The Construction of Southern Identity Through Reality TV: A Content Analysis of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Duck Dynasty and Buckwild

The reality television genre has been increasingly at the forefront of media and cultural studies and a subject of critique across the disciplines of communications, anthropology and visual studies. While reality television programs have been analyzed for elements of racism and sexism, quantitative research to date has rarely been done to explore whether the portrayal of the American southerner was distorted. Using a data-driven approach, the frequency of commonly held southern stereotypes within three shows across three networks were evaluated through content analysis. The researcher observed 100 minutes of each program, marking incidents of visibly unintelligent, crude, violent and unhealthy behavior. Results showed high frequencies of the “unintelligent,” “crude” and “violent” stereotypes.