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This thesis investigates and analyzes how Wu Zetian is portrayed in media directed at children. This thesis also plan to investigate how the portrayal of Wu Zetian in children´s media relates to academic literature. The main questions this thesis answered were the following: How is Wu Zetian portrayed in the source material? What qualities are attributed to Wu Zetian? Does the presentation of Wu Zetian in children´s media differ from the academic literature written by historians? If so, how? The theories that this thesis was based on were the concepts that Bickford III and Rich presented in their study Examining the Representation of Slavery within Children´s Literature. These concepts were presentism, omission, chronological ethnocentrism, exceptionalism, heroification, and villainification. The second theory was gender theory. This theory was used as a theoretical interpretive framework for this thesis. The methods used were text analysis, close reading, and the theoretical concepts formulated by Bickford III and Rich. The study concluded that Wu Zetian was mainly described in a glorifying light. The main attributes of Wu Zetian are positive, such as intelligence and beauty. The negative qualities attributed to Wu Zetian are that she was brutal. In general, Wu Zetian is presented and described in a positive and heroic light in children´s media. The difference in the presentation of Wu Zetian in children´s media and academic literature is minimal. In general, the children´s media downplays the brutal aspects of Wu´s life, while the academic literature talks about this aspect somewhat more. The main difference is that, children´s media is more glorifying and heroizing than academic literature. |
