Leigh Moscowitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 217398 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leigh Moscowitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leigh |
| FAMILY NAME | Moscowitz |
| SIGNATURE | MOSCOWITZ L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Carolina |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 97 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Delegitimizing Tactics in Media Coverage of Trans Athlete Sport Bans
This study compares U.S. news coverage and social media conversations surrounding transgender youth sports bans in 2022 by analyzing 210 newspaper articles and 6405 Twitter (X) posts. This study investigates the reliance on delegitimizing language, the weaponization of scientific perspectives, and the relative invisibility of transgender voices in mediated debates about participation in youth sports. Findings show delegitimatizing language target…
Trans Youth Sport Bans and the Facilitation of Moral Panic
This study incorporates moral panics as a lens for investigating discussions in US news reports and on social media surrounding anti-transgender youth sports legislation. A total of 210 newspaper articles and 6,405 Twitter posts from January 2022 through November 2022 were analyzed to highlight the proportion of content that incorporated moral panic elements of concern, hostility, consensus, and disproportionality within the discussion. While the…
Selling Yoga ‘Off the Mat’
Scholars have critiqued popular media representations of yoga as largely emphasizing thin, white, upper-class female practitioners donning expensive apparel and accessories, exemplifying many aspects of a commercialized and objectified fitness culture and lifestyle brand. However, there is a dearth of research that has investigated the promotional content in popular magazines such as Yoga Journal; for example, no study to date has examined advert…
“Well, He Is Paid to Be Violent…”
The purpose of this study is to determine if perceptions of violence related to race, gender and sport will impact audience reactions to domestic violence issues involving an athlete. Specifically, this study will examine how these elements of an athlete’s identity could affect his/her perceived image when faced with domestic violence accusations. A 3 (perceived race) X 2 (gender) X 2 (sport) factorial experiment was conducted using a national co…
Truth, Justice, and Sexual Violence
Using discourse analysis to examine newspaper Op-Eds during the Hill-Thomas and Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, this study explores how media can function as an arbiter of public opinion during controversial events. This analysis highlights the importance of Op-Eds in defining whose voices matter in shaping national mediated discourses, examining the role media play in critical public debates surrounding issues of gender, race, power, and sexual violenc…
Who ‘framed’ Ramchandra Siras? Journalistic discourses of sexual citizenship in India
In 2010, a professor in India was forcibly outed as gay and catapulted into a nationwide debate about LGBTQ rights in India. A textual analysis of prominent Indian English-language newspapers revealed the framing devices journalists used to report the case, unpacking how coverage essentialized gay identity, signified civil rights and citizenship, problematized notions of consent, complicated public/private demarcations of sexuality, and negotiate…
Good News! Communication Findings May be Underestimated
Despite long-standing concerns over self-reported measures of media use, media research has relied heavily on self-reported data. This study not only examined discrepancies between survey and logged smartphone data but assessed whether correlational outcomes using self-reported measures produce greater or smaller effect sizes compared to outcomes using logged measures. College students (n = 294) and MTurk workers (n = 291) provided self-reported …
Online social viewing
Bullet-screen technology, an innovative way of interacting with online videos, allows viewers to contribute comments that simultaneously appear over videos. Popular in East Asia, the technology is making its way to American audiences. This study employed a comparative qualitative focus group approach to explore how American and Chinese viewers responded to and interacted with this new format of online videos. Three themes emerge from this investi…
Outside the Sports Closet
Contributing to a growing yet underresearched area of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues in sport, this study interrogates news discourses of the most prominent American athletes coming-out stories to date: the National Basketball Association’s Jason Collins and the National Football League’s Michael Sam. Mainstream media narratives invoked an overall congratulatory tone, hailing these announcements as watershed moments while a…
The marijuana user in US news media
In the wake of growing legalization efforts, both medicinal and recreational marijuana use in the US is becoming more prevalent and societally acceptable. However, racial, criminal and cultural stereotypes linger in mediated visual portrayals. This study examines the extent to which mediated visual portrayals in mainstream news have been impacted by these recent legalization efforts. Employing a quantitative as well as a qualitative analysis of v…
