No. 7 (2018): Media, communication and gender

Never before have the interdisciplinary territories of communication, media and gender research intersected in such a meaningful and fruitful way. With roots outside academia, investment in understanding and overcoming gender inequalities coexists, influences and is influenced by academic work in the field of sexual minorities. This in turn brings to the fore the claims of political movements which, like the feminist, are concerned with the implications of difference in the daily lives of individuals. The recognition of gender as a dynamic social construction immersed in power relations (e.g. Butler, 1990, 2004), as opposed to the essentialism of biological and watertight conceptions of identity, has made it possible to question how gender is represented, lived and experienced in very diverse ways. Questions are formulated both from positions committed to the dissolution and denaturalization of the rigidity of culturally imposed social categories, as do queer studies (e.g. Warner, 1993), and from the search for models and schemes capable of leading to a more just policy of identity representation. It is under this horizon that the conditions of access to the media and to the wider public space for women and other groups with lower status are questioned (e.g. Alwood, 1996; Gross, 2001; Carter, Steiner & McLaughlin, 2014; Lind, 2017).