Tuesday 3 December 2013

Does Tom Daley show progressive modern attitude?

This isn't fictional media, but a really interesting case study nonetheless in the mediation of sexual image, and how social media equip celebrities (and everyone else!) to at least attempt to mediate and control their public identity and responses to their 'outing'. There has been much media commentary on this - its made the front page of most papers today - with the sentiment that things will only be truly improved when this isn't a story worthy of note or comment expressed in much of the coverage.
Even the Daily Mail managed to avoid overt homophobia; the paper that gave a home to the hateful column attacking Stephen Gately on the day of his funeral lauded Daley as 'frank and fearless'.

Monday 28 January 2013

Diva: profile of lesbian magazine

One clear way of looking into representations of any particular group is to investigate media which specifically targets them. Diva is Europe's best-selling lesbian magazine, and there's a lengthy profile in today's Guardian of its editor, who relates some of the difficulties of editing such a title as well as some of the social changes she's seen in her time. Here's a few sample quotes; you can read the full article here.
 Jane Czyzselska, the editor of Diva, was in her 20s, working as a freelance journalist in Leeds, when she heard about a new mainstream magazine for lesbians and bisexual women. She soon began writing for it. Frances Williams, Diva's launch editor, wanted to make it a "publication for us", says Czyzselska. "Previously we had been the object that had been written about, and now we were the subjects. We were reporting on our own lives."
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