Feminist Media Studies 2009 | Course related materials and stuff for the graduate seminar.

Time 2021-01-09 15:06:15

Web Name: Feminist Media Studies 2009 | Course related materials and stuff for the graduate seminar.

WebSite: http://feministmediastudies.wordpress.com

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Sadly, I m afraid I ll have to pull the plug on our soiree tonight. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring rain of the non-freezing variety and many of you will be able to make it (there s so much food to be eaten and beverages to be consumed!). Let me know if you can come tomorrow.And emailing your papers is fine. Hey seminarians. First, you might be interested in this appalling story about tweckling, which really puts twitter and the twitterati in perspective:http://causeglobal.blogspot.com/2009/11/tweckling.htmlSecond, an in order to wrap up this terribly truncated quarter, I ve prepared some questions for tomorrow s class so that we can hit the ground running. Here are the questions I d like you to give some thought to in preparation for our discussion:1. How would a symbolic interactionist study social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook?2. How would an ethnomethodologist study social networking sites? How would this differ from a symbolic interactionist approach?3. How would a phenomenologist study social networking sites? How would this approach differ from that of the symbolic interactionist or the ethnomethodologist?4. What is the significance of the title of Boyd’s chapter?5. What data-gathering methods did Boyd use in her research? To what extent do these serve to effectively triangulate her research?6. In what ways might Boyd’s approach serve as a model for feminist media studies? What are its limitations?7. Jot down a description of your object of study (or “a” object of study if you prefer) and the method you think most appropriate for studying it from a feminist perspective. In doing so, please think about Van Zoonen’s comments about the need for “double-consciousness” in feminist media research (p. 129) Relevant in light of our discussion about avatar design:http://jezebel.com/5412075/costumes cheesecake-power-girl-controversy-illustrates-gender-in-comicsSee Esther Inglis-Arkell s comment:   Let me make this clear: No matter how many times you have the female characters talk about how they decided on their outfits, they are still fictional characters. These aren t women who have decided on what they want to wear for reasons of their own. These are characters who are dressed as playboy bunnies because a bunch of creators decided to dress them that way for fun and profit. 1. Accepted (Console-ing Passions 2008)“’Bringing Home the Cat’: Gender, Violence, and Militarism in BSG”Even before the the miniseries that began the current “reimagining” of Battlestar Galactica premiered on Sky Television, gender issues were causing controversy for the writers of the series. In the first place, the casting of Katee Sackhoff in the role of Viper pilot Starbuck (played by Dirk Benedict in the original) caused a battle between more Neanderthal fans and the series’s producers and writers. According to Benedict himself, in the new BSG, “40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won” and the narrative is entirely “female-driven.” The original BSG, continued Benedict, a “television show based on hope, spiritual faith, and family,” has been “unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence, and family dysfunction” (http://www.dirkbenedictcentral.com/home/articles-archive.php).Beginning with this simplistic backlash reading of the figure of the cigar-chomping, hard-drinking, sexually active Starbuck, this paper examines the complexities of gender in the militarized world of BSG, a world in which, as Donna Haraway once put it, “mundane fictions of Male and Female” are problematized and undone. For example, the world of the contemporary BSG is an uncertain one that refuses to reproduce the benevolent patriarchy and attendant gender norms characteristic of science fiction programming of the Reagan era. The “reimagined” BSG also added a central female character in the role of the President Laura Roslin of the Twelve Colonies who, despite her background in the stereotypical role of school teacher, shows an unexpected ruthlessness when it comes to dealing with the Cylons. Violence is the province of neither masculinity nor femininity in BSG and the series’ representations of militarism and state violence offer a unique lens onto the moral complexities of an era similarly marked by violence and perpetual war. Example 2: Accepted (American Studies Association 2009)“Where There’s Red Smoke, There’s Usually Communist Fire”: The Broadcast Blacklist and Political DissentCarol A. Stabile As the terrorist attacks of 2001, and the hasty passage of the US Patriot Act less than two months later, remind us, periods of intense militarization in the US historically have been moments that energize rightwing forces and that disable conditions for dissent. Nowhere is this disabling of dissent more apparent, perhaps, than in media industries, which in the days and weeks following the US invasion of Afghanistan and the long, anxious months leading up to the beginning of the invasion of Iraq reaffirmed themselves as lapdogs of state power, refusing to criticize the Bush Administration’s aggression, its secrecy, and its myriad abuses of power.Although broadcast media in particular are cannibalistic, insofar as they constantly recycle genres, images and ideologies of Americanism that they themselves have created, the mandates of the industry dictate that these are presented as novel occurrences, detached from the context that produced them and largely unique to the present. In understanding mainstream media’s uncritical response to the