Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

In this chapter we will be concentrating on one of the key processes in the ‘cultural circuit’ (see Du Gay et al., 1997, and the Introduction to this volume) – the practices of representation. The aim of this chapter is to introduce you to this topic, and to explain what it is about and why we give it such importance in cultural studies. The concept of representation has come to occupy a new and important place in the study of culture. Representation connects meaning and language to culture. But what exactly do people mean by it? What does representation have to do with culture and meaning? One common-sense usage of the term is as follows: ‘Representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people.’ You may well ask, ‘Is that all?’ Well, yes and no. Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture. It does involve the use of language, of signs and images which stand for or represent things. But this is a far from simple or straightforward process, as you will soon discover. How does the concept of representation connect meaning and language to culture? In order to explore this connection further, we will look at a number of different theories about how language is used to represent the world. Here we will be drawing a distinction between three different accounts or theories: the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist approaches to representation. Does language simply reflect a meaning which already exists out there in the world of objects, people and events (reflective)? Does language express only what the speaker or writer or painter wants to say, his or her personally intended meaning (intentional)? Or is meaning constructed in and through language (constructionist)? You will learn more in a moment about these three approaches. Most of the chapter will be spent exploring the constructionist approach, because it is this perspective which has had the most significant impact on cultural studies in recent years. This CHAPTER ONE

From Work to Representation

The basic assumption of cultivation - more exposure to television leads to more cultivation effects - is examined by reviewing research on genre-specific cultivation. Studies on three genres are included in the review: Crime, soap opera and talk shows. The review indicates differential cultivation effects of the different genres; not all of them are consistent with the basic cultivation hypothesis. Building on these results, a theoretical framework is set up that accounts for possible explanations. The framework starts from the notion of a multi-step cultivation process inherent in current theorizing, ranging from (1) encoding and storage of television information, (2) inferences about the real world, and (3) retrieval and construction of cultivation judgments. This notion is extended by reconceptualizing the 'cultivating' message, integrating uses and gratifications of television viewing and emphasizing the role of personal knowledge and attitudes.

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Life according to television. Implications of genre-specific cultivation effects: The Gratification/cultivation model

Television viewing often is a sequence of a multitude of activities that can vary tremendously from the moment the TV set is turned on until it is turned off again. Previous models of individual viewing behavior as well as empirical studies have focused on isolated aspects of viewing only, such as the frequency and duration of viewing or patterns of selecting a specific program. This paper draws attention to the complete process of TV viewing. We develop a process model to describe whole viewing sessions. Furthermore, a review of the empirical evidence on viewing behavior and a typology of factors influencing the viewing process are presented, concluded by a research program.

Dynamics of Individual Television Viewing Behavior: Models, Empirical Evidence, and a Research Program

Bei dem Versuch, die Charakteristika der heutigen Gesellschaft mit einem Schlagwort zusammenzufassen, wird in den letzten Jahrzehnten haufig das Bild der „Informationsgesellschaft“ bemuht.1 Bei all ihrer Unterschiedlichkeit teilen die verschiedenen Konzepte die Diagnose, dass die derzeitige Gesellschaft grundlegend gepragt ist von der Zunahme der Quantitat, der Komplexitat und der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Bedeutung von Information sowie der Technologien zu ihrer Ubermittlung (vgl. Tsvasman 2006; Ott 2004: 253ff.). Gleichzeitig verlieren jedoch sowohl der Begriff der Information als auch Informationen selbst durch ihr inflationares Kursieren an Gehalt. Diese Umschreibung erinnert an den in den letzten Jahren insbesondere von Friedrich Krotz (2001) gepragten Begriff der Mediatisierung, der den Metaprozess der zunehmenden Durchdringung des Alltags mit immer weiter ausdifferenzierten Kommunikationsmedien bezeichnet.

Zum Wandel von Informationsrepertoires in konvergierenden Medienumgebungen

German cinema has in recent years experienced a revival of scrutiny for its evident gender inequality. Women directors receive less public funds, work with lower budgets, and their films have smaller releases; however, their films are often more successful artistically and are produced financially more efficiently. The lack of female talent in the industry, thus, can’t be a problem of quality as is often argued. Instead, industry structures fail to sustain female directors’ careers. This article presents findings from a series of extensive empirical studies on the German film industry. One of the key findings is that the producer is crucial to the gender balance of the team, evidenced by the fact that female producers work significantly more often with female authors and directors.

