Sofie Van Bauwel
Biographic Data
| ID | 76266 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sofie Van Bauwel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sofie |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Bauwel |
| SIGNATURE | VAN BAUWEL S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8554-2452 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 130 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Gendered constructions of migration in Europe: An intersectional analysis of inclusionary and exclusionary discourses on social media platforms
This article explores intersectional discourses of migration and gender in the social media environments of three different European countries – Belgium, Greece, and Italy. For the analysis, we retrieved a dataset of 1000 posts per country about migration from Facebook and Twitter (now X) and we selected posts with a gender dimension. The article shows how the discursive struggle over migration and gender takes shape across inclusionary and exclu…
Online Discourses on Femicide and European Nationalist and Populist Parties: A Quantitative Analysis of the Femicide Discourse in European Social Media Posts
Social media serves as a dual-edged sword, by both fostering resistance and enabling the dissemination of nationalist ideologies through femicide issues. However, there is minimal research on how nationalist parties in Europe shape representations of femicide. This study used a quantitative analysis on femicide representations on X and Facebook-posts across Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Tu…
Sizzling steaks and manly molds: Exploring the meanings of meat and masculinities in young men's lives
Feeding masculine norms: Representations of (non-) meat and masculinities in food advertising
The association between meat and masculinity is a historically and culturally constructed relationship, prevalent in western cultures through various forms of media and popular culture, including advertisements. This study examines how Flemish TV food advertisements represent masculinities in relation to both meat and non-meat alternatives, shedding light on how advertising contributes to the construction of meat as a symbol of masculinity. Throu…
From grill to gram: Cultural representations of meat and masculinities on Food Instagram
Affective learning: The role of affect in understanding representations of sexuality in postfeminist television series
This article is a theoretical exploration of the nuanced connections between the notion of affect and representations of sexuality in postfeminist television series. Drawing on gender studies, media studies and affect theory, it addresses the manifestation of postfeminist ideals in popular media and how it shapes the audience's understanding of gender and sexuality, acknowledging the complex negotiation of sexual identities, and emphasising the r…
Uncovering the Hidden Bias: A Study on Ageism in Hollywood's Portrayal of Ageing Femininities in Romantic Comedies (2000-2021)
Recently, the media has been highlighting the increasing presence of older women on screen. However, it is important to examine whether this is the case and how exactly older women are being portrayed. This research examined the representations of older women in Hollywood romantic comedies released from 2000 to 2021. To assess diversity and stereotypes, forty-four popular films were analysed. Here we identified, in twenty of the forty-four films,…
Trans persons on trans representations in popular media culture: A reception study
After having been largely ignored, people with a trans*gender identity are more represented in mainstream film and television, yet little research on the viewpoints of trans persons themselves exists (McInroy & Craig, 2015). Therefore, this article explores how Belgian transgender persons assess the recurring and contemporary media depictions of trans persons. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with transgender persons with ages ranging…
Gender, culture and morality: A case study of young people’s negotiations of sexual intimacy online
This study adds to the existing literature on mediated sexual intimacy by exploring young people’s negotiations of sexual self-representations online within a culturally diverse sample. We apply a discourse-theoretical analysis to the data gathered using our visual creative methodology consisting of six focus groups with youngsters between the ages of 13 and 20 years old ( N = 57). Although the representation of youth in public and academic disco…
Contemporary Research on Gender and Media: It’s All Political
Recent global social changes and phenomena like #MeToo and Time’s Up Movement, the visibility of feminism in popular media (e.g., Beyonce or the TV series Orange is the New Black ), the increase of datafication and fake news have not only put pressure on the media and entertainment industry and the content produced, but also generated critique, change and questions in the public debate on gender in general and (the backlash on) gender studies aro…
Let’s Get Loud: Intersectionally Studying the Super Bowl’s Halftime Show
The study of popular culture has always been closely related to the study of class, gender, race, and sexuality. An increasing number of authors have called for an intersectional approach. However, the contradictory, fluid meanings articulated in popular culture render such an approach difficult, and many ignore the call for intersectional analysis. We will not. We will try to engage with an intersectional analysis of popular culture, using Shaki…
‘Everybody needs to post a selfie every once in a while’: Exploring the politics of Instagram curation in young women’s self-representational practices