US Patriot Act, which continues to this day, it is important to understand the abject cowardice of the industry as in large part an effect of the purge of broadcast industries that took place at the beginning of the Korean War, at a highly formative moment in television history when the routines and practices that would govern the industry for years to come were first established. Although lists of liberal writers, academics, trade unionists, government officials, and other “subversives” had been published as early as 1934 and similar lists were rumored to have circulated at CBS and other networks both during and after World War II, the television blacklist began in earnest on June 22, 1950, when a book called Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television was published just three days before the North Korean Army crossed the 38th parallel.The rightwing attacks on the broadcast industry that followed were part of a broader struggle over what it would mean to be “American,” in deeply raced and gendered terms. As social psychologist Marie Jahoda observed in her landmark essay on “Anticommunism and Employment Policies in Radio and Television” (1955), the federal loyalty and security programs did “not present a single isolated set of administrative measures to which people respond.” Instead, Jahoda understood the blacklists as “an integral part of a whole host of related activities” (1952: 329), as a field of thought and practical activity aimed at discouraging progressive political activity and encouraging a strict conformity of thought, particularly when it came to issues of race, class, gender, and Americanism. Jahoda’s observations provide an important framework for understanding the broadcast blacklist not as a temporary rift in the wider tapestry of US democracy, but as part of a longer standing and deeply institutionalized response to leftwing cultural production. In examining the anti-red networks that shaped the nascent television industry, the white supremacist ideologies they shared, and the strategies they used “to immediately undertake a suitable counter-attack” against the “Red Fascism” they believed were staging an ideological take-over of the airwaves (Red Channels: 5), this paper analyzes the broad institutional framework for the blacklist and the long term effects it was to have on the parameters of dissent.Example 3: Panel Proposal (Accepted Console-ing Passions 2008)Panel Proposal: “The Only Differences Between the Two Genders are Cosmetic”: Gender, Gaming, and World of WarcraftPanel Rationale: Online gaming, particularly massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), have only recently become the objects of scholarly attention within media studies. Because new media technology and gaming in particular have traditionally been understood to be the province of boys and men, games have been designed with male players (especially those notorious early-adopters and beta testers) in mind. Much scholarship on games and gaming implicitly accepts these stereotypes about gender, games, and gamers, thereby minimizing or ignoring the role of gender in both game design and play. Only recently have female players been acknowledged as an important demographic for such games and feminist scholarship has only begun to detail how gender plays out during the persistent course of online games. This panel, organized around World of Warcraft (with 9 million players worldwide, WoW is the world’s most popular subscriber game) is part of this wider, emerging conversation about gender and gaming.Abstracts: Carol A. Stabile, “An Even Playing Field? Gender Neutrality in WoW”The game manual for World of Warcraft instructs players that “Men and women are equal in Azeroth, so the only differences between the two genders are cosmetic.” WoW is fairly singular among MMORPGs insofar as its address to female players has tried to steer a middle course between ignoring female gamers altogether and creating gender-neutral game content. Gender, the game’s designers insist, does not affect one’s travels throughout Alliance or Horde territories, the ability to complete quests, to slay the monsters encountered during the course of the game, or to level up. The introduction of Blood Elves with the Burning Crusade expansion pack further emphasized this kind of post-gender mentality: the Blood Elves inhabit a world in which “conventional gender roles” have been set aside as a result of “the devastating casualties of the Third War.”Where the other papers that make up this panel examine specific sites of gendered game activity (high-level groups organized and led by female gamers; the controversy over the introduction of Blood Elves, the phenomenon of “twinking”), this paper situates WoW within the literature on gender and gaming, providing an overview of the world WoW seeks to create, the role that gender plays in the process of world-building, and the key questions WoW raises for the study of gender and new media.Sarah Mick, “Women in Charge: Female Guild Leaders in World of Warcraft”“Why does everyone automatically assume I know tailoring and cooking?” quips the joke emote of the female human race in WoW. This self-consciousness about gender stereotypes run throughout the official language of WoW and the game designers argue that gender makes no difference in terms of game play. But joking aside, to what extent are traditional gender roles upheld in guilds and groups in the game world of Azeroth?Both women and men routinely play characters of opposite gender in WoW, which has caused gaming scholars like T.L. Taylor to argue that gender really does not matter in MMORPGs. But the recent introduction of voice chat software, especially in high-end guilds and groups, may have changed all that.  