“Gay Guys are Shit-Lovers” and “Lesbians are Obsessed With Fingers”: The (Mis)Representation of LGBTIQ People in Thai News Media

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analysis of news reports containing information or opinions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people taken from six Thai media outlets over a period of one year. The aim was to explore how LGBTIQ people are portrayed in news media narratives. LGBTIQ identities were found to be vastly underrepresented and, when represented, were often represented inaccurately, stereotypically, harmfully, or without a clear understanding of the diversity of sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. (Hetero-)sexist narratives, negative portrayals, harmful stereotypes, and discriminatory speech were also widely found, fueling a climate of stigmatization and discrimination of LGBTIQ people in Thai society. This article suggests that key stakeholders in Thai news media should be sensitized on the human rights of LGBTIQ people and on basic professional ethics in journalism.     

“I Am Chelsea Manning”: Comparison of Gendered Representation of Private Manning in U.S. and International News Media

ABSTRACT

On August 22, 2013, Bradley Manning released a statement requesting to be referred to as female. In the following days, the news media discussed whether language should shift toward a female representation. Using quantitative content analysis and qualitative contextual analysis, this study analyzed whether U.S. and international newspapers (N = 197) acknowledged Manning’s request to be referred to as “Chelsea” in the two weeks after the statement. Results suggest that the mainstream press was hesitant in shifting toward a female representation. A comparison of international and U.S. newspapers suggests that the U.S. press lagged behind international coverage using a female depiction.     

“Wealthy Gay Couples Buying Babies Produced in India by Poor Womb-Women: Audience Interpretations of Transnational Surrogacy in TV News

ABSTRACT

Surrogacy is beginning to generate public debate, and the way the media approach it may have negative effects on social attitudes toward gay parenting. The news media play a key role in informing society, especially about topics such as surrogacy, of which most audiences have no direct experience. The aim of our research is to explore opinion formation of surrogacy and gay parenting by analyzing the audience interpretation of a TV news story in Spain. To do this we conducted four focus groups that were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis based on the discourse produced by the participants. The results show that the framing strategies used in the news story contribute to advocating an attitude of repudiation toward surrogacy, with an adverse sentiment also extending to homosexual couples who wish to become parents. This leads us to discuss the role of media in shaping public opinion and the resulting potential consequences in the case of surrogacy and gay parenting.     

Demographic Transitions and Changes in the Living Arrangements of Children: The Netherlands 1850–2010

The transformation of Europe’s demographic regime over the past two centuries has led to considerable changes in the living arrangements of children. We study long-term changes, making use of three datasets covering the living arrangements of children born between 1850 and 1993 in the Netherlands: a historical national sample of children born between 1850 and 1922, a retrospective survey covering children born between 1923 and 1985, and data from the national population registry relating to children born between 1986 and 1993. We describe the changes in terms of whether fathers, mothers, and stepparents lived with these children at birth and at age 15. We observe a massive increase in the percentage of children growing up in a complete family between the 1850–1879 cohort and the mid-twentieth century cohorts and a return to nineteenth-century conditions in the most recent birth cohort. Time spent in a complete family increased continuously from the mid-nineteenth century on, to decrease again from the 1960s on.     

Family Structure and Child Well-Being in a Non-western Context: The Role of Parent–Child Relations and Parental Conflict in South Korea

Population Research and Policy Review - Research suggests that children who live with two biological married parents are less likely to exhibit behavioral problems than children who do not. While...     

The Extent of Economic Vulnerability in the Canadian Labour Market and Federal Jurisdiction: Is There a Role for Labour Standards?

This paper characterizes vulnerable workers in Canada and the federal jurisdiction, based upon characteristics such as employment status, demographic characteristics, and job characteristics, and identifies areas in which labour standards may have a role. Based on this analysis, the paper evaluates the potential for labour standards to address economic vulnerability, focusing on labour standards policies aimed at wages and benefits, hours, and employment arrangements. In addition, the analysis considers the extent to which labour standards are likely to reach vulnerable workers. The results suggest several potential roles for labour standards and highlights policy implications.

