Shock troops, Bulls''t, and Captain America : the U.S. Marines' Decoding of Generation Kill and the Marine identity from the grunt's perspective

Abstract: This thesis examines the identity of the U.S. military personnel (the Marines) through their perceptions of a war television series, Generation Kill. The thesis sampled 38 respondents through an online questionnaire. The thesis uses the encoding and decoding theory to reveal that the Marine respondents demonstrated multiple interpretations of themes and concepts in the official discourses. The negotiated decoding from the respondents shows an interchangeable nature of the concepts that the official discourses and the informal conducts are integral to each other. The thesis makes use of the details in GK to draw out the grunts’ experience of being a Marine. In the end, it shows the Marine identity experienced by individual members is diverse and multilayered, and the identity could be shaped and negotiated. The research not only contributes to the missing research on professional subcultures in audience reception studies, but also engages an interdisciplinary exploration on issues about the military in democratic societies.