The first research task for your New/Digital Media independent case study is to use the Media Magazine archive.
This is an invaluable resource that you have already used for your critical investigations. Now, you need to return to the archive to find any relevant articles on your chosen industry and institution.
MM34 - Engendering Change: What’s Happened to Representations of Women?
- Nick Lacey explores the traditional view of active men and passive women, and finds that feminism still has a fight on its hands
- "John Berger - Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at."
- "Emma peel featured in The Avengers from 1965-7 and brought a radical and powerful combination of female sexuality, intelligence and lethal combat skills to the small screen. Nevertheless, despite her dynamism, she still deferred to her (male) boss, steed."
MM56 - Furiosa and the ‘Male Gaze’: Is Fury Road a Game-changer? Nick Lacey suggests the massively successful Mad Max: Fury Road challenges patriarchal values, using the theories of Laura Mulvey, and narrative approaches to gender.
- "Mulvey suggested that mainstream cinema institutionalises the 'male gaze': that is, that most films are shot from a male perspective."
- "Mulvey also suggested that women's bodies are often represented as fragmented, through the use of close-ups, giving women 'the quality of [an] icon' rather than an active agent in three-dimensional space."
- "Finally, from Mulvey, in mainstream cinema narrative, men are active, 'forwarding the story, making things happen' in contrast to women's passivity
MM55 - The Fourth Wave? Feminism in the Digital Age. Chloe Gray explores networked feminism, and the role of digital and social media in transforming debates about the meaning of gender equality.
- "Feminists who currently advocate for a fourth-wave of feminism believe the circulation of feminist issues rely on social media technology for communicating and organising their activism efforts. 'its defined by the technology: tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive moment online.'
- "Feminism is often divided into 'waves' to explain the cultural context in which they began. The 'first wave of feminism' began in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, with a main focus on suffrage. The 'second wave' began in the 1960's campaigning for the growth of equal rights and leading to the Equal Pay Act of 1970, amongst other equality laws. Since the late 1990's, we are believed to have entered 'the third wave' (often identified as post-feminism). The new fourth wave of feminism is also known as 'networked feminism'. It aims to tackle social equality issues found both on, and using, modern technology.
MM40 - Playing with the past- Post-feminism and the media
- "Post-feminism is better described as the current 'set of assumptions' in contemporary society and culture. This set of assumptions is, of course, reflected and reinforced by media texts. Post-feminism can be defined as the current ideological belief in culture and society that we are somehow past needing feminism - that the attitudes and arguments of feminism are no longer needed; that those battles have long been won."
M44 - The Gender Politics in The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games.
- Sophie Stringfellow explores constructions of masculinity and femininity in the Walking Dead, a continuing TV series, in comparison with Suzanne collins' more helpful gender perspective on the other side of the dystopian revolution represented in Hunger Games
- "In contrast to the machismo on display in the first episode of The Walking Dead, The Hunger Games gives us an all-female domestic scene in which Katniss comforts her sister who has woken from a nightmare."
- "it is possible to discuss her heroism, a stereo-typically masculine quality, as she volunteers to take her sister's place at the reaping."
- "Unlike many of the hyper-masculine characters in The Walking dead, Peeta also demonstrates a clear sense of self-perservation. We see this towards the end, when he is gravely injured and hides himself, instead of attempting any feats of bravery"
- "The Hunger Games have access to a spectrum of 'ways of being' and any restrictions on their behaviours come solely from the particular rules of the dystopian society, rather that expectations based on gender.
Protection issues - care or control.
- "The powerful sisterly bond represented by the pin drives the plot and helps to spark a revolution... The relationship between the two sisters is also mirrored in the arena with Katniss and Rue, whose poignant interactions shows girls who are capable of looking after each other."
- "In The Hunger Games, protection between male and female characters is based on mutual care which never calls the strength or capabilities of the women into question"
MM32 - Africa's Finest Hour
- All eyes are on South Africa this summer. Hordes of people will make their way to the so called dark continent, for many it will be their first visit to Africa. Many will board their plane with a plethora of media stereotypes of Africa firmly ingrained in their minds. Last year there was much speculation in the press about whether or no the country will be ready to host the games - yet more doom and gloom reporting about Africa. Others questioned whether the state-of-the-art purpose-built football stadium will be completed satisfactorily.
- The world's media will be focusing on football but will, no doubt, be ready to report anything that goes wrong.
- After all negative stories sell newspapers and make headlines.
- There is little in the way of balance when it comes to media coverage of any African countries; and very little good news of a country such as south Africa ever reaches the rest of the world.
MM36 - Marty, Bob and Leo: the Changing Nature of Masculinity. The collaboration between auteur Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
- "He is the provider not the receiver, capable of love but not made vulnerable because of it. These are the qualities of a masculinity that was prevalent until possibly the late 1970s or early 1980s.
- To be 'masculine' is not to be 'feminine', not to be 'gay', not to be tainted with any marks of 'inferiority' - suggested Lynne Segal
- "it is in relation to women's and gay liberations that we find the possibility to greater sexual equality" - Lynne Segal
- "DiCaprio for me represents a much more contemporary masculinity. He is beautiful rather than handsome."..
- "He is capable of showing sensitivity, vulnerability and fear in his roles.
- "Masculinity as a concept has changed from a hegemonic traditional binary opposite of the feminine, to something more fluid."