The Art of Coming Out
On April 29, 2013, Jason Collins became the first male to come out as gay as an active member in a professional team sport. This study examines two prongs of the media response to the Collins announcement, analyzing 364 newspaper articles and 7,556 tweets covering the first week of coverage of Collins’ decision to make his sexual orientation public. Results showed an overwhelmingly positive yet bifurcated response between the two media platforms.…
Girl Zines at Work
In this article we report on the results of a semester-long critical media literacy initiative with underserved fourth- and fifth-grade girls. Building on the work in girls' studies, feminist pedagogies and critical media studies, this project was designed to privilege girls' voices, experiences, and agency by culminating in the girls' own media production of zines—hand-made, hand-distributed booklets based around the author's interests and exper…
The Battle over Marriage
Over the past decade, the controversial issue of gay marriage has emerged as a primary battle in the culture wars and a definitive social issue of our time. The subject moved to the forefront of mainstream public debate in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began authorizing same-sex marriage licenses, and it has remained in the forefront through three presidential campaigns and numerous state ballot initiatives. This book examines how p…
The “Rich Bitch”
This project offers the opportunity to examine the ways in which normative conceptions of class and gender cohere to produce an archetypal, trans-historical villain, what we term “the rich bitch.” In this essay, we employ the concept of irony to analyze how Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York City creates rich women as objects of cultural derision, well-heeled jesters in a populist court. The show primes its savvy, upscale audience to judge t…
“Every Parent's Worst Nightmare”
Through a content analysis, this study seeks to uncover the predominant narrative themes centered on gender and class that shaped mainstream US newspaper coverage of child kidnappings from 2000 to 2003. The abductions that dominated news coverage were neither random nor representative cases; clear patterns emerged in the kidnappings that garnered the most media attention. Though statistically rare, the news media disproportionally covered stories…
Gay Marriage in Television News
Drawing from critical-cultural scholarship, this quantitative content analysis systematically interrogates national network television news coverage of the same-sex marriage debate in 2003 and 2004. Analysis of sourcing patterns and sound bite length indicate the debate was dominated by conventionally “straight” perspectives. While gay and lesbian couples were visually prevalent in news stories, they were largely seen and not heard. Scrutinizing …
The Art of Coming Out
On April 29, 2013, Jason Collins became the first male to come out as gay as an active member in a professional team sport. This study examines two prongs of the media response to the Collins announcement, analyzing 364 newspaper articles and 7,556 tweets covering the first week of coverage of Collins’ decision to make his sexual orientation public. Results showed an overwhelmingly positive yet bifurcated response between the two media platforms.…
The Battle over Marriage
Over the past decade, the controversial issue of gay marriage has emerged as a primary battle in the culture wars and a definitive social issue of our time. The subject moved to the forefront of mainstream public debate in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began authorizing same-sex marriage licenses, and it has remained in the forefront through three presidential campaigns and numerous state ballot initiatives. This book examines how p…
Gay Marriage in Television News
Drawing from critical-cultural scholarship, this quantitative content analysis systematically interrogates national network television news coverage of the same-sex marriage debate in 2003 and 2004. Analysis of sourcing patterns and sound bite length indicate the debate was dominated by conventionally “straight” perspectives. While gay and lesbian couples were visually prevalent in news stories, they were largely seen and not heard. Scrutinizing …
Good News! Communication Findings May be Underestimated
Despite long-standing concerns over self-reported measures of media use, media research has relied heavily on self-reported data. This study not only examined discrepancies between survey and logged smartphone data but assessed whether correlational outcomes using self-reported measures produce greater or smaller effect sizes compared to outcomes using logged measures. College students (n = 294) and MTurk workers (n = 291) provided self-reported …
The marijuana user in US news media
In the wake of growing legalization efforts, both medicinal and recreational marijuana use in the US is becoming more prevalent and societally acceptable. However, racial, criminal and cultural stereotypes linger in mediated visual portrayals. This study examines the extent to which mediated visual portrayals in mainstream news have been impacted by these recent legalization efforts. Employing a quantitative as well as a qualitative analysis of v…