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, reaching (as of 2018) over 1 billion monthly active users. One of the major affordances of Instagram is the creation and posting of pictures. This allows for the production of photographic self-representations – one of the central aspects of contemporary everyday social media practices. Yet, these practices, deeply intertwined with the politics of gender representation, are of…
The visual digital self: A discourse theoretical analysis of young people’s negotiations on gender, reputation and sexual morality online
Young people’s self-presentations on Instagram often display considerate discourses on gender, reputation and (sexual) morality. Previous studies have explored how these discourses are embedded in cultural narratives, while overseeing the significance of visibility and visual storytelling cultures online. Using a Foucauldian Feminist approach, we explore how young people’s discourses reflect the visual performance of aesthetic and neoliberal subj…
Photographable femininities in women’s magazines and on Instagram
This article explores the intertextual relationship between women’s glossy fashion magazines and Instagram. As the boundaries between the two formats are becoming increasingly porous – with visual conventions and discourses flowing bi-directionally between women’s magazines and Instagram – this article questions how they mutually reshape each other and the representations of femininities they carry. It explores the tensions emerging from these me…
On Making Ethical Choices in Ethnographic Research into (Young) People’s Mediated Intimacy: A Research Note
People’s intimate life-worlds are increasingly taking place in networked media spaces such as social media, smartphone applications and virtual reality environments. For (digital) ethnographers, it becomes crucial to understand people’s intense intimate attachments to mediated spaces. Many researchers are already exploring networked media spaces’ affects; what opportunities they offer for people’s intimacies as well as the, albeit hidden, damage …
LGBT+ televisibility in Flanders: The presence of sexual and gender diversity in Flemish television fiction (2001-2016)
Fictional representations of LGBT+ people offer a way to study how socio-cultural discourses on sexual and gender identity are reflected in popular culture. Notwithstanding the fact that particular contexts play a pivotal role in this dynamic, queer television theory currently derives exclusively from U.S. cases. With a quantitative analysis of LGBT+ characters in Flemish television fiction between 2001 and 2016, this study provides a descriptive…
Meat and masculinities. Can differences in masculinity predict meat consumption, intentions to reduce meat and attitudes towards vegetarians
Between the Mundane and the Political: Women's Self-Representations on Instagram
Women's self-representation on Instagram is often discussed in popular media in polarizing terms, as either an empowering practice or as boring and mundane. However, the political and the mundane are inevitably interwoven. This article grounds the discussions on how 'the political' can be expressed through mundane Instagram practices on the analysis of individual self-representations of 'ordinary' Instagram users (i.e., not celebrities or Insta-f…
Reporting on young people, sexuality, and social media: A discourse theoretical analysis
The amount of public interest in and media panic over youth, sexuality, and social media has grown in recent years. In this paper, we explore the discursive practices that are disciplining the digital intimacies of young people through print media discourses. Therefore, we use a Foucauldian feminist approach and conduct a discourse theoretical analysis of 183 news articles published in Northern Belgium between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2016.…
Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction
This article troubles the intuitive link between emancipatory portrayals of sexual and gender diversity and ‘quality television’ by focusing on three Flemish ‘prestige’ dramas: Met Man en Macht (VIER, 2013), Bevergem (Canvas, 2015) and Den Elfde Van Den Elfde (één, 2016). Contrary to the United States, Flemish quality television portrays fewer LGBTQ+ characters and narratives than less ‘prestigious’ content. Approached from a Bourdieusian perspec…
Understanding Queer Normality: LGBT+ Representations in Millennial Flemish Television Fiction
Queer television studies scholarship tends to construct “queerness” and “normality” as incommensurable concepts, defining queer “against the normal rather than the heterosexual.” In this article, we show how this construction is specifically intertwined with highly liberalized media contexts, and generates a fundamentally static understanding and operationalization of the concept of normality in queer television studies. Turning to Flemish televi…
A Different Point of View: Women's Self-representation in Instagram's Participatory Artistic Movements @girlgazeproject and @arthoecollective
This article explores the political potential of self-representation in Instagram's participatory artistic movements. It understands this political potential in a broader sense of “everyday politics” in which seemingly mundane issues, like Instagram self-representation, have the potential to enact societal change, affecting the politics of mass media representation. It uses as examples the @girlgazeproject and the @arthoecollective Instagram acco…
Exploring the Politics of Gender Representation on Instagram: Self-representations of Femininity
This article presents an analysis of the politics of gender representation on Instagram. It adopts a broad understanding of the political in terms of “everyday politics” and “everyday activism”. This allows for exploring the political potential of self-representation on Instagram and Instagram's ability to enable more diverse forms of gender representation. It starts from the assumption that Instagram can play a role in reproducing and reinforcin…