“There Is Nothing Like a Family”: Discourses on Families of Choice in Poland

In this article we showed how the notion of heteronormative citizenship embedded in the Polish Constitution was (re)produced in the public sphere, and how heteronormativity as an ideal was slowly undermined by the emergence of new narratives on LGBT families. We did so by first conducting a critical reading of the Polish Constitution, public opinion polls, national censuses, and so forth. Then we presented the results of a discourse analysis on families of choice in Poland from crucial public debates of the last decade. Through this we identified the main public strategies of silencing and excluding, its dynamics, main actors, possible changes, and shifts over time. The results of the research showed the change that occurred in the public discourse on LGBT families in the last decades in Poland moving from defining family in very conservative and traditional terms at the beginning of the 2000s to a more open definition of family in 2010–2011. However, they also demonstrate some undesired alliances among supporters and opponents of same-sex partnership and possible dangers of some strategies used by LGBT activists.     

Beyond “filling in the gap”: the state and status of Latina/o Feminist Media Studies

Against the socio-economic and cultural backdrop of the ongoing Latina/o media “boom,” this critical literature review delineates the location and status of contemporary Latina/o Feminist Media Studies. Departing from a critique of current mainstream Feminist Media Studies research and citational practices, it traces the influence of rapidly expanding transnational Latina/o media markets, the gendering of Latinidad, and transnational feminisms on recent Latina/o Feminist Media Studies scholarship. As it not only breaks with exclusively domestic analyses of intersectionality and accurately reflects twenty-first century media’s transnational orientation, this essay argues that the theoretical paradigms and thematic concerns of Latina/o Feminist Media Studies must ultimately be reframed as central, not marginal, to Feminist Media Studies research.     

On Being Gay in Barbados: “Bullers” and “Battyboys” and their HIV Risk in a Societal Context of Stigma

Limited research exists about gay men in the Caribbean region. A qualitative study was conducted to characterize gay men in Barbados, their HIV risk, and the impact of stigma on their lives. The 2 main groups of gay men (“bougies” and “ghetto”) reflect social class and level of “outness” in broader society. Homophobia, stigma, and buggery (sodomy) laws increase their HIV vulnerability. The need for anti-discrimination legislation and tools for self-development were identified for gay men to realize their strengths, develop their self-worth, and protect themselves from HIV.     

“Old Sodom” and “Dear Dad”: Vanbrugh's Celebration of the Sodomitical Subject in The Relapse

Although the sodomitical discourse of the early-eighteenth century was fraught with competing ideologies and significations, this did not preclude the formation and expression of a sodomitical identity founded upon male same-sex desire. Orvis takes the case of Coupler, the sodomite staged in Sir John Vanbrugh's play The Relapse; or, Virtue in Danger (perf. 1696; pub. 1697). Vanbrugh's portrayal of this unabashed, unapologetic sodomite—a sodomite, moreover, who is accepted by the dramatis personae of the play he inhabits—suggests not only that the possibility of a sodomitical desiring subject was widely acknowledged by the theatergoing public of early-eighteenth-century England, but also, and perhaps more importantly, that sodomites were not always understood as monstrous Others against which normative identities were constructed.     

Countering technocracy: “natural” birth in The Business of Being Born and Call the Midwife

Feminist media studies scholars concur that representations of childbirth in popular media normalize medical domination of maternity care and women’s subordination to it. This article aims to fill the gap in the dearth of academic analysis of alternative representations of childbearing by examining the documentary film The Business of Being Born and the BBC TV drama series Call the Midwife. Although they are situated in disparate socio-historical contexts, both productions push against medicalization and present positive images of “natural” childbirth. Business systematically critiques medicalization of birth in the US and presents midwifery-assisted homebirth as the solution. Call counters the dogma of necessary medical attention during childbirth by showing how midwifery dominated during the mid-twentieth century in a London neighborhood. Call also portrays midwives and a physician collaboratively providing maternal care in an impoverished neighborhood. Reviewed together, Business and Call augment each other as the former reveals the contemporary struggles and solutions devised to de-medicalize birth and the latter serves as an example of how homebirths may be supported by medico–midwifery collaboration in an urban community.     

Changing trends between education,childlessness and completed fertility: a cohort analysis of Australian women born in 1952–1971

Journal of Population Research - Little is known about whether and how trends in completed cohort fertility and lifetime childlessness by education have changed over time. This study uses census...     

