Master's Thesis - Welcome to the Shed

Abstract: Traditional media has a long history of marginalising women and ethnic minorities by trivialising their contributions and obscuring their involvement. Ethnic minorities have been kept out of top roles in films – as evidenced in 2016, with the #Oscarssowhite controversy, when not a single nomination was extended to a person of colour. Women, too, have been objectified and typecast in supporting and “love interest” roles. This marginalisation, whereby male and white are the norm and everyone else is “the other”, extends far beyond movies. YouTube has transformed from its humble beginnings of a video sharing site into one of the main video-based services, capable of extending producers’ voices across national boundaries. With this change, amateur contributors have professionalised their productions. Analysing four top-rated guitar review YouTube videos using critical discourse analysis, this thesis explores the overrepresentation of white men in online spaces for the reviewing of music instruments and looks specifically at subtle ways in which discourse is used to reinforce social exclusions online. Keywords: Gender, Feminism, Ethnicity, Minorities, YouTube, Guitar, Produsers, Music, Canon, Formats, Audiences