Negotiation of Sexual Identity in Gay On-Air Talent on West Texas Radio and Television Media

ABSTRACT

This analytic autoethnography explores identity negotiation in on-air media personalities in West Texas by augmenting the author’s personal experience with the lived experiences of five other gay radio/television on-air personalities. Employing the communication of identity theory, results indicate conflicts between the personal and communal frames, the relational and communal frames, and the enactment frame with all other frames. Strategies used to help navigate these conflicts include employment of hegemonic masculinity norms, self-monitoring, and assimilation.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• broadcasting
• on-air personalities
• radio
• television
• communication theory of identity
• mascing
• LGBTQ
• gay