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- Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012
Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012
Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012
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South Park boys and Sex and the City women: Television trade, narrowcasting and the export of gender categories
More LessThis article analyses the export of the gendered ‘demographic logics’ of American television to four European countries: France, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. As American and (later) European television landscapes have become increasingly fragmented, television targets increasingly specific audiences. Through interviews with cultural intermediaries and document and website analysis, three gendered categories were found representing central ‘target audiences’ for today’s narrowcasting that came to Europe from Hollywood: the housewife, the Sex and the City woman, and the South Park boy. This article traces the emergence of these categories, and their uneven diffusion in European television landscapes, highlighting the dynamics of transnational diffusion of cultural categories. It shows how gendered audience categorizations provide a strategic site to employ the notoriously elusive concept of intersectionality in actual empirical analysis. This analysis of imported gendered categories underscores the similarity between the logic of narrowcasting and the analytical stance proposed by intersectionality theory, allowing us to critically analyse the politics of narrowcasting.
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Puzzling gender differently? Acomparative study of newspaper coverage in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
More LessPuzzling gender differently; the title of this article may appear to be ambiguous, since it refers to at least two different factors. The first of these relates to varying gender representations within the German, Austrian and German-speaking Swiss cultures. In particular, the focus is on the differences in gender portrayals that are the result of different cultural contexts. The second element refers to my attempt to approach gender differences in a way that does not necessarily reproduce the established binary order of male–female. Moreover, I will also present some methodological reflections on how to work creatively with the category of ‘gender’ in empirical studies and how to puzzle gender differently.
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Teenage girls’ views and practices of ‘sexy’ self-portraits in a Taiwanese social networking site
By Yin-Han WangThis article explores girls’ ideas and, for some, ideals about self-presentation on the Internet in relation to femininity. It focuses specifically on the representational style of the sexy – a style easy to observe by the onlookers in girls’ self-portraits posted online – as an example of the way in which ‘sexy femininity’ is understood and practiced by girls. The findings are based on interviews with 44 Taiwanese girls aged 13–20, and observation of their personal album space on the social networking site Wretch. The article aims to extend the current discussion about media and girlhood sexuality beyond the ‘gendered moral panic’ by illuminating how girls themselves have myriad ways of understanding sexiness, just as adults do, how appearing sexy online is not without underlying tensions, especially when taking into account the responses of their audiences, and how negotiating sexiness in self-portraits constitutes opportunities for girls to learn and practice gender performance.
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Girls on Fotolog: Reproduction of gender stereotypes or identity play?
Authors: Cilia Willem, Núria Araüna, Lucrezia Crescenzi and Iolanda TortajadaIn recent years a great deal of contemporary research has centred its attention on teenagers’ online presence and behaviour, thus responding to educators and parents’ increasing concerns regarding privacy and safety on the Internet. This article is the result of an in-depth qualitative study looking at anonymous girls’ picture albums on Fotolog, one of Spain’s most popular social networking sites (SNS). The main goal is to gain insight into these girls’ self-representation strategies, looking at what kind of images they choose to upload and which of the gender displays found in mass media portrayals they incorporate. Coding was done according to Goffmanian categories of gender display and performance (feminine touch, ritualization of subordination, licensed withdrawal), combined with findings from other studies (male gaze, representation as sexual subjects, pleasing ourselves and lesbian pose). Results show that girls are quite skilful in their self-representation techniques – and become more successful in conveying a specific image of themselves over time by using Fotolog affordances, which suggests that these sites allow them to freely experiment with identity and play with conventional codes of gender display. We identified at least three gender display codes girls play with: the supermodel, the languid romantic and the trash chic girl. Further research involving interviews with Fotolog teen users should reveal the extent to which these girls are aware of privacy and safety issues related to their self-representations.
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Exploring authority in the film blogosphere: differences between male and female bloggers regarding blog content and structure
More LessThe impact of the cultural blogosphere has – in contrast to that of the political blogosphere – rarely been studied to date, although the number of cultural blogs is rapidly increasing. This article offered an explorative study of film blogs by analysing structural and content characteristics of 180 film blogs, which varied in the degree of authority as attributed in the Technorati Index. Special attention was paid to the presence of male and female contributors. The results show that blogs resemble mainstream media more with increasing authority, suggesting institutionalization processes. At the same time, authority is a fairly instable trait in the blogosphere. Among blog contributors only a quarter is female, implying that the emancipatory power of Web 2.0 may be overestimated.
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Decoding media images of political leaders: The perspective of young adults on the relation of gender and power
More LessHow are media representations of male and female political leaders appropriated by young adults? Do young people negotiate questions of occupational success during media use? The article gives answers to these questions by referring to a qualitative audience study that analyses the negotiation of femininity and power as well as the (de-)construction of gender. It is based on focus groups with 17-19-year-old male and female students with different educational backgrounds. The findings show that the young adults do not reproduce traditional concepts of femininity: Male and female political leaders are described as powerful persons. Nevertheless, gender is articulated and therefore reconstructed in appropriation. Not female politicians but managers are seen as examples of reaching leading positions. Altogether, media images of female leaders are decoded as proof of potential success of women and therefore are meaningful for society.
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Gendered scrobbling: Listening behaviour of young adults on Last.fm
More LessCombining insights from the psychology and sociology of music, this article addresses the extent to which the listening behaviour of young adults differs between men and women with regard to (1) preferred music genres, (2) gender of music acts and (3) omnivorousness. Drawing on innovative data from the music-based social networking site Last.fm, the analyses show that young females listen more often to 'softer' and more mainstream music genres, to female acts and to a wider range of genres than males. Furthermore, by looking into actual listening behaviour and user-generated genre classifications - instead of self-reported preferences - this study contributes to research on gender stratification in music taste, showing that within male-dominated genres young women have carved out particular feminized niches, that women's pro-female bias is stronger within male-dominated music genres and that the gender difference in omnivorousness disappears when we examine only respondents' favourite music genres.
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