Abstract
Wherever the cliché “everything but the kitchen sink” may have originated, it accurately describes the fifty-nine chapters that make up The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. Dedicated to an “extensive examination of a wide array of contemporary critical perspectives and diverse contexts,” the collection is essential for libraries and for those who study children, popular culture, psychology, sexual orientation, sociology, women and gender issues, and other areas of inquiry.
Part of the Taylor & Francis Group, Routledge describes the newest addition to its twenty-four-volume series accurately, touting the book for its exhaustive coverage of media and future trends. The ambitious collection is part of the Routledge Companion list, which includes informative and lengthy studies of children’s literature, Christian history, critical and cultural theory, English language studies, feminism, film history, global economics, the Gothic, music and visual culture, postmodernism, race and ethnicity, Russian literature, semiotics, social theory, theater and performance, and other topics.
In addition, the publisher’s website celebrates the book for research that will engage readers in a “broad array of global and transnational issues and intersectional perspectives”; its emphasis on issues including cosmetic surgery, digital policy, masculinity, pornography, postfeminism, sexual violence, queer identities, social media, sports, telenovelas, video games, and other topics; and its interdisciplinary contribution to a discussion of issues as varied as audience engagement, gender in media, production and policymaking, and representation.
Founding editors of Feminist Media Studies, Cynthia Carter and Lisa McLaughlin collaborated with Linda Steiner, professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, to produce the massive study. Steiner studies alternative media, citizen journalism, ethics, gendered media employment, and women and technology. Carter, a senior lecturer in media and cultural studies at the Cardiff School of Journalism, emphasizes news about children and women. McLaughlin, an associate professor in media, journalism, and film at Miami University Ohio, focuses upon the political economy, the public sphere, transnational feminism, and women, work, and information technologies around the world. The three contribute a strong knowledge base, a longtime commitment to scholarship, and a personal investment in women’s issues. Carter and Steiner submitted essays to the collection as well.
Part I, “Her/histories,” includes essays by Margaret Gallagher (“Media and the Representations of Gender”), Lisa M. Cuklanz (“Mass Media Representation of Gendered Violence”), Tim Edwards (“Lone Wolves: Masculinity, Cinema, and the Man Alone”), Vicki Mayer (“To Communicate Is Human; to Chat Is Female: The Feminization of US Media Work”), Joke Hermes (“Rediscovering Twentieth-Century Feminist Audience Research”), Isabel Molina-Guzmán and Lisa Marie Cacho (“Historically Mapping Contemporary Intersectional Feminist Media Studies”), Audrey Yue (“Sexualities/Queer Identities”), and Radha S. Hegde (“Gender, Media, and Trans/National Spaces.”
Part II, “Media Industries, Labor, and Policy,” includes “Women and Media Control: Feminist Interrogations at the Macro-Level” (Carolyn M. Byerly), “Risk, Innovation, and Gender in Media Conglomerates” (Ben Aslinger), “Putting Gender in the Mix: Employment, Participation, and Role Expectations in the Music Industries” (Marion Leonard), “Gender Inequality in Culture Industries” (Denise D. Bielby), “Shifting Boundaries: Gender, Labor, and New Information and Communication Technology” (Ursula Huws), “Gendering the Commodity Audience in Social Media” (Tamara Shepherd), and “Youthful White Male Industry Seeks ‘Fun’-Loving Middle-Aged Women for Video Games—No Strings Attached” (Shira Chess).
Others are “Boys Are . . . Girls Are . . .: How Children’s Media and Merchandising Construct Gender” (Dafna Lemish), “Girls’ and Boys’ Experiences of Online Risk and Safety” (Sonia Livingstone, Veronika Kalmus, and Kairi Talves), “Holy Grail or Poisoned Chalice? Three Generations of Men’s Magazines” (Annabelle Mooney), “Making Public Policy in the Digital Age: The Sex Industry as a Political Actor” (Katharine Sarikakis), “Gender and Digital Policy: From Global Information Infrastructure to Internet Governance” (Leslie Regan Shade), “Gender and Media Activism: Alternative Feminist Media in Europe” (Elke Zobl and Rosa Reitsamer), and “Between Legitimacy and Political Efficacy: Feminist Counter-publics and the Internet in China” (Iam-Chong Ip and Oi-Wan Lam).
