Women and Media A Critical Introduction

by Byerly, Carolyn M.; Ross, Karen

• ISBN13: 9781405116060
• ISBN10: 1405116064
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-17
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Women and Media is a thoughtful cross-cultural examination of the ways in which women have worked inside and outside mainstream media organizations since the 1970s. The book provides an overview of the key issues and developments in feminist media critiques and interventions over the last 30 years, beginning with the extant literature in this growing field and ending with a new study of womenrs"s media activism in 20 nations. The authors recount and analyze the first-hand narratives of nearly 100 women media activists whose work has contributed to the making of a feminist public sphere that has moved women leaders and agendas more forcefully into their societies. This highly original empirical base, and the Model of Women's Media Action that the authors developed from it, provides a unique account of womenrs"s struggles to improve, create, and otherwise employ media in pushing for social change. The text is written in a concise, engaging style, laying out the central concerns about the womenmedia relationship as it has operated in a variety of political/critical contexts. It can be used alongside Women and Media: International Perspectives (2004), by the same authors.

Author Biography

Carolyn M. Byerly, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Graduate Program of Mass Communication and Media Studies, Department of Journalism, Howard University, Washington DC (USA). She teaches seminars in mass communication theory, research methods, media effects, and political communication. Recent publications include Women and Media: International Perspectives (edited with Karen Ross, Blackwell, 2004), "After 9/11: Formation of an Oppositional Discourse," (Feminist Media Studies, Fall 2005), and "Women and the Concentration of Media Ownership" (in R. R. Rush, C.E. Oukrop, and P. J. Creedon, Seeking Equity for Women in Journalism and Mass Communication Education, Erlbaum, 2004).

Karen Ross, Ph.D., is Professor of Mass Communication at Coventry University (UK). She teaches research methods, gender politics and media, and audience studies and is has written extensively on issues of in/equality in communication and culture. Her previous books include: Gender and Newsroom Cultures: Identities at Work (with Marjan de Bruin, Hampton Press, 2004); Women and Media: International Perspectives (edited with Carolyn M. Byerly, Blackwell, 2004); Media and Audiences (with Virginia Nightingale, Open University Press, 2003. She is currently working on two studies relating to press coverage of elections from a gender perspective.

Table of Contents

Preface and acknowledgments	vi
About the authors	ix
Introduction	1	(14)
Part I Research on women and media: a short history	15	(82)
Women in/as entertainment	17	(20)
Images of women in news and magazines	37	(19)
Women as audience	56	(19)
Women and production: gender and the political economy of media industries	75	(22)
Part II Women, media, and the public sphere: shifting the agenda	97	(143)
Toward a Model of Women's Media Action	99	(30)
First path: politics to media	129	(26)
Second path: media profession to politics	155	(30)
Third path: advocate change agent	185	(23)
Fourth path: women's media enterprises	208	(23)
Conclusion	231	(9)
Bibliography	240	(33)
Appendix: research participants	273	(5)
Name index	278	(6)
Subject index	284