America Singing: The Mediation of Identity Politics in "American Idol".

This dissertation examines the televised singing competition American Idol as a stage where politics of American identity are performed at a critical historical moment. I locate the show and its music in the sociopolitical context of the post-9/11 world, examining the ways in which certain ideologies of Americanness are collaboratively reinforced and reconfigured by American Idol's producers, contestants, and audience. These ideologies emphasize interrelated discourses of democracy, place, race and ethnicity, and religion, and an overarching concern with the negotiation of a national cultural identity. American Idol's contestants are positioned and legitimated within a carefully constructed version of pop music history, and their performances of the musical past contribute to the deciding of the musical future---the national election of a new star. This electoral design conflates democratic agency with consumer choice, and in the process highlights the role of participatory media formats in the increasingly dialectical relationship between production and consumption. In the end, American Idol illuminates the marking of identity as a campaign strategy, as a source of both cultural and financial capital, and as a core practice in American music.