A Networked Family: How Fans Talk About The Bachelor on Twitter

This thesis aimed to research the topic of reality TV, specifically The Bachelor. It discussed how fans perceive and discuss reality TV on Twitter, with methodological interest in qualitatively assessing framing, public sentiment, and the use of Twitter platform architecture, such as hashtags and @ mentions, in order to affectively frame this sentiment. This was also explored through the general narrative of The Bachelor and the changes that have occurred throughout its tenure. Results showed that the frames of value judgment and everyday life were predominantly used. The most popular sentiment types were annoyance and amusement. When looking at Twitter architecture, likes and hashtags were commonly used, while retweets, comments and @ mentions were not prominent. Retweeted, commented, and liked tweets supported the themes found in the prior analysis for frames and sentiment. The themes did not differ much between addressivity type. Hashtags supported content that utilized frames of value judgment and everyday life, while mentions almost exclusively supported the theme of everyday life.