Same-sex love in times of Dutroux: The articulation of homosexuality with child abuse in late 1990s’ Flemish print media
In this article, we point to the peculiar conjuncture between the increased emancipation of gay men and lesbian women in late 1990s’ Belgium, and the noted impact of the contemporaneous Dutroux affair on the construction of sexual diversity in the country. Approaching the case as a moral panic, we conducted a discourse analysis of the associated coverage in four mainstream Flemish newspapers, focusing on the articulation of homosexuality with chi…
Historical, temporal and contemporary trends on gender and media
The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies
The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies brings together over 175 critical essays to redraw the boundaries of this rapidly evolving and dynamically complex area. Global in scope, wide-ranging in its inclusion of topics, and edited by an international team of the world's best scholars, this is the definitive resource for the field. Includes more than 175 essays written by over 200 leading and emerging scholars from across the globe Arranged…
Sex and the City: A Postfeminist Point of View? Or How Popular Culture Functions as a Channel for Feminist Discourse
The existing literature concerning post feminism shows a diversity of ideas among scholars; a polarization between opponents and supporters becomes salient. By rearticulating post feminism as a fundament of third-wave feminism and situating it within the context of the 21 st century (Genz, 333-353), we endeavor a more revisited vision on the representation of post feminism in popular culture. Post feminism is a new form of empowerment, adjusted t…
Exploring the Politics of Gender Representation on Instagram: Self-representations of Femininity
This article presents an analysis of the politics of gender representation on Instagram. It adopts a broad understanding of the political in terms of “everyday politics” and “everyday activism”. This allows for exploring the political potential of self-representation on Instagram and Instagram's ability to enable more diverse forms of gender representation. It starts from the assumption that Instagram can play a role in reproducing and reinforcin…
Meat and masculinities. Can differences in masculinity predict meat consumption, intentions to reduce meat and attitudes towards vegetarians
Invisible golden girls? Post-feminist discourses and female ageing bodies in contemporary television fiction
The popular television series The Golden Girls (1985–1992) seems to be an exception in the history of the representation of third-age women femininities and bodies in television fiction. This series about four mature women living in the same house in Miami made ageing women visible in television representations. Older women are generally invisible in popular television fiction. Despite this absence, a discourse on ageing and femininities is prese…
Reporting on young people, sexuality, and social media: A discourse theoretical analysis
The amount of public interest in and media panic over youth, sexuality, and social media has grown in recent years. In this paper, we explore the discursive practices that are disciplining the digital intimacies of young people through print media discourses. Therefore, we use a Foucauldian feminist approach and conduct a discourse theoretical analysis of 183 news articles published in Northern Belgium between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2016.…
The discursive construction of gay teenagers in times of mediatization: Youth's reflections on intimate storytelling, queer shame and realness in popular social media places
New media applications such as social networking sites are understood as important evolutions for queer youth. These media and communication technologies allow teenagers to transgress their everyday life places and connect with other queer teens. Moreover, social media websites could also be used for real political activism such as publicly sharing coming out videos on YouTube. Despite these increased opportunities for self-reflexive storytelling…
YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009
Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based soc…
Between the Mundane and the Political: Women's Self-Representations on Instagram
Women's self-representation on Instagram is often discussed in popular media in polarizing terms, as either an empowering practice or as boring and mundane. However, the political and the mundane are inevitably interwoven. This article grounds the discussions on how 'the political' can be expressed through mundane Instagram practices on the analysis of individual self-representations of 'ordinary' Instagram users (i.e., not celebrities or Insta-f…
Understanding Queer Normality: LGBT+ Representations in Millennial Flemish Television Fiction
Queer television studies scholarship tends to construct “queerness” and “normality” as incommensurable concepts, defining queer “against the normal rather than the heterosexual.” In this article, we show how this construction is specifically intertwined with highly liberalized media contexts, and generates a fundamentally static understanding and operationalization of the concept of normality in queer television studies. Turning to Flemish televi…
Uncovering the Hidden Bias: A Study on Ageism in Hollywood's Portrayal of Ageing Femininities in Romantic Comedies (2000-2021)
Recently, the media has been highlighting the increasing presence of older women on screen. However, it is important to examine whether this is the case and how exactly older women are being portrayed. This research examined the representations of older women in Hollywood romantic comedies released from 2000 to 2021. To assess diversity and stereotypes, forty-four popular films were analysed. Here we identified, in twenty of the forty-four films,…
Gender, culture and morality: A case study of young people’s negotiations of sexual intimacy online
