Macias Lipskaia, Alexandra (2018) Becoming a Russian Doll: Interrogating Representations of the Russian Mail Order Bride. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
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Abstract
Becoming a Russian Doll: Interrogating Representations of
the Russian Mail Order Bride
By Alexandra Macias Lipskaia
In the contemporary media landscape, the increasing emphasis on visual and virtual
communication and narrative techniques has contributed to a heightened contestation regarding
representations of foreign female bodies in the West. How is the figure of the Russian woman
created and perpetuated by media technologies employed by the Russian Mail Order Bride
industry? How is Western popular culture appropriating these representations in ways that
reinforce the “otherness” and potential danger of the Russian Mail Order Bride? In conducting a
textual analysis of visual media, academic texts and first-person experiences of women in
contemporary Russia, I present a performative storytelling project focusing on modern Russian
women’s representations in the media, and their relationship to the Russian Mail Order Bride
phenomenon. I draw on the situated knowledges of women in visual media in creating a
performance-based video project that develops the visual discourse of the representation of
female bodies both on screen and on the page.
Keywords: Media, virtual worlds, female representation, Russian women, objectification,
agency, performance, regimes of power, discourse.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Communication Studies |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | Macias Lipskaia, Alexandra |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | Communication |
| Date: | 5 February 2018 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Jiwani, Yasmin |
| Keywords: | research-creation; Russia; women; mail-order brides; media, virtual worlds, female representation, Russian women, objectification, agency, performance, regimes of power, discourse |
| ID Code: | 983481 |
| Deposited By: | ALEXANDRA MACIAS LIPSKAIA |
| Deposited On: | 11 Jun 2018 01:55 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Jun 2018 01:55 |
| Additional Information: | The thesis itself is the allocated amount of pages for a research-creation.The reason for the text being over a hundred pages is the addition of Appendices. |
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