A group of 188 undergraduate students at the University of Arizona read three vignettes depicting a lawyer's performance at trial. The types of cases presented at trial were rape, sex discrimination, family law (divorce and child support), murder, narcotics, contracts, paternity, prostitution, and insanity. Some of the subjects read a case presented by lawyer John McKay, while others read the same case presented by lawyer Joan McKay. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed no significant differences in the perceived effectiveness and credibility of the trial lawyers, with male and female attorneys rated equally competent. The results were most encouraging for women entering the profession of law, and showed that bright undergraduate college freshmen now perceive women attorneys without sexism and with credibility.

Gender representation is a frequently addressed field within media and communication studies in general and in the subject of TV advertising in particular. Previous research mainly focused on the detection of commonly exploited stereotypes that are used to portray women and men respectively. Much emphasize has been placed on the relationship between the sexes regarding social roles and professions, embedded in a cultural and ideological context. The purpose of this scientific work however is to examine how the construction of gender stereotypes in media takes place, which practices are used to connote meaning. Using a qualitative method, namely a visual discourse analysis, the aim of the study is to unveil subtle but also obvious symbols and characteristics that are used to represent feminine and masculine traits respectively in order to expand the current body of research. This proceeding marks an approach to have a closer look at the social interaction of females and males in TV advertisements in order to get an insight in the allocation of power and subsequently, social roles. Four TV advertisements are used as objects of investigation. As a theoretical fundament, the gender theories of sexism, masculinism and feminism are introduced. The findings suggest that the representation of women and men still follows strong patterns of stereotyping, not just on the level of role allocation but also on a behavioral level. However, the study comes to the conclusion that an asymmetric treatment of the sexes is not necessarily the result of gender stereotyping; in the case, both sexes are stereotyped similarly, not depicting either men or women dominating their counterparts in a global context.

A love ethic is the ground of agency and subjectivity for both men and women, and mutuality is the heart of love. Many feminist scholars are working to articulate and understand love by examining women's identity and language. In this thesis, I explore a language used for love and desire through theoretical examination and poetic expression. Using a dialectical relationship between the text and the reader, this project demonstrates that mutual love depends on access to language that can express love and sexuality. Three central texts are used: 'All About Love: New Visions' by bell hooks, 'I Love to You: Sketch of a Possible Felicity in History' by Luce Irigaray and 'Love Lyrics from the Bible: The Song of Songs, a New Translation' by Marcia Falk. In six sections of theoretic analysis and poetry, I show that female subjectivity and agency are conditions for mutuality in both love and sexuality.

The US presidential campaign was a hot topic around the world in 2016. Discussions about what might have affected the outcome of the election have been many, where in amongst the discussion of the media's role in political events like this. By investigating The Washington Post (liberal) and The Washington Times (conservative) articles portraying Hillary Clintons period of illness during the campaign, this essay aims to examine and analyze the discourse describing Clintons pneumonia. The essay will use the discourse theory developed by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau which is based on the concepts of signs and elements and how they are connected in the discourse. By examining the use of words we can investigate the general attitude towards women in politics. Pairing this method with the gender theories developed by Yvonne Hirdman, Simone de Beauvoir and Raewyn Connells and the idea of medialised politics, this essay considered it to be clear that Hillary is subjected to an unfair portrayal. The general conclusion is that there are differences in how men and women are portrayed in the American media, which demonstrates the continued injustices in society and thus a continued unequal society with a long way to go to reach full equality in all aspects of society.

The purpose of this study was to examine the social perceptions of young children with disabilities and young children of color. Further, an attempt was made to determine whether differential rates of acceptance were experienced by either group, or by the group of children who were of color and also had a disability within integrated classrooms. Young children (age 5.0 through 6.11) were studied in intact groups (N=120) from child care centers in the Texas counties of Denton and Dallas. Three measures of social perceptions were implemented: (a) a forced choice (multiple alternative) technique using dolls of a variety of ethnicities and ability statuses in which children must select dolls they feel represent a list of positive and negative attributes; (b) social distance theory as measured by children's artwork; (c) a sociometric rating. The results of this study showed significant areas (p< 05) of stereotype and bias in the perceptions of young children toward ethnicity, disability and gender. Implications for further research into the efficacy of multicultural and anti-bias education programs is recommended.

