Showing papers in "Journal of Communication Inquiry in 1998"
TL;DR: In this paper, a historical analysis of Asian American portrayals in entertainment media and a contextualization of their meaning in society is presented, focusing on the general nature of Asian stereotypes and the racial stereotypes.
Abstract: This study is a historical analysis of Asian American portrayals in entertainment media and a contextualization of their meaning in society. The general nature of Asian stereotypes and the racial f...
88 citations
TL;DR: Early adolescent girls' interaction with textual images of femininity were assessed through in-depth interviews with ten participants, ages twelve and thirteen, who are regular readers of Teen, Seventeen, Sassy, and YM magazines.
Abstract: Early adolescent girls' interaction with textual images of femininity were assessed through in-depth interviews with ten participants, ages twelve and thirteen, who are regular readers of Teen, Seventeen, Sassy, and YM magazines. The two primary findings represent different dimensions of the same phenomenon: girls' use of outside authorities in formulating personal standards— in this case, standards of behavior and appearance. In particular, girls relied heavily on the reports of boys' voices regularly featured in the magazines for counsel on how to attain male approval and negotiate romantic relationship. Also, girls' readings centered on images of beauty; specifically the “ideal” feminine body. Participants routinely ignored or rejected the magazines' fashion formulations and advice on hair and makeup. However, girls seemed ill equipped to critically analyze magazines' images of the feminine physique, even when they recognized these images did not accurately reflect the girls they know.
77 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address methodological questions surrounding feminist research and specifically focus on feminist ethnography in the Third World and the problematic notion of transformation through feminist ethnographic research, and also problematize feminist scholarship that imagines the third world woman and the Arab woman as monolithic subjects.
Abstract: This article addresses methodological questions surrounding feminist research and, specifically, focuses on feminist ethnography in the Third World and the problematic notion of transformation through feminist ethnographic research. The work also problematizes feminist scholarship that imagines the Third World woman and the Arab woman as monolithic subjects. It is informed by the author's ethnographic research, which explored the lived experience of women musicians in North Africa, and focuses on the questions raised while preparing to conduct field research in a Third World Arab nation and the questions that continue to arise after returning from the field.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the differential impact of the Internet on men and on women by applying a feminist cultural studies perspective to an examination of the internet as a text located at the juncture of science political economy and culture.
Abstract: This article seeks to explain the differential impact of the Internet on men and on women by applying a feminist cultural studies perspective to an examination of the Internet as a text located at the juncture of science political economy and culture. The article also considers the ability of the Internet to foster continual reexamination of traditional gender identities. After an introduction the article reviews the way in which scientific knowledge in general and computer expertise in particular has been gendered to favor males. The next section shows how capitalism links the scientific/technological aspects of the Internet to issues of economic and class inequalities by creating material barriers to access that are more disadvantageous to women than to men. These barriers include 1) the traditional modernist social structures that reinforce power imbalances when men are the guardians of the technological know-how to fix problems and 2) the lack of leisure time most women have to engage in computer use beyond the demands of their jobs. The next sections show 1) how the Internet can be used to build communities (once problems of access are solved) 2) how power struggles exist in gender discourses on mail lists and newsgroup postings and 3) how false identities can be created. The final section points to the possibility of using the Internet to reconstitute power relations as well as the lack of research on question of class race and nation. The article concludes by reasserting the usefulness of the feminist cultural studies paradigm to examine social discourses and practices on the Internet.
31 citations
TL;DR: This article represents a first step toward contextualizing the study of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) within the framework of mass communications and uses textual analysis to trace the threads of developing accounts.
Abstract: This article represents a first step toward contextualizing the study of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) within the framework of mass communications. An impassioned topic among certain groups, the...
22 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of geography and space in the process of community in the Internet newsgroup, alt.cyberpunk, is explored, and a narrative of space and geography is explored.
Abstract: This article explores the role a narrative of geography and space plays in the process of community in the Internet newsgroup, alt.cyberpunk and the role of computer-mediated communication (CMC) te...
20 citations
TL;DR: Through an examination of contemporary Hollywood family films, the author explores the construction of the single mother as discussed by the authors and suggests that not even the mythical world of family films can ignore the fact that single mothers are real.
Abstract: Through an examination of contemporary Hollywood family films, the author explores the construction of the single mother. Suggesting that not even the mythical world of family films can ignore the ...
18 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the utopian and dystopian discourses about the electronic town meeting concept and critique the media's dystopian vision of technology and demagogy at the expense of any utopian vision for technology and democracy.
Abstract: Utopian thinkers since the nineteenth century have advocated or opposed different forms of direct democracy. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of experiments with teledemocracy were conducted, yielding a rich discourse on the relationship of technology to democracy. However, in the 1992 presidential campaign, the “electronic town meeting” concept was represented by selected print news media without a hint of this discourse. Instead, the idea was analyzed as a crackpot proposal with roots going back to the 1960s made by a dubious candidate, Ross Perot. This article contrasts the utopian and dystopian discourses about the electronic town meeting concept and critiques the media's dystopian vision of technology and demagogy at the expense of any utopian vision of technology and democracy.