This study adds to the existing literature on mediated sexual intimacy by exploring young people’s negotiations of sexual self-representations online within a culturally diverse sample. We apply a discourse-theoretical analysis to the data gathered using our visual creative methodology consisting of six focus groups with youngsters between the ages of 13 and 20 years old ( N = 57). Although the representation of youth in public and academic disco…
Slashing the Fiction of Queer Theory: Slash Fiction, Queer Reading, and Transgressing the Boundaries of Screen Studies, Representations, and Audiences
The popularity of slash fiction, a productive strand of fan fiction in which same-sex television or film characters are subversively made into queer subjects, has grown in recent years. The practice of queer readings, which is about repositioning texts outside the borders of heteronormativity, very much resembles some of the basic premises of queer theory, the post-structural theory that contests strict categorical views on gender and sexuality. …
The ignored audience: A multi-method reception study on children and television news in Albania
Children are not considered to be an appropriate audience for news coverage based on their presumed lack of emotional maturity, critical thinking and proper knowledge. This article challenges these views by presenting the opinions of children aged 10-15 who report having watched broadcast news nearly every day. Additionally, the views of adults aged 25-62 are investigated. Children contest to the ways they are being portrayed by the news media an…
Nollywood online: Between the individual consumption and communal reception of Nigerian films among African diaspora
Various video-on-demand (VOD) platforms streaming Nigerian films have popped up on the Internet since 2011. These VOD platforms facilitate the consumption of Nigerian films among African diaspora. Despite an increasing academic interest for Nollywood audiences, these new modes of viewing Nigerian films online have yet to be explored. In this article, we will therefore give attention to the consumption and reception of Nigerian films on the Intern…
Sizzling steaks and manly molds: Exploring the meanings of meat and masculinities in young men's lives
Feeding masculine norms: Representations of (non-) meat and masculinities in food advertising
The association between meat and masculinity is a historically and culturally constructed relationship, prevalent in western cultures through various forms of media and popular culture, including advertisements. This study examines how Flemish TV food advertisements represent masculinities in relation to both meat and non-meat alternatives, shedding light on how advertising contributes to the construction of meat as a symbol of masculinity. Throu…
From grill to gram: Cultural representations of meat and masculinities on Food Instagram
Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction
This article troubles the intuitive link between emancipatory portrayals of sexual and gender diversity and ‘quality television’ by focusing on three Flemish ‘prestige’ dramas: Met Man en Macht (VIER, 2013), Bevergem (Canvas, 2015) and Den Elfde Van Den Elfde (één, 2016). Contrary to the United States, Flemish quality television portrays fewer LGBTQ+ characters and narratives than less ‘prestigious’ content. Approached from a Bourdieusian perspec…
A Different Point of View: Women's Self-representation in Instagram's Participatory Artistic Movements @girlgazeproject and @arthoecollective
This article explores the political potential of self-representation in Instagram's participatory artistic movements. It understands this political potential in a broader sense of “everyday politics” in which seemingly mundane issues, like Instagram self-representation, have the potential to enact societal change, affecting the politics of mass media representation. It uses as examples the @girlgazeproject and the @arthoecollective Instagram acco…
Film-viewing in Turkish and Moroccan diasporic families: A gender and place perspective
This article explores the relation between gender identities and spatial aspects of audience reception by means of a case study on film-viewing in the Turkish and Moroccan diasporic communities in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Drawing on feminist and gender approaches to audience reception on the one hand, and research into the spatial dynamics underlying audience reception on the other, we look at film-viewing as a socially and spatially meaningf…
Queer Resistances in the Adult Animated Sitcom
This article studies the representation of queer characters and themes in the contemporary adult animated sitcom. We argue that even though popular culture is often assumed to reiterate and consolidate the discourse of heteronormativity, adult animated sitcoms create space for queer resistance. Since the genre draws on postmodern strategies of representation, we argue that queer resistance is subversively articulated through instances of pastiche…
Slashing the Fiction of Queer Theory: Slash Fiction, Queer Reading, and Transgressing the Boundaries of Screen Studies, Representations, and Audiences
The popularity of slash fiction, a productive strand of fan fiction in which same-sex television or film characters are subversively made into queer subjects, has grown in recent years. The practice of queer readings, which is about repositioning texts outside the borders of heteronormativity, very much resembles some of the basic premises of queer theory, the post-structural theory that contests strict categorical views on gender and sexuality. …
Gendered Transformations: Theory and Practices on Gender and Media
Queer Resistances in the Adult Animated Sitcom
