This thesis applies a feminist theoretical perspective to interrogate discourses of postfeminism, as well as the position of the female body, fitness, and resistance within contemporary American culture. I argue that women’s fitness blogs are a vehicle for the production of Rosalind Gill’s “postfeminist sensibility,” focusing specifically on fitness bloggers’ use of self-surveillance and monitoring, personal transformation or “makeovers”, and intensified consumerism. Using ideological textual analysis of several fitness blogs as case studies, I examine the ways in which women publicly negotiate their relationships with their body through the documentation and disclosure of their food and exercise lifestyles. This thesis also acknowledges the feminist potential of fitness blogs as spaces in which women may strive towards body positivity and recovery from eating disorders, as well as challenge cultural expectations regarding female body and appetite. / text

Media play an important role in transmitting information for citizens in a country as large as Canada. Much of what Canadians know about the larger country comes to them through the media they view. What then, is the information that media carries forward. How do the media depict political movements and political actors who are not politicians? This thesis explores the implications of media coverage for feminist organizations in Canada, using as a case study media’s response to the cuts to the Status of Women Canada by the Harper government in the fall of 2006. This analysis specifically focuses on the image of feminism created in media and the importance (or lack thereof) communicated by media about such organizations. / Thesis (Master, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2007-10-23 20:03:09.21

Thesis advisor: Martin Summers / The second wave feminist media, defined as ideological contributions via the written word, played an essential role in the second wave by sharing radical ideologies and bringing women into a feminist consciousness. This study examines the herstory of three groups in Boston at the time: the Second Wave magazine (1971-1983), the Combahee River Collective (1974-1980), and Persephone Press (1976-1983). Each group had different motivations yet remained dedicated to the radical feminist media and various methods of societal upheaval. As a radical feminist magazine, a black feminist organization, and lesbian-feminist publishing house respectively, the women behind the three entities aspired to alter the face of second wave feminism. Each had several commonalities: including a commitment to the feminist media, factionalism and ideological strife, difficulties in balancing beliefs with harsh systemic realities, and a great connection to coalitions and the greater feminism community. The Second Wave, the Combahee River Collective, and Persephone Press may appear conflicting at first glance but shared a great commitment to facing sexist oppression through the written word. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

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For decades, situational comedies — commonly named “sitcoms” — have been racially segregated on TV between Black-cast sitcoms and White-cast sitcoms. Extensive research has been led about representation of Black and White masculinities in this segregated context. This master thesis studies what happens when White and Black males are equally casted as main characters in contemporary sitcoms by offering a case-study of the 2011 sitcom New Girl (2011-2017). How is Black masculinity represented in New Girl, and in which ways does it intersect with contemporary societal issues (e.g. racial profiling, Black Lives Matter movement)? This case-study uses tools, methodologies and concepts, drawn from Black and Intersectional feminism as well as Feminist media studies. Based on a 25 episodes sample of the show, it implements Ronald Jackson’s traditional stereotypes classification and “Black masculine identity theory” (Jackson, 2006) to study representations of Black masculinity in New Girl, through its two main Black male characters, Winston and Coach. Given that representations of minorities in popular culture reflect and influence our contemporary society, the results offer new insights about how sitcoms, series and popculture productions in general can challenge traditional stereotypes and display a more progressive Black masculinity.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Theatre, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-137).

Rather than taking a broad genre-based approach to analyzing reality television as digital media, this disserations understands the field of reality programming as operating within a new media model and as composed of micro-genres. My project specifically explores the "intimate" micro-genre, considering the politics of respectability and gendered labor as foundational elements in what is a particularly fertile and volatile site of meaning-making. Grounding my analysis in a comprehensive map of reality programming allows me to explore a pattern of politically rich programs set in the South. Shows such as Duck Dynasty, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and Real Housewives of Atlanta offer insight into the circulation and currency of race, class, and gender with significant theoretical implications for an economically and politically unstable national moment. Using an intersectional lens to investigate reality television, my project seeks to better understand the gears driving our cultural anxieties and media trends through an analysis of digital paratexts, branding, labor, and affect.