Once many players reach level 70, they begin to participate in groups of five or raids of ten or more players. Since these groups and raids require coordination and strategy with other players to complete complex obstacles, typing out the group strategies and commands can become burdensome. To form a more cohesive attempt at completing group tasks, players often use voice-chat software to communicate more effectively. Since this technology can reveal the actual gender of the person controlling the character, the question this paper seeks to address, through interviews with high-end guildies in particular, is the extent to which the introduction of this technology changes the game experience for female players, and whether this explains the relatively small number of females are guild and raid leaders. The aim of this project is to better understand why there are few female guild leaders and whether the guild experience has changed for female players because of the introduction of this software.Sean Quast,”Twinks: Cross-dress for Success?”Although scholars of WoW have argued that the game is built upon the ideas about cooperation rather than competition, the mini games known as Battlegrounds are openly based on militarized competition. In the Battlegrounds, the focus of WoW switches from player versus environment (PVE) to player versus player (PVP). Players compete to be the highest rank by racking up more kills and events.Players more interested in this aspect of the game create specific characters that only compete in these mini games. This practice is called twinking. Twinking is a follow-the-rules style of what is known as grief gaming, in which players intentionally harm other players for their own enjoyment. In the case of twinking, seemingly low-level player characters are equipped with superior gear, thereby deceiving their opponents and allowing them to inflict maximum damage.Since character selection does not affect the abilities of a character, this paper explores the reasons why the majority of such “twinked” players are female. Why do players choose female characters when playing as a “twink”? How are traditional stereotypes of gender used to escape being targets, invoke vulnerability, and humiliate competitors? The aim of this project is to better understand how, and despite the irrelevance of gender in other areas of gameplay, gender bending has become so popular in the aggressive area of grief gaming.Mara Williams, “Mr. Horde Universe:  Beauty, Superficiality and Femininity in WoW’s Male Blood Elves” With the launch of The Burning Crusade, Blizzard expanded the World of Warcraft universe to include two new playable races. The Dranei were added to the ranks of the Alliance and the Blood Elves to the Horde. In World of Warcraft lore, the Blood Elves are a decadent, vain race, prone to addiction and with a terrible thirst for magic.   Having embrac[ed] demonic energies in order to maintain their access to magic, the Blood Elves are morally ambiguous at best. Despite that, the Blood Elves have proved popular among game players. That is not to say the Blood Elves have not caused controversy. In fact, conversations on Blizzard-run forums reveal deep anxieties about the perceived masculinity of male Blood Elves. In the eyes of some, male Blood Elves are queer because, as one forum poster put it, when you re THAT pretty, it s hard to be normal (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2518013582 postId=24689998913 sid=1#4).In the game itself, the male Blood Elf emotes, or pre-programmed animated gestures, confuse some gender stereotypes.  The /silly and /flirt commands have gender and race specific animations and audio tracks.  Those of the male Blood Elves emphasize physical beauty and superficiality. Moreover, some of the quotations encourage an ambiguous reading of their sexuality. Echoing the Pussycat Dolls song, male Blood Elves quip, don t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me? This quote emphasizes the Blood Elves vanity and simultaneously queers nearby male avatars by implying they desire the beautiful male Blood Elf.Given Blizzard s institutional investment in the masculinity of its avatars through the character redesign, it is interesting the Blood Elves are consistently seen as feminine by fans. So, how do players react to the Blood Elves?  On the Blizzard forums, players joke about the implications of rolling a Blood Elf.  One poster declared, “Playing a Blood elf turned me gay ;_;” (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2518013582 postId=24689999315 sid=1#57). Playing an avatar of a different gender is accepted in the game. Why then is playing an avatar of a different sexual orientation (if one chooses to read the male Blood Elf that way) so problematic? This paper examines the hostile and derisive reactions to the perceived gayness of male Blood Elves by forum posters and the anxieties these reveal anxieties about masculinity and homosexuality.Participant Bios: Sarah Mick is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee where she is double majoring in Graphic Design and Advertising.Sean Quast is an undergraduate in the Journalism and Mass Communication Department at University Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is an editor at the independent campus paper, the UWM Post, and a video game columnist. Carol A. Stabile teaches Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author of Feminism and the Technological Fix (1994), Turning the Century: Essays in Media and Cultural Studies (2000), Prime Time Animation (2003), and White Victims, Black Villains: Gender, Race, and Crime News in US Culture (2006). She is currently writing a book on the effects of the blacklist in television on progressive women writers.Mara Williams is a graduate student in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORSThe Encyclopedia of Women and American Popular CultureFacts on File, a New York-based academic and reference publisher, is seeking contributing scholars for a two-volume reference work on the history of women in America popular culture from colonial times to the present.    