporating a new materialistic lens. The two promotional images were analyzed for their rhetorical creation of queer identity through a combination of Barthes’ (1977) interconnectivity of cultural imagination and material rhetoric. Findings of the case study reveal LGBTQ+ promotional travel material ultimately privileges LGBTQ+ audiences as consumers first. These findings support claims of queer identities being enmeshed within marketing segmentation for the purposes of commercializing a community for profitability. Those who would benefit from this study would be queer tourist marketers, queer scholars, and rhetoricians.

Download
Share Feedback

Share

COinS