This paper examines the Swedish tabloid press coverage of three rape case allegations where the accused was a high-profile sport star. Critical discourse analysis was applied as the theoretical and methodological framework combined with the theoretical concepts of monstering and rape myths. The three cases we examined were the rape allegations against Cristiano Ronaldo, the rape allegations against three Swedish hockey players and the child rape case involving the Malmö FF player Kingsley Sarfo.    Monstering is a term used to describe the process in which the media portrays a rapist as a “monster” or “pervert”.  By doing so the rapist is separated from “ordinary men”. If the problem is never identified as “men raping” then the solution can never be “stop men from raping”   Rape myths on the other hand, focuses on how media reports on rape creates and sustains stereotypic ideas about rape. Research have found that if the media writes about rape in a stereotypical way then this perception of rape will spread to the readers.    We found that monstering appeared regularly in each of the three cases mostly through naming and reference of the alleged perpetrators and the accusers. Rape myths also appeared in each of the three cases but to a lesser degree. Rape myths was prominent through a linguistic separation between the alleged rapist and the rape.    Our results also showed that a patriarchal discourse was prevalent in the reporting on rape in the Swedish tabloid press.

Researches done on social movements and media are often conducted at a micro-level, focusing on the individual activity (Klandermans 1997), or the macro level, excluding the meso level, linking the two first levels together. Furthermore, studies focusing on the relation between feminism as a social movement and media often neglect to identify the opportunities and the limitations of such an intersection. The aim of this research is to increase knowledge in this gap, offering a comprehensive conceptual framework that focuses on the three levels of interaction between media and feminist activism. Attention will also be paid to the intersection between offline and online as it ‘helps us question the bias towards online and always connected forms of activism’ . (Fotopoulou 2014) The research questions of this thesis are: How women in Great-Britain perceive the limitations and opportunities in media, to connect with the feminist movement? And How can we understand these experiences through the role of ICT linked to macro-processes such as mediatization?The findings are that the relatively new online platforms and media practices of digital and networked media are changing the landscape of how feminist activists think and fight for gender equality. They both carry the opportunities and the limitations of such a relation. Indeed, the assumption that social network and online media are a central in women’s organization is correct, however, they are not the only way of doing so and they should remain complementary. The concept of ‘digital sisterhood’ helps us to understand that complex balance and it allows us to question the different levels of activism that are being reconsidered.

The aim of this master thesis is to contribute to a more profound knowledge of women's magazine reading by giving insights into the readerships’ interpretations of magazine texts. Three different dimensions of interpretation were thereby identified: the relation to the audiences’ own situations in life, the audiences’ reflections on their prior experiences, and the emerging emotions in the interpretation process. Audience and reception theory, as well as feminist media theory, form the theoretical framework of my research. As audience reception concerns the dynamic interaction between text and the audiences’ reception of it, I decided to concentrate on both text analysis and qualitative interviews. With my qualitative, methodological approach – comprising an analysis of three articles concerning texting advice and interviews with six regular readers, I was able to explore nuances and depths of the phenomenon. I identified four interpretative repertoires which the women used for making meaning of the texts: pleasure, rejection, self-reflection, and practical relevance. Pleasure and rejection were found to be the women’s predominant emotions in the interpretation process. Moreover, my research illustrates that women are interpreting the texting advice in a practical as well as in a self-reflexive way. Their own circumstances and prior experiences are thereby variables, which influence the reception. My work strengthens the perspective of readers as being empowered to understand, evaluate, and critique the media content they consume. This is an important finding influencing society at large. As my research outlines, critical readings were found to be superior to possible ideological influences of women’s magazines. Future research should focus on a further in-depth analysis of individual influencing variables in relation to the audiences’ interpretations as I was only able to evaluate some in my study.