The project is aimed at the academic high school and undergraduate levels.The encyclopedia will include articles on individuals,  organizations, themes, events, ideas, works of art and literature, and more. Alphabetically arranged entries cover popular-culture and women’s history subjects— film; television; music; dance; radio; comics and graphic novels; visual and performing arts; festivals; technology; cyberculture and online social networking; video games; sports and recreation; fashion and appearance; advertising; consumer products (including toys and games); buzzwords, expressions, and symbols; transportation and travel; and food and diet.Articles will vary in length from 500-2,500 words for entries on specific topics.  Encyclopedia of Women and American Popular Culture  will also include a number of ancillary features, including a detailed bibliography and filmography.We are seeking contributors for articles. All contributors will receive full authorial credit, a modest cash honorarium  and/or copy of the full encyclopedia set (depending on contribution length and contributor preference).If you are a graduate student, Ph.D. candidate, professor, or independent scholar interested in contributing to this exciting and important reference project—one we hope will be the definitive reference work on women’s roles in and contributions to the popular culture—we would be happy to email you a prospectus with a full description of  the project—with deadline, compensation, and other pertinent information.    Please contact Editor at  popcultureeditor@gmail.com . Please write “Call for Contributors” in the subject line of your email and attach your CV and a recent writing sample.If you cannot contribute, please feel free to notify other qualified scholars of this notice. Special issue: Race and Ethnicity in Fandom (Summer 2011)Transformative Works and Cultureshttp://journal.transformativeworks.org/editor@transformativeworks.orgSPECIAL ISSUE EDITORSSarah Gatson (Gatson@tamu.edu), Sociology, Texas A M University, BiographyRobin Reid (Robin_Reid@tamu-commerce.edu), Literature andLanguages, Texas A M University–Commerce, BiographyDESCRIPTIONTransformative Works and Cultures (TWC), an online-only, peer-reviewed journal focusing on media and fan studies, broadly conceived, invites contributions for a special issue on race and ethnicity to be published in summer 2011.Academic scholarship on fan cultures and fan productions over the past few decades has focused primarily on gender as the sole category of analysis. There has been little published scholarship on fan culturesand productions that incorporates critical race theory or draws on the rich array of methodologies that have been developed during the past century in both activist and academic communities in order to incorporate analysis of the social constructions of race and ethnicities in fandoms.In contrast, fan activism and fan scholarship (at cons, workshops, and on the Internet) has produced a growing body of work (personal narratives, essays, carnivals, and in recent months, a press) focusing on not only analyzing but also confronting hierarchies of race and ethnicity and their relationship to gender, sexuality, class, and disability. Submissions by academics, acafans, fan scholars, and fans are encouraged. In all categories, people of color are especially encouraged to submit.Topics might include but are not limited to:*Online activism and the circulation of critical race theory and women of color feminisms in fan communities, in particular the relationship between fan online discourse and other online activist communities.*Critical analysis of the instantiation and critique of racial hierarchies in fan communities and the surrounding cultural productions.*Racist and antiracist issues in commercial transformative works (comics, film, mashups, remixes, machinima, etc.), especially recuperative race readings (e.g., Randall’s The Wind Done Gone, Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea).*Race concerns in source texts characters of color and their fannish reception, fandoms for work by authors of color, writing fannish original characters, etc.) and fannish responses (such as the CarlBrandon Society, Verb Noire, and other panfannish and professional projects).*Intersection of race and ethnicity with gender, sexuality, class, and ability in fannish contexts in fan works and fan communities (pre-Internet, Internet, conventions, vids, fan fiction, artwork,etc.).SUBMISSIONSSubmit final papers directly to TWC by October 1, 2010. Please visit TWC’s Web site for completesubmission guidelines. Please contact the guest editors with questions or inquiries.ARTICLE TYPESTheory: Apply a conceptual focus or theoretical frame. Peer review. 5,000–8,000 words.Praxis: Apply a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a detailed reading of a specific text; relate transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or historical frameworks. Peer review. 4,000–7,000 words.Symposium: Provide insight into developments or debates surrounding fandom, transformative media, or cultures. Editorial review. 1,500–2,500 words.Please feel free to download and distribute PDFs of the CFP, available as US letter or as A4.Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), ISSN 1941-2258, is an online-only Gold Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works copyrighted under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Contact the Editor with questions. Think about submitting something! Would be glad to talk to any of you about this.Wish I knew how to change the bloody font in wordpress.Special Issue of Feminist Review – ‘Media transformations’Call for papersBoundaries between production and consumption, and between previously discrete media practicesare dissolving. This special issue of Feminist Review will analyse how rapid shifts in contemporarymedia processes and practices are impacting on women’s engagement with communications andproduction as well as the representation of marginalized groups. Current developments such as Web2.0, networking, online distribution and mobile media will be explored in the context of genderedhistories of media production and reception.The intention is to look at change and continuity in the uses, practices, aesthetics and theorization ofthe media in the light of the growth of new pervasive technologies. We are hoping that the issue willexplore the following questions: How do new media technologies affect gendered authorship andagency? How does age and generation intersect with gender with respect to the uses of old and new media? What cultural and historical variations are there in terms of the meanings and impact ofmedia and communications technologies?Illustrated, reflective pieces by digital media practitioners are welcome and samples of workdiscussed may be uploaded to the Feminist Review website.Possible topics might include:− ‘alternative’ media and feminist activism;− networked cultures;− gender, life histories and blogs;− gender and authorship; women’s cinema;− questions of distribution;− media employment;− ‘post-convergence’;− ethics and representation;− media processes;− gender and media educationSubmissions for the issue are welcomed from now until 30 March 2010. Articles should be between6,000-7,000 words in length. An abstract of 200-300 words should accompany the article, plus a listof up to six keywords suitable for indexing and abstracting services. Detailed instructions on how tosubmit (electronic submission only) can be found at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/index.htmlWe also welcome shorter pieces of creative or analytical writing (up to 1000 words, or 4000 wordsfor interviews) or visual material on the theme for our Open Space section. These pieces may betopical and/or polemical. They are not sent out to be peer-reviewed, but are selected by the editors ofthe issue.Enquiries about the issue should be sent to Lizzie Thynne (l.thynne@sussex.ac.uk) or Dr Nadje Al-Ali (N.S.Al-Ali@soas.ac.uk). Hi, everyone. When I was planning this course, I included this under the requirement for the conference presentation paper: You will also give a 10 minute presentation to the class based on your conference paper at a time and place to be determined. I was going to send a doodle around re: times for an additional session in which we could do this, but I began having second thoughts and wanted you to weigh in on this issue. I included this because I think it s important to do practice runs of conference paper and get feedback about content and presentation style before you go live with your paper at a conference. The class is big enough to have the feel of a conference session and I also think it s a great opportunity to get a sense of the range of research your colleagues are doing.However, these presentations are more of a service to each other than a requirement for the course e.g. you won t get graded for them, although if we do them before your papers are due, you can get valuable feedback. In addition, you would be basically donating a good half day  of time to each other in order to accommodate all the presenters.I m agnostic on this question, myself. I m happy to provide the space and occasion if you want, but am also happy to have additional time at the end of the quarter. We could schedule it for late afternoon or evening (I don t think any of you have small children) or a Sunday afternoon (could meet at my place, so it could double as an end of the quarter gathering).What do you think?c If you don t know about FLOW already, you should.Check out the new issue of Flow: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture is available at http://flowtv.org. This issue features columns from Denise Mann, R. Colin Tait, Matthew Ferrari, Racquel Gonzales, Adrienne McLean and Vicki Mayer.This issue s columns in brief: NBC vs. YouTube: The Blogosphere s Bottom-Up Backlash Against Big Media by Denise Mann  (http://flowtv.org/?p=4328) Corporate lawsuits and populist outcry in the battle over YouTube. H d?oh TV: Watching With The Simpsons in High Definition by R. Colin Tait (http://flowtv.org/?p=4319) The consequences of HD from within and without the friendly confines of The Simpsons Springfield. Pow! Ooomph! Skadoosh!: Combat Aesthetics and Intermediality by Matthew Ferrari (http://flowtv.org/?p=4349) An examination of combat aesthetics and the transmedia proliferation of mixed martial arts. The Beatles: Rock Band, A Revolution(?): Myth and Over-determined Discourse by Racquel Gonzales (http://flowtv.org/?p=4373) An analysis of the myth of the Beatles in light of the Rock Band video game. Biting Off Your Long Tail: Ruminations on Animal Planet by Adrienne McLean (http://flowtv.org/?p=4351) A consideration and critique of Animal Planet and its various programming. The Camera Girl: Historical Fragments of a Popular Production Discourse for Brazilian Television By Vicki Mayer (http://flowtv.org/?p=4350) A look at the distinctive media discourses used to produce and introduce TV in Brazil.Interested in supporting Flow? Click HERE (http://flowtv.org/?page_id=2143).FlowTV is now on Twitter! Follow Flow s Twitter page at: http://twitter.com/flowtv FlowTV is also on Facebook! Get updates on your news feed by becoming a fan: www.facebook.com/FlowTVWe look forward to your visit and encourage your comments.Best wishes, Flow Editorial Staff Privacy Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

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