This article studies the representation of queer characters and themes in the contemporary adult animated sitcom. We argue that even though popular culture is often assumed to reiterate and consolidate the discourse of heteronormativity, adult animated sitcoms create space for queer resistance. Since the genre draws on postmodern strategies of representation, we argue that queer resistance is subversively articulated through instances of pastiche…
Sex and the City: A Postfeminist Point of View? Or How Popular Culture Functions as a Channel for Feminist Discourse
The existing literature concerning post feminism shows a diversity of ideas among scholars; a polarization between opponents and supporters becomes salient. By rearticulating post feminism as a fundament of third-wave feminism and situating it within the context of the 21 st century (Genz, 333-353), we endeavor a more revisited vision on the representation of post feminism in popular culture. Post feminism is a new form of empowerment, adjusted t…
Queer Gazing and the Popular: A Study on the Representational Strategies of Queer Representations in Popular Television Fiction
In this chapter, we elaborate on the construction of queer representations in popular television fiction. In spite of the critical and commercial success of “queer” television fiction series (e.g., Queer as Folk , The L Word , Six Feet Under ), queer representations are sometimes still seen as controversial. The aim of this chapter is to obtain a better insight into the social and emancipating role of queer representations in contemporary popular…
The good, the bad or the queer: Articulations of queer resistance in The Wire
Although the representation of queer characters has grown significantly in contemporary western television, most of the popular fiction series are still dominated by hegemonic heteronormative discourses. However, this article demonstrates how the critically acclaimed series The Wire, through its subversive articulations of queer characters, resists heteronormativity. This implies that the series can be read as a defiance of an essentialist, hiera…
Gender and communication: Contemporary research questions
This special issue on Gender Relations in the Media is to be understood in the context of certain topics and important discussions in the area of feminist media studies, including post-feminism, sexualization, gender violence and feminist research methodologies. This set of articles brings together important aspects regarding the future of the field, such as newsroom studies from a professional perspective, the glass ceiling faced by female profe…
The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies
The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies brings together over 175 critical essays to redraw the boundaries of this rapidly evolving and dynamically complex area. Global in scope, wide-ranging in its inclusion of topics, and edited by an international team of the world's best scholars, this is the definitive resource for the field. Includes more than 175 essays written by over 200 leading and emerging scholars from across the globe Arranged…
Sex as Spectacle: An Overview of Gender and Sexual Scripts in Teen Series Popular with Flemish Teenagers
In recent years, research focusing on representations of sexuality in entertainment has gained momentum. Television content can sometimes be characterized as “hypersexual,” and according to Jacobson (2005), such “hypersexual” representations can be found in two-thirds of programs. However, beyond offering teenagers more sexual content, the nature of the content has also changed. Using a qualitative textual analysis, this article gives an overview…
Commenting on pictures: Teens negotiating gender and sexualities on social networking sites
This inquiry shows how youths negotiate sexualities and gender when commenting on profile pictures on a social networking site. Attention is given to (1) how discourses are constituted within heteronormativity, and (2) how the mediated nature of the SNS contributes to resistance. Using insights from cultural media studies, social theory and queer criticism, self-representations in SNSs are viewed as sites of struggle. A textual analysis is used t…
Bollywood tracks towards and through the city: Structural patterns of Hindi film culture in Antwerp (Belgium)
The globalisation of Hindi cinema is a topical issue in current media and film research. Whereas the majority of previous studies on Indian film in diaspora have been concerned with issues of audiences and text, this article concentrates on the structural patterns of Hindi film, specifically in the Belgian city of Antwerp. It is inspired by insights from political economy studies which acknowledge the balance of power and global dynamics from a l…
Pride and popcorn: Consuming the idea of community at film screenings in the Turkish diaspora
A range of studies have revealed the interrelatedness of identity construction, community formation and media among diasporas, mostly focusing on domestic contexts. Seeking to add further nuance to the understanding of the social lives of diasporas, we concentrate on media culture in the public environment of the film theatre. The significance of diasporic film consumption is investigated through a local audience study of Turkish film screenings …
YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009
Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based soc…
The discursive construction of gay teenagers in times of mediatization: Youth's reflections on intimate storytelling, queer shame and realness in popular social media places
New media applications such as social networking sites are understood as important evolutions for queer youth. These media and communication technologies allow teenagers to transgress their everyday life places and connect with other queer teens. Moreover, social media websites could also be used for real political activism such as publicly sharing coming out videos on YouTube. Despite these increased opportunities for self-reflexive storytelling…
