"Based on a wealth of primary data collected during five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fueling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the
...
Arab world. The controversies, Marwan M. Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic “Arab Street” and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera and toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance." (Publisher description)
more
"This paper studies the link between television and divorce in Brazil by exploiting variation in the timing of availability of the signal of Rede Globo—the network that had a virtual monopoly on telenovelas in the country—across municipal areas. Using three rounds of Census data (1970, 1980 and
...
1991) and controlling for area fixed effects and for time-varying characteristics, the paper finds that the share of women who are separated or divorced increases significantly after the Globo signal becomes available. The effect is robust to controlling for potential determinants of Globo’s entry strategy and is stronger for relatively smaller areas, where the signal reaches a higher fraction of the population." (Abstract)
more
"This book explores the changing and often ambivalent relationship between the three terms women, feminism and media in the light of recent debates. At the same time it places them within the broader discussions within feminist theory - about subjectivity, identity, culture, and narrative - of which
...
they have formed a crucial part. Throughout, the book explores key issues within feminist media studies both through specific examples and via critical engagement with the work of major theoretical writers." (Publisher description)
more
"The Gender and Media Baseline Study, conducted in southern Africa in 2003, revealed glaring gender disparities in the media and in its editorial content. With its goal to ‘promote gender equality in and through the media’, Gender Links (GL) has worked with a broad range of partners to try to re
...
dress these gaps through research, advocacy, and training, targeting media producers, those who influence news content, and consumers. GL, and the Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) network that it hosts, are also developing a Gender and Media Diversity Centre, to enhance the sharing of knowledge in this important but relatively new area of work." (Abstract)
more
"This publication features a series of papers that represent an early exploration of the challenges and opportunities for actors committed to gender equality in the information society. It is meant to open up the debates that can pave the way for a sustained engagement of gender activists with one o
...
f the most powerful contemporary social phenomena." (Back cover)
more
"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 women'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 women'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 women - media 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." (Publisher description)
more
"Sex tourism on the internet is at the confluence of issues of race, gender,sexuality, technology and globalization. Increasingly, information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the internet, are playing a particularly significant role not only in the promotion and packaging of sex touri
...
sm but of a new type of global surveillance of bodies, race and desire (Gabriel, 1998, 2000; Ware and Back, 2002). Cyberspace enables sex tourists to build deeper connections between the racialization, sexualization and commodification of sex workers' bodies and Western masculinity. Like chat rooms (Travers, 2000), MUDs (Turkle, 1995) and MOOs (White, 2002), sex tourists use discussion boards to exchange information and give immediate feedback on their experiences. In this culture of hypertext, users are active contributors to the representation of sex tourism as the recombinant nature of the discussion boards allows them to be consumers and producers (Elmer, 2004: 56; Landow, 1992). The members of this community discuss issues and places with the intention of buying sex and from the experiences of that desire and pursuit. This raises important concerns regarding dystopian and utopian outcomes of internet use. Instead 884 Media, Culture & Society 28(6) of ICTs making us freer and more democratic, they may be deepening social inequality and structures of difference." (Abstract)
more
"Cette étude ne constitue pas une analyse conforme aux normes académiques, mais s'attache plutôt à mettre en exergue les questions à débattre et des défis à relever. A cet égard, elle passe en revue les recherches récentes, les politiques, les stratégies, et plus particulièrement les bon
...
nes pratiques identifiées au niveau national et régional ainsi que les résultats des conférences, réunions et rapports intergouvernementaux. Dans ce rapport, un intérêt particulier est porté aux recommandations susceptibles d’alimenter les débats de la Conférence ministérielle Euro-Méditerranéenne et des deux conférences préparatoires prévues pour mai et juin 2006. L'étude est présentée en version arabe, anglaise et française - la version originale étant en anglais. Elle est divisée en trois parties : Education, Médias, et Création Culturelle. Chaque partie contient un ensemble de défis, d’objectifs et de recommandations concrètes qui s’accompagnent d’indicateurs pertinents et de résultats escomptées. Une structure interne identique s’applique à toutes les sections afin de mettre en valeur la justification des recommandations centrées sur les problèmes identifiés. Les recommandations sont numérotées pour faciliter leur citation."
more