The “Rich Bitch”
This project offers the opportunity to examine the ways in which normative conceptions of class and gender cohere to produce an archetypal, trans-historical villain, what we term “the rich bitch.” In this essay, we employ the concept of irony to analyze how Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York City creates rich women as objects of cultural derision, well-heeled jesters in a populist court. The show primes its savvy, upscale audience to judge t…
Online social viewing
Bullet-screen technology, an innovative way of interacting with online videos, allows viewers to contribute comments that simultaneously appear over videos. Popular in East Asia, the technology is making its way to American audiences. This study employed a comparative qualitative focus group approach to explore how American and Chinese viewers responded to and interacted with this new format of online videos. Three themes emerge from this investi…
Outside the Sports Closet
Contributing to a growing yet underresearched area of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues in sport, this study interrogates news discourses of the most prominent American athletes coming-out stories to date: the National Basketball Association’s Jason Collins and the National Football League’s Michael Sam. Mainstream media narratives invoked an overall congratulatory tone, hailing these announcements as watershed moments while a…
Trans Youth Sport Bans and the Facilitation of Moral Panic
This study incorporates moral panics as a lens for investigating discussions in US news reports and on social media surrounding anti-transgender youth sports legislation. A total of 210 newspaper articles and 6,405 Twitter posts from January 2022 through November 2022 were analyzed to highlight the proportion of content that incorporated moral panic elements of concern, hostility, consensus, and disproportionality within the discussion. While the…
Girl Zines at Work
In this article we report on the results of a semester-long critical media literacy initiative with underserved fourth- and fifth-grade girls. Building on the work in girls' studies, feminist pedagogies and critical media studies, this project was designed to privilege girls' voices, experiences, and agency by culminating in the girls' own media production of zines—hand-made, hand-distributed booklets based around the author's interests and exper…
Gay Marriage in Television News
Drawing from critical-cultural scholarship, this quantitative content analysis systematically interrogates national network television news coverage of the same-sex marriage debate in 2003 and 2004. Analysis of sourcing patterns and sound bite length indicate the debate was dominated by conventionally “straight” perspectives. While gay and lesbian couples were visually prevalent in news stories, they were largely seen and not heard. Scrutinizing …
“Every Parent's Worst Nightmare”
Through a content analysis, this study seeks to uncover the predominant narrative themes centered on gender and class that shaped mainstream US newspaper coverage of child kidnappings from 2000 to 2003. The abductions that dominated news coverage were neither random nor representative cases; clear patterns emerged in the kidnappings that garnered the most media attention. Though statistically rare, the news media disproportionally covered stories…
The “Rich Bitch”
This project offers the opportunity to examine the ways in which normative conceptions of class and gender cohere to produce an archetypal, trans-historical villain, what we term “the rich bitch.” In this essay, we employ the concept of irony to analyze how Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York City creates rich women as objects of cultural derision, well-heeled jesters in a populist court. The show primes its savvy, upscale audience to judge t…
The Battle over Marriage
Over the past decade, the controversial issue of gay marriage has emerged as a primary battle in the culture wars and a definitive social issue of our time. The subject moved to the forefront of mainstream public debate in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began authorizing same-sex marriage licenses, and it has remained in the forefront through three presidential campaigns and numerous state ballot initiatives. This book examines how p…
Girl Zines at Work
In this article we report on the results of a semester-long critical media literacy initiative with underserved fourth- and fifth-grade girls. Building on the work in girls' studies, feminist pedagogies and critical media studies, this project was designed to privilege girls' voices, experiences, and agency by culminating in the girls' own media production of zines—hand-made, hand-distributed booklets based around the author's interests and exper…
The Art of Coming Out
On April 29, 2013, Jason Collins became the first male to come out as gay as an active member in a professional team sport. This study examines two prongs of the media response to the Collins announcement, analyzing 364 newspaper articles and 7,556 tweets covering the first week of coverage of Collins’ decision to make his sexual orientation public. Results showed an overwhelmingly positive yet bifurcated response between the two media platforms.…
