Globalization Gender Politics And The Media

Globalization, Gender, and Media tackles the emergence of “sexy violence” imagery and the coalescence of the sexual and violent meanings in contemporary global mainstream news, television, film, and social media. Tuija Parikka analyzes how such imagery advances particular interpretations of globalization, and the role of gender in such projects. Cases range from serious news journalism and film to social media spectacles, brought under the umbrellas of media production, contents, and perception. These versatile cases introduce issues revealing the limits of Western freedom discourse in the social media; universalizing an idea of motherhood and ethnicity in news production; time, home, and class in the formation of global imbalances of power online and in reality TV; instability of sex and gender in discourses of rape and porn; politicizing majority-minority relations in the social media. Globalization, Gender, and Media emphasizes the need to consider the interconnectedness and material - discursive aspects of globalization and the reality of gender in the media.

From advertising to television and film, feminist media scholars have examined the changing nature of media representations form the 1990’s onwards in comparison to the 1950s in the UK and the US. Many debates focus on the current ambiguity surrounding media representations which are inserted within post-feminist texts that tend to equate female empowerment with choice, individualism and consumerism. This has occurred in a context where there have been some achievements in gender equality worldwide, with women occupying more spaces in the marketplace, business and government. In the last decades, Latin America has been through many changes. Inequality levels have been reduced and political trends have resulted in the election of female politicians throughout the continent, corresponding with a revival of gender politics and feminist movements. At the same time, however, countries like Brazil are still home to gender discrimination and inequality, with high levels of domestic violence towards women, low levels of political representation, a culture of machismo, and the enduring predominance of stereotypical gender representations in the media. Globalization, Gender Politics, and the Media looks at the correlation between gender inequality in society with media representations, situating the case of Brazil and Latin America within the global quest for gender justice. It emphasizes the need to equate material and economic concerns with the examination of the reproduction of values and beliefs on gender through cultural and media outlets. Questions that are asked include, how can the media better contribute to assist in gender development and nation-building? How can online platforms make a difference? What can be done within the mainstream media to advance women’s rights? What is understood by the myth of the “Brazilian woman,” and how does this connect to other notions of what the “Third World woman” is? Using a triangulation methodology, this book includes a small selection of interviews with experts from international organizations, politicians in Brazil, and bloggers, as well as a sample of media analysis of ads, commercials, posters, campaign material, and feminist blogs to examine the challenges that gender equality faces in this country and the ways in which the media can make a difference.

"Gender and the Politics of Possibilities explores the lesser-known side of globalization beyond the effects of national governments and multinational cooperations by taking a look at grassroots movements by women that have shaped and continue to shape globalization today. Manisha Desai highlights the significant role that women play in cross-border trade in Africa, in transborder activism on issues that affect women, and in cultural change and social justice."--BOOK JACKET.

Circuits of Visibility explores transnational media environments as pathways to understand the gendered constructions and contradictions that underwrite globalization. Tracking the ways in which gendered subjects are produced and defined in transnationally networked, media saturated environments, Circuits of Visibility presents sixteen essays that collectively advance a discussion about sexual politics, media, technology, and globalization. Covering the internet, television, books, telecommunications, newspapers, and activist media work, the volume directs focused attention to the ways in which gender and sexuality issues are constructed and mobilized across the globe. Contributors’ essays span diverse global sites from Myanmar and Morocco to the Balkans, France, U.S., and China, and cover an extensive terrain from consumption, aesthetics and whiteness to masculinity, transnational labor, and cultural citizenship. Circuits of Visibility initiates a necessary conversation and political critique about the mediated global terrain on which sexuality is defined, performed, regulated, made visible, and experienced.

The global political arena is (again) in a time of crisis. Different sources pay attention to different crises: the Global Financial Crisis, the Debt Crisis, the Crisis of ISIL/Daesh in Iraq and Syria, the Crisis of Israel and Palestine, and the Iran Nuclear Crisis have gotten significant attention in media coverage of global politics. But those are not the only crises that scholars and practitioners discuss. Environmentalists warn of ecological crisis, health scholars warn of disease crises, cyber-security experts suggest a coming information crisis, and migration experts warn of population crises. Feminist work on global politics has addressed many of these crises - historical and contemporary - in crisis language and without it, as well as a number of the non-crises that looking for women and gender in the international arena draws into focus. That work, however, had generally not explicitly theorized the conceptualization of crisis, its gendered dimensions, and/or gender-based crises as such. Across this book, feminist conversations about crisis in global politics suggests that a single feminist approach to, definition of, or politics of crisis is impossible to find. That same variety of work, though, makes a strong case that paying attention to crises in the world and to the manufacture of crisis rhetoric alongside events in global politics is not only generally important but an important place for feminist scholarship, feminist political activism, and direct attention. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Feminist Journal of Politics.

This cutting-edge work critiques today's global mediascape through feminist perspectives, highlighting concerns of policy, power, labor, and technology. Starting with the general state of international communications, the book uses feminist political-economic and policy analyses to explore the globalization of media industries, including questions about women's employment and media content that is globally produced and consumed. A top-notch group of authors covers cases on online news, pornography and explicit material, political participation and democracy, policies for women's development, violence against women, labor practices and information workers, print media and publishing, public 'telecentres,' media coverage of HIV/AIDS, and more. Providing fresh feminist insights into international communication, this essential book shows the important strides taken toward women's justice in these areas and how far there is yet to go.

This book takes a fresh look at media and communications policy and provides a comprehensive account of issues that are central to the study of the field. It moves beyond the "specifics" of regulation, by examining policy areas that have proved to be of common concern for societies across different socioeconomic realities. It also seeks to address profound gaps in the study of policy by demonstrating the centrality of historical, social, and political context in debates that may appear solely technical or economic. Media Policy and Globalization covers the institutional changes in the communications policy arena by examining the changing role of the state, technology and the market, and the role of civil society. It discusses actual policy areas in broadcasting, telecommunications and the information society and examines the often-overlooked normative dimensions of communications policy. Features*Provides a cross-disciplinary critical perspective of the politics of communications policy-making in a global context*Explores new issues in communications policy such as ethical concerns and the "internationality of policy"*Useful for upper-level undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars of communications and media studies, and international and global studies

This book provides an insightful approach to understanding the contemporary circulations of feminist repertoires and shows how the international/transnational circulations of gender are interconnected, even coextensive, with the globalization process itself. Fed by a shared reflexivity on relations among activist groups, state institutions, and international actors involved in the production and dissemination of contemporary norms dealing with gender, each chapter shares methodological premises and studies the circulation of gender-related norms and knowledge in situ and by varying standpoints. Specifically, the authors de-compartmentalize the academic disciplines and go beyond classical geographic divisions, in order to map social spaces and networks of actors involved in the production and circulation of gender-related repertoires. Last, the book grasps circulatory processes and entangled social phenomena, which are usually subject to disciplinary and thematic divisions separating collective action and public action, development aid and feminism, law and international relations. Focused on collective and individual experiences within women’s organizations, activist careers, unstable mobilizations, public policies temporalities, the chapters reveal the mechanisms through which these arrangements are made and shed light on strategies deployed by actors rooted in specific social and political contexts. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of gender studies and more broadly to politics, International Relations, sociology, geography, history, and anthropology.