“Hope in a hashtag”: the discursive activism of #WhyIStayed

Hashtag feminism, or feminist activism that unfolds through Twitter hashtags, has become a powerful tactic for fighting gender inequities around the world. Feminist media research, however, has yet to grasp the implications of this new form and social movement research has yet to model the conditions under which activists successfully mobilize online. This article builds on research regarding the potential and limitations of hashtag feminism to consider a question that remains understudied: what is the process through which a feminist hashtag develops into a highly visible protest? Through a case study of #WhyIStayed, which arose in response to a 2014 NFL domestic violence controversy, I frame hashtag feminism as an extension of the movement’s historically rooted discursive tactics. Hashtag feminism’s narrative form implies that the conditions for a successful online feminist protest parallel the elements of an effective dramatic performance. Using data collected from Twitter and news media, I identify the dramatic elements that propelled #WhyIStayed tweets from online personal expressions to online collective action.     

The Wealth of Nations and the Happiness of Nations: Why “Accounting” Matters

We review income-happiness research in light of competing theoretical frameworks, unit of analysis, and methodological issues. Within-countries, absolute income is weakly related to happiness, comparison effects depend on the measure utilized, and income change and perceived income produce inconsistent findings. Across countries, absolute income is a stronger predictor of happiness, different comparison effects are significant, income change results are predominantly positive, and the financial-life satisfaction relationship is more robust.     

Quality of Parent–Child Relationship, Family Conflict, Peer Pressure, and Drinking Behaviors of Adolescents in an Asian Context: The Case of Singapore

Analyzing data from a probability sample representative of secondary school students in Singapore (N = 1,599), this study examined the independent impact between the quality of mother–child relationship, the quality of father–child relationship and family conflict on the frequency of drinking and drunkenness, and whether each dyadic parent–child relationship quality and family conflict moderate the effect of direct peer pressure on the frequency of drinking and drunkenness among Singaporean adolescents. A series of ordered logit analyses revealed the following results: The quality of father–child relationship had no main effect on either drinking behavior, yet had a moderating effect on the association between direct peer pressure and drunkenness, with the stronger effect of direct peer pressure for adolescents on good terms with their fathers than for those on poor terms with their fathers. Family conflict had a main effect on drunkenness and a moderating effect on the association between direct peer pressure and the frequency of drinking, with the stronger effect of direct peer pressure on the frequency of drinking for adolescents experiencing high family conflict than those experiencing low family conflict. The importance of the father–child relationship quality and family conflict for adolescents’ well-being in Singapore as an Asian context was discussed.     

Back to the Future: a Sensitivity Analysis to Predict Future Fertility Rates Considering the Influence of Family Policies—The Cases of Spain and Norway

This article analyzes the relationship between family policies focused on childcare for children under the age of three and fertility levels. In the current context of very low European fertility, it is important to understand whether public support for families can help increase fertility or if, on the contrary, existing fertility levels are the exact reflection of the reproductive desires of families, regardless of the family-support of the policies that may exist in each country. This analysis was carried out through a stochastic dynamic mathematical model that incorporates both demographic variables and family policy variables. A sensitivity analysis was carried out on Spain and Norway, two countries that have very different models of family policies. This sensitivity analysis allows establishing a relationship between the existing family policies and the total fertility rate and also the expected evolution of fertility rates in the future, if the current family policies remain constant. The results showed that the models which lead to an increase in fertility are those which are most generous and which also incorporate a gender perspective, so they allow the identification of good practices and maximum levels of policy efficiency in regards to different objectives such as increase fertility and advances towards gender equality. By contrast, models with erratic and insufficient support clearly contribute to maintaining fertility at very low levels and perpetuate unequal gender relationships. There is, therefore, space for state agency to develop more effective public policies in both dimensions.

     

“The devil destroyed us”: Satanism and gender violence in South Africa

In October 2011, a young South African woman named Kirsty Theologo was set on fire and left for dead by a group of her high school contemporaries in Linmeyer, Johannesburg. The killing was defined as a “Satanist murder,” leading to media, judicial, and religious interventions aimed at countering the apparent Satanic threat. This article examines press material surrounding Kirsty Theologo’s death and the subsequent arrest and trial of her killers. It argues that the ongoing moral panic around Satanism in contemporary South Africa has obscured the often gendered nature of so-called satanic violence, showing the way in which the murder was instead placed within a familiar framework of Satanic panic in an act of collective displacement that elided the structural and historical contexts of acts of extreme violence perpetrated by young South African men on the bodies of young South African women.