Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Specialization

Communication and Leadership

School or Department

School of Leadership Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Alexa Dare

Second Advisor

Dr. Giovanni Caputo

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the current role of body art in Western Society. The question is whether body art still defines gender roles and social status as it has done in other societies in its history, or if it is simply used to express ones interior thoughts and beliefs. Literature presented in this thesis studies the framework of Sherif’s social judgment theory (1965) concerning public perceptions and evaluation. The study is informed by Barthes’ (1994) idea of semiotics. This idea incorporates the “social production of meaning from sign systems-the analysis of anything that can stand for something” (p.332 ). Lastly, signaling theory was integrated into the foundation of this study as well. The signaling theory deals with the idea of symbolic communication and social benefit as it relates to individual strategic action. Together, the three theories guided the study’s focus on the factors that come into play when deciding gender roles, social status, symbols, and the meaning that is interpreted from those symbols. The insight from the literature and results of this study lead to the realization of a few things: 1) body art still provides reference to social status, but not so much gender roles. Although there are still expectations as to where body art should be placed on a female as opposed to where it should be placed on a male. Different placements of the body art provoke different reactions and interpretations. The findings in this study lend themselves to communication studies by giving light to the importance of non-verbal communication and the messages that are created through this communication, be it intentional or unintentional.

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