Dividing women: the framing of trafficking for sexual exploitation in magazines

Each year thousands of women are trafficked for sexual exploitation. To understand how the mass media represent trafficking, a qualitative framing analysis of magazines, published from 2000 through to 2010, was conducted. Results showed magazines presented complementary frames of victimization and benevolence. Magazine articles shed light on trafficking, which operates in society’s shadows and is far removed from many people’s lives, but articles reinforce hierarchies and divisions: between women and men; among women; and among “good” prostitutes who deserve help and “bad” prostitutes who do not. Articles imply that the problem of trafficking is one of individual vulnerability, which can be remedied by charitable efforts, and ignore the larger cultural, political, economic, and educational systems of sex discrimination. Traffickers and men who buy sex were largely absent from magazine stories, and focus on the sale of sexual services, rather than the purchase, emphasized women’s role in the trafficking process while making men’s roles invisible. Because the mass media can shape public opinion and public policy, such incomplete reports may lead to ineffective policies.     

Sexual Messages in Black and White: A discourse analysis of Essence and Cosmo

The research presented employed critical discourse analysis to examine advice columns on sex and women's sexual freedom as expressed in two popular women's magazines, Essence and Cosmopolitan, over a three-year period. Essence has a Black female audience, Cosmo a predominantly White female audience. Critical discourse analysis is concerned with language as a primary force for the production and reproduction of ideology and belief systems that come to be accepted as common sense. The study asked whether and to what extent sex talk in these two magazines mirrored tenets of sexual liberation as set forth by “second-wave feminism.” Findings showed that while both magazines reinforced women's right to sexual pleasure and to ask for what they wanted, Essence came closest to mirroring the tenets of women's liberation by advocating women's right to say no to men's bad behavior and to be their own persons. By contrast, Cosmo advised women to be innovative in exciting and keeping their men and to be more flexible in managing men's less than desirable behavior.     

Whose sexuality is it anyway? Women’s experiences of viewing lesbians on screen

While critical analyses of media representations of lesbians continue to grow, less attention is paid to audience responses to those representations. This paper explores women’s experiences of viewing lesbians on screen, analysing qualitative data from focus groups with audiences of a women-only film season screened in a UK cinema: “Lesbians on Screen: How Far Have We Come?” We consider how the internalisation of the “male gaze” complicates some women’s viewing of lesbian characters and how women attempt to challenge and resist that gaze through their viewing practices and strategies. We discuss audience creativity in re-signifying representations of women, as well as other strategies including choosing to view privately or in women-only spaces. These acts of resistance disrupt the dominance of the male gaze, patriarchal cinema spaces, and reception of images on screen. By examining women’s reflections on the experience of being in a women-only audience, a unique cinema space that “felt free” of conventional constraints of heteronormativity and patriarchy, this paper also examines how the gendered cinema space affects audience experiences.     

Constructing risk and responsibility: a gender,race, and class analysis of news representations of adolescent sexuality

Teen sexuality has been portrayed as dangerous (i.e., risk of pregnancy, STIs, sexual victimization for girls) yet pervasive in a growing post-feminist culture of sexualization. Adolescents are tasked with negotiating the difficult terrain of desire and danger as adults persistently construct contradictory discourses and panics around teen sexuality. This study examines a sample of online news media through a feminist intersectional lens, considering race, class, gender, and sexuality as mutually imbricated within dynamics of power, to analyze how contemporary news articles on teen sexuality construct adolescent sexuality at the intersection of neoliberalism and the sexual double standard. Our analysis revealed three particular moral panics around risk for girls: (1) pregnancy and STIs; (2) engagements in sexualization; and (3) sexual victimization. We illuminate how the sexual double standard and neoliberal notions of accountability reinstate and reproduce gendered, raced, and classed representations of adolescent sexualities.     

What do women really want? Exploring contemporary Ukrainian women’s magazines

Around the world, magazines for women have been one of the most popular media forms. Such periodicals have played and continue to play an important role in the production, reproduction to hegemonic cultural norms around gender, class, race, and sexuality, as well as challenges to such norms. Based on our reading of these magazines and drawing upon data from a survey and from interviews with a wide age range of women readers, we argue that Ukrainian women’s periodical press does not fully meet the needs of its audience in today’s society. The interests of women are much broader than the topics presented in these publications. Our study reveals that women readers are of the view that there is a need to expand the range of content to include a wider array of practical advice, educational, social, and political material. Finally, our research findings suggest that the narrow range of stereotypical gender-based content typically found in such magazines contributes to placing limits on what is imaginable and therefore politically possible in terms of advancing women’s equality in the Ukraine.     