Film-viewing in Turkish and Moroccan diasporic families: A gender and place perspective
This article explores the relation between gender identities and spatial aspects of audience reception by means of a case study on film-viewing in the Turkish and Moroccan diasporic communities in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Drawing on feminist and gender approaches to audience reception on the one hand, and research into the spatial dynamics underlying audience reception on the other, we look at film-viewing as a socially and spatially meaningf…
Nollywood online: Between the individual consumption and communal reception of Nigerian films among African diaspora
Various video-on-demand (VOD) platforms streaming Nigerian films have popped up on the Internet since 2011. These VOD platforms facilitate the consumption of Nigerian films among African diaspora. Despite an increasing academic interest for Nollywood audiences, these new modes of viewing Nigerian films online have yet to be explored. In this article, we will therefore give attention to the consumption and reception of Nigerian films on the Intern…
Fans Who Cut Their Soaps Queer: A Queer Theoretical Study into Online Fandom of Gay Television Representation
The popularization of the Internet, the participatory possibilities of Web 2.0 and the increased availability of video capture and editing software paved the path for fandom to go online. The innovations enabled fans to more easily participate in diverse socio-cultural contexts and provided fans already involved in creating fan productions with a broader audience. For Cornel Sandvoss, the notion of fans in popular and academic thought has emerged…
Same-sex love in times of Dutroux: The articulation of homosexuality with child abuse in late 1990s’ Flemish print media
In this article, we point to the peculiar conjuncture between the increased emancipation of gay men and lesbian women in late 1990s’ Belgium, and the noted impact of the contemporaneous Dutroux affair on the construction of sexual diversity in the country. Approaching the case as a moral panic, we conducted a discourse analysis of the associated coverage in four mainstream Flemish newspapers, focusing on the articulation of homosexuality with chi…
Historical, temporal and contemporary trends on gender and media
Invisible golden girls? Post-feminist discourses and female ageing bodies in contemporary television fiction
The popular television series The Golden Girls (1985–1992) seems to be an exception in the history of the representation of third-age women femininities and bodies in television fiction. This series about four mature women living in the same house in Miami made ageing women visible in television representations. Older women are generally invisible in popular television fiction. Despite this absence, a discourse on ageing and femininities is prese…
The ignored audience: A multi-method reception study on children and television news in Albania
Children are not considered to be an appropriate audience for news coverage based on their presumed lack of emotional maturity, critical thinking and proper knowledge. This article challenges these views by presenting the opinions of children aged 10-15 who report having watched broadcast news nearly every day. Additionally, the views of adults aged 25-62 are investigated. Children contest to the ways they are being portrayed by the news media an…
Understanding Queer Normality: LGBT+ Representations in Millennial Flemish Television Fiction
Queer television studies scholarship tends to construct “queerness” and “normality” as incommensurable concepts, defining queer “against the normal rather than the heterosexual.” In this article, we show how this construction is specifically intertwined with highly liberalized media contexts, and generates a fundamentally static understanding and operationalization of the concept of normality in queer television studies. Turning to Flemish televi…
A Different Point of View: Women's Self-representation in Instagram's Participatory Artistic Movements @girlgazeproject and @arthoecollective
This article explores the political potential of self-representation in Instagram's participatory artistic movements. It understands this political potential in a broader sense of “everyday politics” in which seemingly mundane issues, like Instagram self-representation, have the potential to enact societal change, affecting the politics of mass media representation. It uses as examples the @girlgazeproject and the @arthoecollective Instagram acco…
Exploring the Politics of Gender Representation on Instagram: Self-representations of Femininity
This article presents an analysis of the politics of gender representation on Instagram. It adopts a broad understanding of the political in terms of “everyday politics” and “everyday activism”. This allows for exploring the political potential of self-representation on Instagram and Instagram's ability to enable more diverse forms of gender representation. It starts from the assumption that Instagram can play a role in reproducing and reinforcin…
Reporting on young people, sexuality, and social media: A discourse theoretical analysis
The amount of public interest in and media panic over youth, sexuality, and social media has grown in recent years. In this paper, we explore the discursive practices that are disciplining the digital intimacies of young people through print media discourses. Therefore, we use a Foucauldian feminist approach and conduct a discourse theoretical analysis of 183 news articles published in Northern Belgium between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2016.…
Sociology (40 works) · Gender Studies (32 works) · Political science (30 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (24 works) · Media studies (24 works) · Art (23 works) · Gender Studies (21 works) · Media, Gender, and Advertising (20 works) · Politics (20 works) · Psychology (17 works)