This book demonstrates the contradictions inherent in feminist and multicultural perspectives on the media. Case studies show how issues of gender, ethnicity, class and global origin affect the media coverage, portrayal & reception of every human being.

This groundbreaking collection explores the intersecting variables of groups marginalized by the media. Contributors examine gender, race, class, sexual orientation, geography, and ethnicity in relation to feminist multicultural issues. . . . Highly recommended for students of feminism, multiculturalism, cultural studies, communication theory, and media analysis. --Choice "Most of the world′s women experience multiple forms of oppression, yet few communication scholars have prioritized this profound reality. Professor Valdivia′s collection examining feminism, multiculturalism, and the media is a welcome text for courses on women, minorities, and communication, plus an excellent resource for many other courses concerned with issues of diversity." --H. Leslie Steeves, University of Oregon "Many contributors illustrate contradictions in multicultural and feminist media perspectives. These embrace more than feminist analysis: They illustrate how gender, race, class, and ethnicity affect media coverage and reception, providing theoretical approaches to analyzing media coverage." --The Bookwatch The multiplicity of voices in this volume illustrates the contradictions inherent in multicultural and feminist perspectives on the media. Feminism, Multiculturalism, and the Media breaks new ground by exploring intersecting variables of oppression, from the personal to the political. The volume begins with feminist analyses but uncovers marginalized "others" in every area. These compelling case studies illustrate how issues of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, global origin, and ethnicity affect the coverage, portrayal, media production, and reception of every human being. The chapters present theoretical perspectives, provide examples of methodologies, focus on topics of current interest and global relevance, and represent a variety of media. An essential addition for any individual or classroom interested in critical perspectives on media, especially for courses on women in the media and minorities and the media.

Feminist Media Studies is a cutting-edge introduction to the core and emerging theories, methods, and approaches in a field that has blossomed over the past twenty-five years. Adopting an intersectional approach – a framework concerning the interconnected character of oppression based on gender, race, class, and other constructed identities – Alison Harvey takes a global view of gendered practices in and around the media. She provides an accessible overview of classical and contemporary issues in media culture by exploring the past, present, and future of feminist media studies, accounting for changes in the media landscape, from digital technologies and globalized media systems to emergent inequalities, discourses, and practices. By engaging with research from a diverse body of scholarship, this book situates feminist media studies as vital to researching and analysing a range of significant issues. The go-to textbook for a new generation of students, as well as an important resource for scholars, Feminist Media Studies is both an exciting invitation to the field and a passionate call to arms.

Polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, punishing women for being raped, differential access for men and women to health care and education, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence. These practices and conditions are standard in some parts of the world. Do demands for multiculturalism--and certain minority group rights in particular--make them more likely to continue and to spread to liberal democracies? Are there fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equity and our increasing desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions? In this book, the eminent feminist Susan Moller Okin and fifteen of the world's leading thinkers about feminism and multiculturalism explore these unsettling questions in a provocative, passionate, and illuminating debate. Okin opens by arguing that some group rights can, in fact, endanger women. She points, for example, to the French government's giving thousands of male immigrants special permission to bring multiple wives into the country, despite French laws against polygamy and the wives' own bitter opposition to the practice. Okin argues that if we agree that women should not be disadvantaged because of their sex, we should not accept group rights that permit oppressive practices on the grounds that they are fundamental to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened. In reply, some respondents reject Okin's position outright, contending that her views are rooted in a moral universalism that is blind to cultural difference. Others quarrel with Okin's focus on gender, or argue that we should be careful about which group rights we permit, but not reject the category of group rights altogether. Okin concludes with a rebuttal, clarifying, adjusting, and extending her original position. These incisive and accessible essays--expanded from their original publication in Boston Review and including four new contributions--are indispensable reading for anyone interested in one of the most contentious social and political issues today. The diverse contributors, in addition to Okin, are Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na'im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, Bhikhu Parekh, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Joseph Raz, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir.

Making Feminist Media provides new ways of thinking about the vibrant media and craft cultures generated by Riot Grrrl and feminism’s third wave. It focuses on a cluster of feminist publications—including BUST, Bitch, HUES, Venus Zine, and Rockrgrl—that began as zines in the 1990s. By tracking their successes and failures, this book provides insight into the politics of feminism’s recent past. Making Feminist Media brings together interviews with magazine editors, research from zine archives, and analysis of the advertising, articles, editorials, and letters to the editor found in third-wave feminist magazines. It situates these publications within the long history of feminist publishing in the United States and Canada and argues that third-wave feminist magazines share important continuities and breaks with their historical forerunners. These publishing lineages challenge the still-dominant—and hotly contested— wave metaphor categorization of feminist culture. The stories, struggles, and strategies of these magazines not only represent contemporary feminism, they create and shape feminist cultures. The publications provide a feminist counter-public sphere in which the competing interests of editors, writers, readers, and advertisers can interact. Making Feminist Media argues that reading feminist magazines is far more than the consumption of information or entertainment: it is a profoundly intimate and political activity that shapes how readers understand themselves and each other as feminist thinkers.

«Strictly speaking», James Carey wrote, «there is no history of mass communication research.» This volume is a long-overdue response to Carey's comment about the field's ignorance of its own past. The collection includes essays of historiographical self-scrutiny, as well as new histories that trace the field's institutional evolution and cross-pollination with other academic disciplines. The volume treats the remembered past of mass communication research as crucial terrain where boundaries are marked off and futures plotted. The collection, intended for scholars and advanced graduate students, is an essential compass for the field.

Over the past few decades feminist media scholarship has flourished, to become a major influence on the fields of media, film and cultural studies. At the same time, the cultural shift towards 'post-feminism' has raised questions about the continuing validity of feminism as a defining term for this work. This book explores the changing and often ambivalent relationship between the three terms women, feminism and media in the light of these recent debates. At the same time it places them within the broader discussions within feminist theory - about subjectivity, identity, culture, and narrative - of which they have formed a crucial part.The book is organised around four key topic areas. 'Fixing into Images' offers a rethinking of one of the first preoccupations of feminist media analysis: the relationship between women and images. 'Narrating Femininity' explores the narratives of femininity produced in media texts in the light of theories of narrative and identity. 'Real Women' examines both the continuing absence of women's voices from the genres of news and documentary, and their over-presence within popular 'reality' media forms. Finally, 'Technologies of Difference' examines the relationship between feminism, women and new media technologies. Throughout, the book explores key issues within feminist media studies both through specific examples and via critical engagement with the work of major theoretical writers. Features*A completely up-to-date study of the key areas of issue and debate in feminist media studies.*Includes case studies and discussion of the work of key writers in the field.*Contains readings of specific texts, ranging from news and advertising to reality TV and 'postfeminist' TV drama.