Drinking as a Feminine Practice: Post-Feminist images of women's drinking in Swedish women's magazines

Previous feminist analyses have pointed out how the news media demonize women who drink, labelling them as irresponsible, disturbing or behaving “like men.” Popular media such as women's magazines, however, construct alternative representations, that frame women's drinking encouragingly and as part of a successful and “modern” femininity. This study carries out an analysis of fashion reports from six Swedish women's magazines, published between 1984 and 2008. It concludes that despite the fact that women's magazines create an alternative to problematizing portrayals of women who drink, this does not necessarily make them unproblematic from a feminist point of view. While the prevalence of positive and encouraging images may be interpreted as indicating a change towards more gender equal or gender neutral depictions of drinking; this article argues instead that these images should be regarded as parts of a discourse that celebrates stereotypical femininity and reproduces gender difference. As such, the present article brings new perspectives to the complex discourses that give shape to ideas about gender and alcohol in general, and women's drinking in particular.     

Personal Problems and Women's Issues

Teen television drama series are centrally concerned with issues of sexuality as teenage characters gradually mature. Their sexual maturation is key in marking their transition from childhood to adulthood and the genre often emphasises significant moments in this development, such as first kisses, dates and/or sexual experiences. Within the genre's sexual culture, representations of sexual violence are common, yet have remained widely neglected by both teen and feminist television criticism. This article addresses this neglect by examining the kinds of stories about sexual violence that emerge in this genre. I argue that a fuller understanding of these narratives is offered by situating them in relation to series’ and generic frameworks more broadly, rather than analysing them in isolation. Specifically, I will explore episodic sexual violence narratives in US programmes between 1990 and 2008, outlining developments in these representations over time. The article begins by mapping where these episodes occur within broader series’ structures. This provides the context for a deeper analysis of how sexual violence functions both narratively and ideologically across these programmes.     

Contributions of Parents,Peers, and Media to Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: Investigating Sex and Ethnic Differences

Although research on sexual socialization continues to grow, still little is known about the processes by which youth learn about homosexuality and about how ethnicity and sex influence their learning experiences. To explore these issues, 745 undergraduates were interviewed and asked to indicate the amount and content of parental, peer, and media communication they regularly encounter about homosexuality. Results indicated that media and peers addressed the topic of homosexuality more frequently than parents; men and Black participants tended to receive fewer positive messages than did women and members of other ethnic groups, although results were moderated by religiosity and parental education.     

(Un)doing feminism in (post)-Yugoslav media spaces

This paper engages in a mixed-method study combining the bibliographic method, textual media analysis of women’s magazines from different periods during and after Yugoslav socialism, and qualitative focus group interviews to map out the complex trajectories of feminism spanning a period of forty-something years. Its goal is to see how socialist and post-socialist media representations of women’s experiences correspond with feminist or post-feminist values in the former Yugoslavia and today. Engaging in a genealogical exercise and critical reading of the sources of data listed above, I aim to mark out some of the differences between the contexts of then and now, in order to make it more possible to reassess the potential for rethinking feminism as emancipatory politics in the present.     

Sexual violence in serial form: Breaking Bad habits on TV

Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) attempts to isolate, degrade, exploit, frighten, and control his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) are tactics that are well-documented in studies focusing on abuse. Yet, despite the representation of both implicit and explicit forms of domestic abuse and sexual violence throughout Breaking Bad (2008–2013), there is an apparent disconnect between how this behaviour is perceived on screen and how it is ostensibly regarded in society. It is here, at the intersection of audience reception and sociological theory that I argue Breaking Bad represents abuse as part of a broader negotiation of masculinity, one that contributes to the ongoing marginalization of women’s voices in both visual media narratives and, by extension, society. In particular, I argue that despite the series’ long-form structure, the lack of emphasis placed on instances of coercive control by the writers and directors is partly responsible for contributing towards a culture of misogyny and victim-blaming fostered by fans towards Skyler evident in numerous online blog posts, fan forums, social media platforms, and Anna Gunn’s own treatise on the portrayal of her character in the New York Times.     

