A GRADUATE has won an award for her dissertation on reality dating shows.

Tze Shin Low, who received her Geography BA(Hons) from the University of Brighton last summer analysed Take Me Out, Naked Attraction, First Dates and Love Island.

Tze Shin looked at the spaces and environments on the shows.

She said: “Practices of romantic love such as speech, physical acts and gestures between heterosexual and non-heterosexual identities, in particular curated spaces, can result in the forms in which love is socially un/accepted, contributing towards the social construction and understanding of love.”

Her prize was awarded by the Royal Geographical Society’s Space, Sexualities and Queer Research Group.

The judges said: “Tze Shin’s findings powerfully assert the significance of space/place in producing hetero-romantic affect, offering a real contribution to an underexplored area of geographies of sexualities.” She studied at the University’s School of Environment and Technology.