This study implemented a social media based content analysis to examine the subjective experiences and the current public perceptions of sexism in STEM fields. Participants included men and women who a) identified as either in STEM or not identified as in STEM and b) commented through Facebook on HuffPost Women articles about women in STEM. The analysis indicated that sexism remains an issue for women in STEM careers. Women in STEM identified several gender-based challenges that they have experienced; some participants discussed how they handled those challenges. Men both in and not in STEM were less likely to acknowledge and more likely to deny that sexism was a problem for women in STEM than were women participants. Though findings showed a high rate of supportive commentary from women, they also showed a substantial number of male commenters displaying overt sexism. The analysis helped identify a new form of sexism to the literature on subtle sexism: Threat to Masculinity. More specifically, both men and women were found to display overt sexism to men who supported women by utilizing gender based stereotypes to validate their claims and police gender roles. Findings from this study support the literature suggesting that sexism remains an issue that needs to be addressed; the analysis begins to build a theory about how such sexism is portrayed through social media commentary as an important arena of social and cultural debate. Current policies aimed at ending sexism/discrimination should be expanded to support and encourage women’s participation in STEM careers.

The goal with our research has been to describe how often and in what way female athletes are represented in the sport section in Sweden’s biggest evening newspaper Aftonbladet. The material we’ve used are the newspapers that we collected during two weeks in 2008, the 3rd of November to the 9th of November and the 11th of November to the 17th of November. We’ve conduced two qualitative researches – a text analysis and an image analysis – and one quantitative analysis on our material. We’ve based our analysis on, among others, theories on the sportmediacomplex, critique feministic analysis and normative theory.        In these articles women are designed into four different stereotypes. We’ve chosen to call them the star, the victim, the sensation and the absent. On the basis on our theories we believe that these four stereotypes are creating more sexism and in that way they are contributing to the suppressing of women as a whole.        Our quantitative analysis shows that men occur more frequent on the sport pages than women. Almost nine of ten of the articles in Sportbladet are about men and male athletes. We believe that in this way Sportbladet contributes to the invisibilisation of female athletes and further more to the discrimination of women.

The aim of this thesis is to study the views of public librarians on the subject of controversial video games and how they work with them at the library. The purpose of the study is to answer these questions: What content is controversial in video games according to the librarians? How do the librarians handle the controversial games at the library? Does it exist a conflict between the users and the librarians about the controversial video games? Is it possible to see any underlying reasons or tendencies in the librarians answers? Five qualitative interviews were performed to answer these questions and the collected data was analyzed using the terms, value rationality and instrumental rationality which were collected from a theory by Geir Vestheim. The results showed that the librarians see violence, sexism and racism as controversial content in video games. They handle the games at the library by limiting the access for children with age limits and by not buying the most controversial games in some cases. According to the librarians there aren’t many conflicts with the users on the issue. The underlying tendencies in the librarians view on video games with controversial content shows signs of both value rationality and instrumental rationality. / Program: Bibliotekarie

ABSTRACT This study is based on two reportages from the program Uppdrag granskning that have received a lot of attention in 2018 and have led to the highest number of claims to the Ministry of press, radio and television in Sweden. The main theme of the two reportages is men ́s sexual violence against women, thus approached from two different perspectives. Through using a Critical Discourse Analysis and intersectional theory the thesis examines how different bodies are given different spaces, what kind of feelings they provoke and how identity is constructed. It becomes evident that the perspective and how the perpetrator is described in the program depend on whether or not he is part of norm of whiteness. The study shows that Uppdrag granskning uses its discursive power to effect feelings in a way that normalizes sexism and racism. Through the hegemonic discourse that Uppdrag granskning creates, things that are unthinkable to say today become possible to say tomorrow. Keywords: Media, Discourses, Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Whiteness Studies, Racism, Sexism, Uppdrag granskning

This thesis examined bodied activism in Chicago's Slutwalk 2012 march, a contemporary movement initiated in Toronto, Canada that publicly challenged the mainstream sentiment that women are responsible for their own rape and victimization. Adopting an intersectional approach, I used textual analysis to discuss photographs posted on the official Chicago Slutwalk website to explore the ways this form of public bodied protest discursively engages women's empowerment from movement feminism as well as third wave and postfeminisms. I additionally analyzed the overall website and its promotional materials for the Slutwalk marches as well as how Chicago's photographic representations privilege the white female body as victim, demonstrating how the reclamation "slut" privileges whiteness. The website depictions normalize how one should react to a system of violence which provides negative implications for women and men who are situated in a postfeminist rape culture. Positioning my analysis within Communication/Cultural Studies and Women's and Gender studies, I contributed to the literature about rape culture and postfeminist activism through my analysis of Slutwalk. By employing intersectionality from feminist theory and textual analysis, I demonstrated how Slutwalk's promotion of bodied activism naturalized postfeminism and excludes Black women from participating.