Victimization Among Female and Male Sexual Minority Status Groups: Evidence From the British Crime Survey 2007–2010

International surveys of victims show crime rates in England and Wales, including hate crimes, are among the highest in Europe. Nevertheless, sexual minority status is a less considered risk factor in general victimization research. This study used sexual minority status and sex to predict victimization across British Crime Surveys from 2007–2010. Logistic regression analyses showed sexual minority status groups were more likely than heterosexuals to be victimized from any and some specific crimes. However, bisexuals rather than lesbians or gay men were more consistently victimized, notably by sexual attacks and within the household. Implications for understanding victimization among these groups are discussed.     

“Kind of like making porn of yourself”: understanding sexting through pornography

This article contributes to the existing literature on sexting and the “sexualisation of culture” by examining how women make sense of their sexting practices by thinking through pornography frames. In doing so, it draws on interview material collected for a study on adult women’s experiences of using digital technology in their romantic and/or sexual relationships. To the women in this study, their private sexual images—as created for the purpose of sexting—were acts of communication that could be both not-pornography and pornography depending on the private and/or public contexts in which they were shared and consumed. They did not distinguish between sexting and pornography based on the content of the images, but based on where they occur and who consumes them. Indeed, they argued that the same private sexual image could take on different meanings, as the predominant conventions within the given context of display and consumption guide the audience’s interpretation. A key argument put forward in this article is thus that, in aiming to understand complex social phenomena like sexting and pornography, we should look to how different types of sexual representations gain meaning within particular contexts as marked by certain conventions.     

Women's Responsibilities,Freedoms, and Pleasures

In the building of the Swedish welfare state, men and women have been seen as equal in their roles as parents, breadwinners, and citizens. This conception is not confirmed by the images produced by advertising. The article presents an analysis of alcohol-related advertisements published in Swedish women's magazines from the 1960s to the 2000s. The advertisements are approached as representations of gendered performances in which gender is made visible “here and now” by placing women in particular subject positions that are related to private or public spheres and associated with specific kinds of gender norms reflecting women's shifting responsibilities, freedoms, and pleasures. The article asks what kind of drinking-related subject positions have been portrayed as desirable in women's magazine advertisements over the past few decades and how those positions have changed as we move closer to the present day. The analysis reveals both continuity and variability in alcohol-related subject positions in Swedish women's magazine advertisements. It shows how women's responsibilities, freedoms, and pleasures have expanded from the traditional domain of the private sphere to multiple new areas as Sweden has developed from a modern welfare state to a late-modern competition state. However, this does not mean that the traditional gender norms have disintegrated and been replaced by equal gender norms. Rather, it seems that traditional gender norms continue to be reproduced in alcohol-related advertising.     

Forever young: Visual representations of gender and age in online dating sites for older adults

ABSTRACT

Online dating has become increasingly popular among older adults following broader social media adoption patterns. The current study examined the visual representations of people on 39 dating sites intended for the older population, with a particular focus on the visualization of the intersection between age and gender. All 39 dating sites for older adults were located through the Google search engine. Visual thematic analysis was performed with reference to general, non-age-related signs (e.g., facial expression, skin color), signs of aging (e.g., perceived age, wrinkles), relational features (e.g., proximity between individuals), and additional features such as number of people presented. The visual analysis in the present study revealed a clear intersection between ageism and sexism in the presentation of older adults. The majority of men and women were smiling and had a fair complexion, with light eye color and perceived age of younger than 60. Older women were presented as younger and wore more cosmetics as compared with older men. The present study stresses the social regulation of sexuality, as only heterosexual couples were presented. The narrow representation of older adults and the anti-aging messages portrayed in the pictures convey that love, intimacy, and sexual activity are for older adults who are “forever young.”     

