Sara De Benedictis
Biographic Data
| ID | 6328977 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sara De Benedictis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sara |
| FAMILY NAME | De Benedictis |
| SIGNATURE | DE BENEDICTIS S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brunel University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1998-1078 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 98 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Performing pregnancy
Stand-up comedy has recently become a primary site where representations of pregnancy are increasingly prevalent. Yet little academic work focuses on pregnant stand-up comedians and their performances. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article examines the cultural work of pregnant stand-up comedy. Thematic analysis of pregnant stand-up comedy by Amy Schumer, Ellie Taylor and Ali Wong identifies three significant features characterising …
ButNotMaternity
In this article, we perform a thematic analysis of a sample of 70 #ButNotMaternity Instagram posts. #ButNotMaternity is a hashtag that emerged in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic whereby the public, healthcare workers and campaigners shared experiences and concerns about pandemic maternity care restrictions and their disproportionate disadvantages for pregnant women. In the article, we analyse four themes that emerged from our them…
Periods of austerity
This article analyses the emergence of the discourse of period poverty in UK news media across a two-year period. Using thematic analysis and discourse analysis, I analyse three themes: the focus on the schoolgirl, the silencing of the austerity context and the preoccupation with products and public figures to solve the structural issue of period poverty. In doing so, I argue that period poverty has emerged in the cultural sphere due to three key…
'I wanted to offer my sympathy … woman to woman'
The fourth season of Netflix's award-winning The Crown was released during a moment of crisis, when the UK was under a second lockdown to stem the Covid-19 pandemic. National restrictions, and the pandemic more generally, have exposed a 'crisis of care' in the UK and around the world. With schools closed and many working at home, people, particularly women, have been faced with the 'double burden' of childcare, domestic care, other caring respons…
Childbirth on television
Factual and reality television shows that depict childbirth are both commercially successful and controversial. Social debate focuses on the potential implications for women’s experiences of birth and their health. This scoping review critically analyses published literature to assess the state of knowledge about the influence of factual and reality television on the expectations and experiences of childbearing women, and to make recommendations …
Reflecting on 10 years of Maternal Studies
In this short piece, I reflect on a decade of maternal studies and consider where maternal studies are urgently needed in the next decade. Drawing on my entry into and experiences of maternal studies, I consider three areas of importance: the maternal and the psychosocial, the maternal and popular culture, and the maternal and social inequalities. Following reflections on how these areas have strengthened various lines of inquiry in my work, and …
MeToo, popular feminism and the news
This article examines the first 6 months of #MeToo’s coverage in the UK press, revealing how newspapers played an important role in heightening the campaign’s visibility. Using content analysis, our study demonstrates that the press contributed to expanding and reinforcing #MeToo’s visibility in important ways. In terms of reach, the UK press has expanded the movement’s visibility beyond social media, addressing potentially new and different read…
Portraying Poverty
Since 2013 there has been an explosion of a new genre of factual programming on British television that centres on the everyday lives of people claiming benefits. The emergence of Factual Welfare Television (FWT) has coincided with intensifying public and political debates about poverty and the British welfare state, and has proved a deeply controversial and contested genre. While programme-makers have argued that FWT fulfils a public service man…
The ‘stay-at-home’ mother, postfeminism and neoliberalism
This article analyzes the construction in the UK media of the ‘stay-at-home mother’, a maternal figure who received increasing visibility during the recession and its aftermath. Based on a content analysis of UK national newspaper coverage of stay-at-home mothers (2008–2013), this article argues that the stay-at-home mother emerges from its press coverage as a neoliberal postfeminist subject. On the one hand, the coverage complicates claims about…
From Happy Homemaker to Desperate Housewives
FundingThis work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1]
Thinking with 'White Dee
Focusing on Benefits Street, and specifically the figure of White Dee, this rapid response article offers a feminist analysis of the relationship between media portrayals of people living with poverty and the gender politics of austerity. To do this we locate and unpick the paradoxical desires coalescing in the making and remaking of the figure of 'White Dee' in the public sphere. We detail how Benefits Street operates through forms of classed an…
Feral Parents
This article explores the discourse of 'feral' parenting that emerged during and in the direct aftermath of the UK riots of 2011 from an austerity perspective. Despite the riots occurring amidst a global economic downturn, a diversification of Britain's political landscape and great social unrest, this discourse positioned the culpability for the riots on a class of 'feral' children borne of 'feral' parents. More precisely, this blame was centred…
MeToo, popular feminism and the news
This article examines the first 6 months of #MeToo’s coverage in the UK press, revealing how newspapers played an important role in heightening the campaign’s visibility. Using content analysis, our study demonstrates that the press contributed to expanding and reinforcing #MeToo’s visibility in important ways. In terms of reach, the UK press has expanded the movement’s visibility beyond social media, addressing potentially new and different read…
Thinking with 'White Dee
Focusing on Benefits Street, and specifically the figure of White Dee, this rapid response article offers a feminist analysis of the relationship between media portrayals of people living with poverty and the gender politics of austerity. To do this we locate and unpick the paradoxical desires coalescing in the making and remaking of the figure of 'White Dee' in the public sphere. We detail how Benefits Street operates through forms of classed an…
Portraying Poverty
Since 2013 there has been an explosion of a new genre of factual programming on British television that centres on the everyday lives of people claiming benefits. The emergence of Factual Welfare Television (FWT) has coincided with intensifying public and political debates about poverty and the British welfare state, and has proved a deeply controversial and contested genre. While programme-makers have argued that FWT fulfils a public service man…
The ‘stay-at-home’ mother, postfeminism and neoliberalism
