Title: Like me
Description: Ideals of self-making along with issues of building bridges across diverse peoples and ideologies are foundational in the United States. In the years since the Second World War, the rhetorical and legal push to ensure equal rights, opportunities, and respect for all members of a polyglot society has compelled journalists to interrogate issues of identity and equality from first-person perspectives. This dissertation defines the genre of identity immersion journalism, a cohesive body of work that links a wide range of twentieth and twenty-first century storytellers who have gone undercover to investigate and report on difference. The writers, filmmakers, television producers and hosts, and other creators of mass media who comprise the genre reflect trends in cultural, social, and popular thought through their examinations of race, class, gender, and obesity. Their work demonstrates the importance of empathy in American thought and practice while also reflecting shifting trends in journalism over time. Furthermore, despite ethical and methodological concerns surrounding the practice of identity immersion journalism, the genre ably produces valuable journalistic work that inspires audiences toward a greater understanding and acceptance of the Other.

Key texts examined within this dissertation's chapters include: John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me (1961); Ray Sprigle's "I Was a Negro in the South for 30 Days" (1948); Grace Halsell's Soul Sister (1969); Lawrence Otis Graham's "Invisible Man: Why This Harvard-Trained Lawyer Went Undercover as a Busboy at an All-White Connecticut Country Club" (1992); Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (2001); Carol Lynn Mithers's "My Life as a Man" (1982); Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again (2006); Leslie Lampert's "Fat Like Me" (1993); and Tyra Banks's fat suit experiment (2005). The prologue explores the genre's literary and socio-anthropological roots, including such styles as passing narratives, travel narratives, literary journalism, investigative journalism, ethnography, and memoir. The epilogue discusses other identity categories researched in the genre, such as religion, and also surveys parodies of the genre to demonstrate its foothold in American consciousness.