Neoliberalism,Soul Food,and the Weight of Black Women

This article examines the representation of Black women's weight in contemporary diet advertising and African American film. It positions socioeconomic class as a significant factor that distinguishes between “good” weight and “bad” weight. I argue that there is a distinction to be made between representations of poor and working-class fat Black women and middle-class fat Black women. The increased presence of Black women as diet spokeswomen is also questioned. The social construction and filmic representation of the African American cuisine “Soul Food” and the political economic notion of neoliberalism are used as frameworks to deconstruct how notions of self-discipline, personal responsibility, and citizenship impact upon Black women's bodies. As a case study, I examine the careers of Oprah Winfrey and Gabourey Sidibe and the ways in which their weight has been differently coded based on class, the neoliberal rhetoric of “personal responsibility,” and food. I ultimately critique how contemporary media has helped to shape contemporary discourses on Black women's weight.     

Media framing of trolling and online abuse: silencing strategies,symbolic violence,and victim blaming

This article draws on British newspaper reports in order to demonstrate that trolling, and the media’s subsequent framing of trolling, involves “silencing strategies.” It is important to examine how trolling is discussed within the media to understand how it might frame public opinion, debate, and action, and implicitly victim blame. The article presents findings on the forms of (online) abuse and behaviours related to trolling in media reports, including rape threats, death threats, and body shaming. It also explores the media portrayal of victims of trolling, and the advice given concerning how to respond to trolls. To comply with the message to women, which is propagated in media and popular discourses: “do not feed the troll” means that “symbolic violence” is exercised with the complicity of the victim(s) of trolling, which has broader implications.     

Incongruous encounters: media representations and lived experiences of stay-at-home mothers

This article juxtaposes mediated representations of stay-at-home mothers (SAHMs) with accounts of twenty-two UK -educated middle-class SAHMs. It exposes a fundamental chasm between media constructions of women’s “opting out” of the workplace as a personal choice, and the factors shaping women’s decisions to leave a career, and their complex, often painful consequences. The juxtaposition highlights three aspects largely rendered invisible in current representations of SAHMs: (1) the influence of husbands’ demanding careers and work cultures on their wives’ “choices” to not return to paid employment; (2) the issue of childcare; and (3) women’s immense unpaid domestic and maternal labour. Although media representations often fail to correspond to middle-class SAHMs’ lives, they shape their thinking and feelings and reconstruct their deepest yearnings and sense of self. In particular, SAHMs speak of feeling invisible, lacking confidence, and being silent and silenced. I conclude by discussing how the disconnect between media representation and SAHMs’ experience may be enhancing and sustaining their silence, which supports and re-secures a patriarchal capitalist system, and by reflecting on the role of feminist media research to voice the lived experience of gender inequality.     

Olivia Pope: a black post-feminist subject? Analyzing Scandal’s intersecting post-feminist and colorblind discourses

Previous analyses of Scandal have focused on how colorblind discourse in the series influences the representation of lead character Olivia Pope’s Blackness. Less has been written about how dominant discourses of race and gender intersect in the series. Correspondingly, post-feminist scholarship has overwhelmingly concentrated on discourses of gender in depictions of white women. This article seeks to bridge the gaps between scholarship on representations of race and gender on television. Situating Scandal within the context of post-feminist and colorblind discourses of gender and race that have been prominent on mainstream television since the early 2000s, this article takes an intersectional approach to interrogate how Olivia Pope, a Black woman, is incorporated into post-feminist discourse. Rhetorical analyses of episodes of Scandal’s seasons 1 through 5 uncover how colorblind and post-feminist discourses provide at their junction a restricted space for a Black post-feminist subject. Olivia Pope’s post-feminist characterization comes at the expense of obfuscating how her Blackness affects her identity as a woman, and effectively “posts” her Black womanhood. The visibility of the Black post-feminist subject in colorblind post-feminism is thus paradoxically contingent on the concurrent invisibility of Black women’s experiences and Black feminist concerns.     

An Investigation of Content and Media Images in Gay Men's Magazines

ABSTRACT

This study provides an analysis of gay men's magazines, examining both the content and advertisements. Four magazine titles were selected, including The Advocate, Genre, Instinct, and Out, each targeting gay men as its target audience. These magazines were coded for both article content and advertisement content. In the advertisement analysis, both the type of advertisement and characteristics of the men depicted within the advertisement when present. The results mirror previous research findings relating to the portrayal of women, including the objectification of specific body parts and the high community standards set by the images depicted. These findings were reinforced by both the advertisements and content analyzed to include a high degree of importance being placed on having the right body type. Implications for further research are discussed.