Part III, titled “Images and Representations Across Texts and Genres,” includes “Buying and Selling Sex: Sexualization, Commerce, and Gender” (Karen Boyle), “Class, Gender, and the Docusoap” (Heather Nunn and Anita Biressi), “Society’s Emerging Femininities: Neoliberal, Postfeminist, and Hybrid Identities on Television in South Africa” (Shelley-Jean Bradfield), “A Nice Bit of Skirt and the Talking Head: Sex, Politics, and News” (Karen Ross), “Transgender, Transmedia, Transnationality: Chaz Bono in Documentary and Dancing with the Stars” (Katherine Sender), “Celebrity, Gossip, Privacy, and Scandal” (Milly Williamson), “‘Shameless Mums’ and Universal Pedophiles: Sexualization and Commodification of Children” (Sara Bragg), “Glances, Dances, Romances: An Overview of Gendered Sexual Narratives in Teen Drama Series” (Susan Berridge), and “Smoothing the Wrinkles: Hollywood, ‘Successful Aging,’ and the New Visibility of Older Female Stars” (Josephine Dolan).
Others are “Perfect Bodies, Imperfect Messages: Media Coverage of Cosmetic Surgery and Ideal Beauty” (J. Robyn Goodman), “Globalization, Beauty Regimes, and Mediascapes in the New India” (Radhika Parameswaran), “Narrative Pleasure in Homeland: The Competing Femininities of ‘Rogue Agents’ and ‘Terror Wives’” (Gargi Bhattacharyya), “Above the Fold and Beyond the Veil: Islamophobia in Western Media” (Nahed Eltantawy), and “Sport, Media, and the Gender-Based Insult” (David Rowe).
Part IV, “Media Audiences, Users, and Prosumers,” includes “Subjects of Capacity? Reality TV and Young Women” (Laurie Ouellette), “Telenovelas, Gender, and Genre” (Esther Hamburger), “Gendering and Selling the Female News Audience in a Digital Age” (Dustin Harp), “Looking beyond Representation: Situating the Significance of Gender Portrayal within Game Play” (Christine Daviault and Gareth Schott), “Textual Orientation: Queer Female Fandom Online” (Julie Levin Russo), “Delivering the Male—and More: Fandom and Media Sport” (Toby Miller), “Men’s Use of Pornography” (Matthew B. Ezzell), “Gender and Social Media: Sexism, Empowerment, or the Irrelevance of Gender?” (Tanja Carstensen), and “Slippery Subjects: Gender, Meaning, and the Bollywood Audience” (Shakuntala Banaji). Others are “Asian Women Audiences, Asian Popular Culture, and Media Globalization” (Youna Kim), “Women as Radio Audiences in Africa” (Tanja Bosch), “Reading Girlhood: Opportunities for Social Literacy” (Dawn H. Currie), “Investigating Users’ Responses to Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Strategy: Feminism, Freedom, and Facebook” (Dara Persis Murray), “Feminism in a Postfeminist World: Women Discuss Who’s ‘Hot’—and Why We Care—on the Collegiate ‘Anonymous Confession Board’” (Andrea L. Press and Francesca Tripodi), “Gendered Networked Visualities: Locative Camera Phone Cultures in Seoul, Korea” (Larissa Hjorth), and “Gendering the Arab Spring: Arab Women Journalists/Activists, ‘Cyberfeminism,’ and the Sociopolitical Revolution” (Sahar Khamis).
Part V, titled “Gendered Media Futures and the Future of Gender,” features “Latinas on Television and Film: Exploring the Limits and Possibilities of Inclusion” (Angharad N. Valdivia), “Postfeminist Sexual Culture” (Rosalind Gill), “Post-Postfeminism” (Catharine Lumby), “Policing the Crisis of Masculinity: Media and Masculinity at the Dawn of the New Century” (Brenton J. Malin), “Glassy Architectures in Journalism” (Linda Steiner), “Intersectionality, Digital Identities, and Migrant Youths: Moroccan Dutch Youths as Digital Space Invaders” (Koen Leurs and Sandra Ponzanesi), and “Online Popular Anti-sexism Political Action in the UK and USA: The Importance of Collaborative Anger for Social Change” (Cynthia Carter).
Of special note is that The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender publishes the work of both new and established scholars, makes possible the inclusion of women of color and international perspectives, and promotes the careers of graduate students, independent scholars, research fellows, assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors who deserve a voice and whose publications enhance their opportunities.
In their introduction, the editors argue that “gender continues to matter and that issues related to the gender–media nexus are more complicated than ever, necessitating more nuanced and multifaceted understandings.” From “narrow ideas of beauty” to stereotypes of athletes and women running for political office to “violent video games for boys and relationship-oriented games for girls” to explorations of popular programming, this comprehensive volume points to new directions for research and celebrates the scholars whose time has come.