Online social viewing
Bullet-screen technology, an innovative way of interacting with online videos, allows viewers to contribute comments that simultaneously appear over videos. Popular in East Asia, the technology is making its way to American audiences. This study employed a comparative qualitative focus group approach to explore how American and Chinese viewers responded to and interacted with this new format of online videos. Three themes emerge from this investi…
Outside the Sports Closet
Contributing to a growing yet underresearched area of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues in sport, this study interrogates news discourses of the most prominent American athletes coming-out stories to date: the National Basketball Association’s Jason Collins and the National Football League’s Michael Sam. Mainstream media narratives invoked an overall congratulatory tone, hailing these announcements as watershed moments while a…
The marijuana user in US news media
In the wake of growing legalization efforts, both medicinal and recreational marijuana use in the US is becoming more prevalent and societally acceptable. However, racial, criminal and cultural stereotypes linger in mediated visual portrayals. This study examines the extent to which mediated visual portrayals in mainstream news have been impacted by these recent legalization efforts. Employing a quantitative as well as a qualitative analysis of v…
Who ‘framed’ Ramchandra Siras? Journalistic discourses of sexual citizenship in India
In 2010, a professor in India was forcibly outed as gay and catapulted into a nationwide debate about LGBTQ rights in India. A textual analysis of prominent Indian English-language newspapers revealed the framing devices journalists used to report the case, unpacking how coverage essentialized gay identity, signified civil rights and citizenship, problematized notions of consent, complicated public/private demarcations of sexuality, and negotiate…
Good News! Communication Findings May be Underestimated
Despite long-standing concerns over self-reported measures of media use, media research has relied heavily on self-reported data. This study not only examined discrepancies between survey and logged smartphone data but assessed whether correlational outcomes using self-reported measures produce greater or smaller effect sizes compared to outcomes using logged measures. College students (n = 294) and MTurk workers (n = 291) provided self-reported …
Truth, Justice, and Sexual Violence
Using discourse analysis to examine newspaper Op-Eds during the Hill-Thomas and Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, this study explores how media can function as an arbiter of public opinion during controversial events. This analysis highlights the importance of Op-Eds in defining whose voices matter in shaping national mediated discourses, examining the role media play in critical public debates surrounding issues of gender, race, power, and sexual violenc…
“Well, He Is Paid to Be Violent…”
The purpose of this study is to determine if perceptions of violence related to race, gender and sport will impact audience reactions to domestic violence issues involving an athlete. Specifically, this study will examine how these elements of an athlete’s identity could affect his/her perceived image when faced with domestic violence accusations. A 3 (perceived race) X 2 (gender) X 2 (sport) factorial experiment was conducted using a national co…
Trans Youth Sport Bans and the Facilitation of Moral Panic
This study incorporates moral panics as a lens for investigating discussions in US news reports and on social media surrounding anti-transgender youth sports legislation. A total of 210 newspaper articles and 6,405 Twitter posts from January 2022 through November 2022 were analyzed to highlight the proportion of content that incorporated moral panic elements of concern, hostility, consensus, and disproportionality within the discussion. While the…
Selling Yoga ‘Off the Mat’
Scholars have critiqued popular media representations of yoga as largely emphasizing thin, white, upper-class female practitioners donning expensive apparel and accessories, exemplifying many aspects of a commercialized and objectified fitness culture and lifestyle brand. However, there is a dearth of research that has investigated the promotional content in popular magazines such as Yoga Journal; for example, no study to date has examined advert…
Delegitimizing Tactics in Media Coverage of Trans Athlete Sport Bans
This study compares U.S. news coverage and social media conversations surrounding transgender youth sports bans in 2022 by analyzing 210 newspaper articles and 6405 Twitter (X) posts. This study investigates the reliance on delegitimizing language, the weaponization of scientific perspectives, and the relative invisibility of transgender voices in mediated debates about participation in youth sports. Findings show delegitimatizing language target…
Sociology (13 works) · Media studies (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Media Studies and Communication (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (5 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works)