This article analyzes the construction in the UK media of the ‘stay-at-home mother’, a maternal figure who received increasing visibility during the recession and its aftermath. Based on a content analysis of UK national newspaper coverage of stay-at-home mothers (2008–2013), this article argues that the stay-at-home mother emerges from its press coverage as a neoliberal postfeminist subject. On the one hand, the coverage complicates claims about…
Periods of austerity
This article analyses the emergence of the discourse of period poverty in UK news media across a two-year period. Using thematic analysis and discourse analysis, I analyse three themes: the focus on the schoolgirl, the silencing of the austerity context and the preoccupation with products and public figures to solve the structural issue of period poverty. In doing so, I argue that period poverty has emerged in the cultural sphere due to three key…
Performing pregnancy
Stand-up comedy has recently become a primary site where representations of pregnancy are increasingly prevalent. Yet little academic work focuses on pregnant stand-up comedians and their performances. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article examines the cultural work of pregnant stand-up comedy. Thematic analysis of pregnant stand-up comedy by Amy Schumer, Ellie Taylor and Ali Wong identifies three significant features characterising …
ButNotMaternity
In this article, we perform a thematic analysis of a sample of 70 #ButNotMaternity Instagram posts. #ButNotMaternity is a hashtag that emerged in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic whereby the public, healthcare workers and campaigners shared experiences and concerns about pandemic maternity care restrictions and their disproportionate disadvantages for pregnant women. In the article, we analyse four themes that emerged from our them…
Feral Parents
This article explores the discourse of 'feral' parenting that emerged during and in the direct aftermath of the UK riots of 2011 from an austerity perspective. Despite the riots occurring amidst a global economic downturn, a diversification of Britain's political landscape and great social unrest, this discourse positioned the culpability for the riots on a class of 'feral' children borne of 'feral' parents. More precisely, this blame was centred…
From Happy Homemaker to Desperate Housewives
FundingThis work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J500057/1]
Thinking with 'White Dee
Focusing on Benefits Street, and specifically the figure of White Dee, this rapid response article offers a feminist analysis of the relationship between media portrayals of people living with poverty and the gender politics of austerity. To do this we locate and unpick the paradoxical desires coalescing in the making and remaking of the figure of 'White Dee' in the public sphere. We detail how Benefits Street operates through forms of classed an…
The ‘stay-at-home’ mother, postfeminism and neoliberalism
This article analyzes the construction in the UK media of the ‘stay-at-home mother’, a maternal figure who received increasing visibility during the recession and its aftermath. Based on a content analysis of UK national newspaper coverage of stay-at-home mothers (2008–2013), this article argues that the stay-at-home mother emerges from its press coverage as a neoliberal postfeminist subject. On the one hand, the coverage complicates claims about…
Portraying Poverty
Since 2013 there has been an explosion of a new genre of factual programming on British television that centres on the everyday lives of people claiming benefits. The emergence of Factual Welfare Television (FWT) has coincided with intensifying public and political debates about poverty and the British welfare state, and has proved a deeply controversial and contested genre. While programme-makers have argued that FWT fulfils a public service man…
MeToo, popular feminism and the news
This article examines the first 6 months of #MeToo’s coverage in the UK press, revealing how newspapers played an important role in heightening the campaign’s visibility. Using content analysis, our study demonstrates that the press contributed to expanding and reinforcing #MeToo’s visibility in important ways. In terms of reach, the UK press has expanded the movement’s visibility beyond social media, addressing potentially new and different read…
Reflecting on 10 years of Maternal Studies
In this short piece, I reflect on a decade of maternal studies and consider where maternal studies are urgently needed in the next decade. Drawing on my entry into and experiences of maternal studies, I consider three areas of importance: the maternal and the psychosocial, the maternal and popular culture, and the maternal and social inequalities. Following reflections on how these areas have strengthened various lines of inquiry in my work, and …
'I wanted to offer my sympathy … woman to woman'
The fourth season of Netflix's award-winning The Crown was released during a moment of crisis, when the UK was under a second lockdown to stem the Covid-19 pandemic. National restrictions, and the pandemic more generally, have exposed a 'crisis of care' in the UK and around the world. With schools closed and many working at home, people, particularly women, have been faced with the 'double burden' of childcare, domestic care, other caring respons…
Childbirth on television
Factual and reality television shows that depict childbirth are both commercially successful and controversial. Social debate focuses on the potential implications for women’s experiences of birth and their health. This scoping review critically analyses published literature to assess the state of knowledge about the influence of factual and reality television on the expectations and experiences of childbearing women, and to make recommendations …
Periods of austerity
This article analyses the emergence of the discourse of period poverty in UK news media across a two-year period. Using thematic analysis and discourse analysis, I analyse three themes: the focus on the schoolgirl, the silencing of the austerity context and the preoccupation with products and public figures to solve the structural issue of period poverty. In doing so, I argue that period poverty has emerged in the cultural sphere due to three key…
Performing pregnancy
Stand-up comedy has recently become a primary site where representations of pregnancy are increasingly prevalent. Yet little academic work focuses on pregnant stand-up comedians and their performances. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article examines the cultural work of pregnant stand-up comedy. Thematic analysis of pregnant stand-up comedy by Amy Schumer, Ellie Taylor and Ali Wong identifies three significant features characterising …
ButNotMaternity
In this article, we perform a thematic analysis of a sample of 70 #ButNotMaternity Instagram posts. #ButNotMaternity is a hashtag that emerged in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic whereby the public, healthcare workers and campaigners shared experiences and concerns about pandemic maternity care restrictions and their disproportionate disadvantages for pregnant women. In the article, we analyse four themes that emerged from our them…
Sociology (12 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Feminism (4 works)