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Gendered Production Culture in the German Film Industry

Volker Gehrau: Fernsehgenres und Fernsehgattungen. Ansätze und Daten zur Rezeption, Klassifikation und Bezeichnung von Fernsehprogrammen

The article focuses on gender portrayal in audio-visual media and discusses the visibility and participation of diverse people Based on a theoretical framework from gender media studies, we conceptualize audio-visual visibility as a dimension of intersectionality and apply this in an empirical approach Audio-visual character analysis (ACIS) is introduced as a method to investigate media content in order to describe visibility of the represented people Applying this method, a quantitative content analysis of a representative sample of German television from 2016 was realized to answer the research questions on the portrayal of relevant characters and on the positions behind the camera The findings show an unequal representation of gender and an intersectional relevance of other categories of difference such as age as well as an interplay between gender of creative positions and visibility of female characters The article discusses findings and implications for future research

https://www.hope.uzh.ch/scoms/article/download/2228/1729

From fade-out into spotlight: An audio-visual character analysis (ACIS) on the diversity of media representation and production culture

Die Kommunikationswissenschaft als ≫gendered organization≪

The Wikipedia project constitutes the currently most-used and most comprehensive online encyclopedia in the world (Schneider, 2008, p. 35) and is advertising itself as free and open for everyone, and in terms of an encyclopedia as diverse and balanced at all levels. But from a gender perspective there is a huge discrepancy in sex ratio within Wikipedia’s community. In 2005, researchers at University of Wurzburg found that women constitute only 10 % of German-language Wikipedia authors (Schroer&Hertel, 2009, p. 104). This fact leads to the presumption, that Wikipedia’s reflection of the world mediates and interprets a mainly male conception of the world and thus displays an inequality with reference to modern society. Proceeding from the assumption that women and men have different communication behaviours as well as different perceptions and interpretations of communication in almost all aspects of social interaction including e.g. conversational strategies, conflict management and negotiation skills, we hypothesize that these different ways of communication significantly affect the motivation of female Wikipedia contributors. Keywords: gender differences, Web 2.0, online encyclopedia, collaborative working, online communication *** Resume : Le projet Wikipedia est actuellement l’encyclopedie en ligne la plus utilisee ainsi que la plus complete au monde (Schneider, 2008, p. 35) et il se presente comme etant libre et ouvert a tous. En tant qu’encyclopedie, il affirme etre diversifie et objectif a tous les niveaux. Du point de vue de l’egalite des sexes, il existe cependant une grande difference entre la part d’hommes et de femmes au sein de la communaute composant Wikipedia. En 2005, des chercheurs de l’Universite de Wurtzbourg ont decouvert que seulement 10% des auteurs de Wikipedia en langue allemande sont des femmes (Schroer&Hertel, 2009, p. 104). Ce fait laisse presumer que la representation du monde vehiculee par Wikipedia transmet et interprete une conception principalement masculine de ce meme monde et qu’elle fait donc preuve d’une disparite par rapport a la societe moderne. Partant du principe que les femmes et les hommes ont differents comportements de communication ainsi que differentes perceptions et interpretations de la communication concernant presque tous les aspects de l’interaction sociale dont, entre autres, les strategies de conversation, la gestion des conflits et les competences de negociation, nous emettons l’hypothese que ces differentes methodes de communication exercent une influence considerable sur la motivation des contributrices de Wikipedia. Mots-cles : differences entre les sexes, Web 2.0, encyclopedie en ligne, travail collaboratif, communication en ligne

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Elizabeth Prommer

Papers

Gendered Production Culture in the German Film Industry

Volker Gehrau: Fernsehgenres und Fernsehgattungen. Ansätze und Daten zur Rezeption, Klassifikation und Bezeichnung von Fernsehprogrammen

From fade-out into spotlight: An audio-visual character analysis (ACIS) on the diversity of media representation and production culture

Die Kommunikationswissenschaft als ≫gendered organization≪

Gender differences within the German-language Wikipedia