17 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the role of professional wedding photography in the American middle-class wedding ceremony is examined, based on ethnographic research, which is grounded in particular strands of the relatively recent critical, cultural, and interdisciplinary research in mass communication.
Abstract: This research examines what role the institutionalized structures and practices of professional wedding photography play in the ritual of the American middle-class wedding ceremony. The study, based primarily on ethnographic research, is grounded in particular strands of the relatively recent critical, cultural, and interdisciplinary research in mass communication. The theoretical framework for this study is generated from the disciplines of mass communication, American studies, sociology, anthropology, and British cultural studies. The work concerns how the practices of professional wedding photographers influence the wedding ritual.
15 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored how cultures or identities evolve in isolation and suggested that studies on U.S. Latino cultural representations also include the significance of the limited setting in which the words, ideas, and images appear.
Abstract: The representation of Latinos has been influenced by the definition of Hispanic. This article explores how cultures or identities evolve in isolation and suggests that studies on U.S. Latino cultural representations also include the significance of the limited setting in which the words, ideas, and images appear. One of the first issues to consider is the term of characterization, and a general overview of the political struggles over the government-imposed term of Hispanic is provided. A review of studies that mark the presence of Latinos is included along with a discussion of how presence is only one aspect in the study of U.S. Latino cultural representation.
15 citations
TL;DR: A content analysis suggests that Debt normalizes owing Hall's theories of ideology and articulation as discussed by the authors, and the findings are important to researchers exploring the foundations of consumer society and to individual experiences of everyday life in terms of the normalization of debt through the traditional game-show genre.
Abstract: Week nights on Lifetime Television, Wink Martindale (the self-appointed “King of Credit”) introduces what he calls “the game show for the '90s—Debt” Here, contestants do not vie for products; rather, they compete to have their debts paid off A content analysis suggests that Debt normalizes owing Hall's theories of ideology and articulation are supported in this work The findings are important to researchers exploring the foundations of consumer society and to individual experiences of everyday life in terms of the normalization of debt through the traditional game-show genre
TL;DR: This paper explored the numerous difficulties involved in representing others and the mistakes feminist scholars have committed in their attempts to deal with the complexity of identity and argued that speaking for others is a responsibility we must take to be politically effective.
Abstract: This article is an investigation of the concept of positionality within the context of feminist cultural studies. Using Judith Newton and Judith Stacey's essay “Learning Not to Curse” as a starting point, the author explores the numerous difficulties involved in representing others and the mistakes feminist scholars have committed in their attempts to deal with the complexity of identity. The author argues that no matter how difficult and risky, speaking for others is a responsibility we must take to be politically effective, and she examines possible means to render our attempts to do so less dangerous and more useful. In particular, the author explores how our multiple selves can be employed through a politically grounded reflexivity to remind us of the complexity of representation and ground our research in the larger context in which it is produced.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the investigation of and the search for feminist communication studies, based on the conviction that communication cannot be thoroughly analyzed and theorized without taking into account feminist ideologies.
Abstract: Based on the conviction that communication cannot be thoroughly analyzed and theorized without taking into account feminist ideologies, this article focuses on the investigation of and the search for feminist communication studies. An overview of the status of the feminist contribution to the field will be followed and exemplified by a more specific analysis of the articles centered on feminist theories, which were published in the journal Critical Studies in Mass Communication. In the conclusion, the author provides a reflection on the ways in which the collaboration of communication and feminist studies can become an indispensable tool for the analysis of social and cultural practices as expressions of concretely lived experiences.
TL;DR: The X-Files, a television series broadcast on the Fox network, is a site where the tension between Western science and nonscientific ways of knowing is dramatically depicted as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Disillusioned by science's betrayal of its promise of unlimited progress and dissatisfied with the world it helped create, many Westerners have spurned science and turned to nonscientific ways of knowing. The X-Files, a television series broadcast on the Fox network, is a site where the tension between Western science and nonscientific ways of knowing is dramatically depicted. The present study explores this tension using Condit's model of hegemony in a mass-mediated society. Although the X-Files appears to challenge science's privileged position within Western culture as the sanctioned means of developing an understanding of and control over natural phenomena, this study suggests that the series actually reaffirms the dominance of science while acknowledging the presence of alternative ways of knowing, thus serving as an example of the kind of accommodation that Condit says makes hegemonic concordance possible.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the advertising of Jenny Craig as an exemplar of this rhetorical strategy, and reveal the subtle co-optation of a feminist agenda, and the dangers and implications of this insidious practice.
Abstract: The weight loss industry is a fixture of American culture. Appealing to the idealized thin female body, weight loss advertising enacts symbolic violence on its consumers. This article focuses on the advertising of Jenny Craig as an exemplar of this rhetorical strategy. Through close visual/textual analysis, the subtle co-optation of a feminist agenda is revealed, and the dangers and implications of this insidious practice are discussed.
