1. The Construction of Intelligence in American Media: How Television Characterization Defines “Nerd” Identity to Reveal Sociological Subjugation. Sarah Blumenberg CMC 200 – Spring 2013 Final Paper

2. The Big Five Topic: Intelligence Perception Focus: The Construction of the “Nerd” Method: Textual and Content Analysis Target: The Big Bang Theory Goals: To show social subjugation masked by intellectual markers, but in reality based on social fluency.

3. Methods Textual Analysis of the Pilot Episode Content Analysis of the first and last episode of Seasons 1-3. – They connect in that they say similar things about how the nerd is constructed: one by more visual signifiers and one by more dialogue-related signifiers. – Additionally, I included the Pilot episode in my content analysis as well in order to connect the two further

5. Discussion “Othering” – “Normal” othering “nerds” – “Nerds” othering themselvs from “normal” – “Nerds” othering amongst themselves Consumerism Autism – Socially awkward VS Autism – Where is the line?