TL;DR: McCarthy as discussed by the authors describes a broad pattern of racial instability, racial recoding, and racial incorporation taking place in American society as we enter the twenty-first century, drawing on the theories of identity formation in the writings of C.L.R. James and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Abstract: In this article, Cameron McCarthy takes us to the terrain of the new dynamics taking place in the U.S. racial order at the end of the century. These developments are powerfully articulated in the aggravated representation of racial identities in popular discourses. Specifically, McCarthy alerts us to the new ideological configurations in our popular culture and civic life that foreground the dangerous expansion of identity politics into the white suburbs and the triumphant prosecution of middle-class morality in the discourses of popular culture and public policy. McCarthy describes a broad pattern of racial instability, racial recoding, and racial incorporation taking place in American society as we enter the twenty-first century. Drawing on the theories of identity formation in the writings of C.L.R. James and Friedrich Nietzsche, McCarthy argues that the contemporary electronic media—particularly, film and television—play a critical role in the production, coordination, and channeling of suburban resen...
TL;DR: The authors explored the social implications of both sides' failure to consider or acknowledge Ice-T's song as a significant instance of cultural hybridity, and found that the strategies employed by the Right to discredit "Cop Killer" coincide to a significant degree with the counter-tactics supporters used to defend it.
Abstract: In 1992, a number of public officials, political hopefuls, and police organizations declared discursive war on the black-recorded “metal” song “Cop Killer.” Exploiting the mainstream media's ban on reproducing in full the lyrics of the offending text, conservatives sought to direct public opinion against “Cop Killer” author Ice-T by deracializing the debate—that is, through wrenching the song's anti-police brutality sentiments from its social context. Surprisingly, the strategies employed by the Right to discredit “Cop Killer” coincide to a significant degree with the countertactics supporters used to defend it. This article explores the social implications of both sides' failure to consider or acknowledge Ice-T's song as a significant instance of cultural hybridity. By disseminating “white” music with a black accent, the makers of “Cop Killer” attempted to inform the suburban white teenager about social conditions such as racially differentiated policing: a project of extreme importance in an increasingl...
TL;DR: Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, the authors examines five temporal regularities produced in emergent cyberculture discourse in the immediate post-WWII period in the United States, including the construction of entropy as social; the understanding of systemic change in evolutionary terms; the embrace of the present as a revolutionary historical discontinuity; the adoption of a machine standard of condensed time; and the shaping of memory as a notion of performative efficiency, work to shape a particular vision of time and the future.
Abstract: Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, this paper examines five temporal regularities produced in emergent cyberculture discourse in the immediate post-WWII period in the United States. The construction of entropy as social; the understanding of systemic change in evolutionary terms; the embrace of the present as a revolutionary historical discontinuity; the adoption of a machine standard of condensed time; and the shaping of memory as a notion of performative efficiency, work to shape a particular vision of time and the future. The cybernetic futurology which emerges has continued power/knowledge effects within the discursive formation of cyberculture. Time is fast, chaotic, and unpredictable; history is no longer relevant for understanding the present or future; information technology forms an ubiquitous terrain upon which teleological cybernetic futurologies unfold; and the future becomes, not about its prediction, but about the control and management of the risks of the present.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the work of Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson and The North Star, a newspaper he established in Sitka in the late nineteenth century, revealing his aim of erasing indigenous cultures to civilize and christianize the natives.
Abstract: Beginning with the arrival of Russian fur traders in 1741, Alaska natives have faced repeated threats to their territorial sovereignty and subsistence practices. Their struggles to maintain their cultures have taken place against the backdrop of a white discursive hegemony that has defined the terms of the conflicts as well as the very identity of the people. To reveal a piece of this symbolic terrain, the authors examine the work of Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson and The North Star, a newspaper he established in Sitka in the late nineteenth century. An analysis of Jackson's concepts of indigenous cultures as embodied in his educational and ethnological activities reveals his aim of erasing indigenous cultures to civilize and christianize the natives. A critical reading of The North Star shows how it was used as a publicity device to enlist the support of influential Eastern readers in the mission's work.
TL;DR: In this article, a critical analysis of Taiwan's recent political/nationalist movement and television political advertising campaigns was undertaken with an aim to examine how the questions of women are used by the contending political parties in their construction and articulation of national identity.
Abstract: Drawing on recent theories of nation and feminism, the author explores the relations between nationalist movements and women's politics in Taiwan. A critical analysis of Taiwan's recent political/nationalist movement and television political advertising campaigns was undertaken. The advertisements are analyzed with an aim to examine how the questions of women are used by the contending political parties in their construction and articulation of national identity. At issue is the ongoing reformulation of national identity as Taiwan deals with (1) increased forces of globalization, (2) a deepening crisis of the self vis-a-vis the Chinese Mainland, and (3) the multiple and conflicted voices in the process of naming and defining the nation.