Mediers känsla för kön är skriven i en tid av stora mediala förändringar. Ny kommunikationsteknol... more Mediers känsla för kön är skriven i en tid av stora mediala förändringar. Ny kommunikationsteknologi har öppnat för nya sätt att bruka medierat innehåll. Att upprätthålla särskiljande mellan å ena sidan ”producenter” och å andra sidan ”konsumenter” blir allt mer knepigt och irrelevant.Medier kan ses som ett av de viktigaste områdena för hur idéer om kön och om normer kring kvinnligt och manligt formas, representeras och förs vidare
Our contemporary culture is in many aspects obsessed with emotions and authenticity. The media fi... more Our contemporary culture is in many aspects obsessed with emotions and authenticity. The media figures as a key locus in this development. However, the function and display of emotions vary depending on media type and genre. The article studies the construction of bodily emotionalism in reality-Tv where corporeal signs such as tears confirm the display of emotional authenticity. It argues that authenticity appears to be synonymous with foremost the exposure of so called primary emotions, which are considered expressions for more direct and less controlled impulses. The specific value placed on tears in our culture is discussed in relation to televisions emotional script, the authentic claims of the
The mass media’s production of the obvious – their construction of common sense – can be said to ... more The mass media’s production of the obvious – their construction of common sense – can be said to largely characterise the institution of journalism. By naturalising a special way of thinking in their descriptions of the world, society and its people, this common sense seems to be the only and most natural one (Ekecrantz & Olsson, 1994). Gender is a fundamental part of this production of the obvious. The categories man and woman are “filled” with different meanings which vary depending on context, time and societal conditions. Daily papers and weekly magazines can be viewed as elements of a specific cultural and historical time, in which they both represent a certain “spirit of the times” or mentality – what people talk about and how – and, at the same time, contribute to the construction of this reality – to the very images of the world and the sexes they convey. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the gender ideology of journalistic products as it has been expressed in ...
The construction of moral dilemma, or what Hawkins (2001) refers to as ethical crises, has emerge... more The construction of moral dilemma, or what Hawkins (2001) refers to as ethical crises, has emerged as the content a priori in televised infotainment. At the same time, mediated spectacles of punishment and shame penalties have, according to Kohm (2009) permeated popular culture in a diversity of ways.In the wake of this development, the proliferation of reality programs concerning excessivenconsumerism and lack of economic self-control provides an interesting site for exploring how shame is constructed through the coupling of emotionalism, moralism and consumerism. Shame is commonly understood as a self-conscious emotion evoked by feelings of inferiority and negative evaluation of the self, when failing to meet perceived expectations of others or the self. Since the shame experience is one of utter isolation (from the group), it resonates with the worst of our fears of abandonment. In contrast to guilt, which usually regards our actions, shame concerns our core being, our quality of...
In the last decade celebrity gossip magazines targeted at a female audience have emerged in Swede... more In the last decade celebrity gossip magazines targeted at a female audience have emerged in Sweden. With inquisitive attention paid to the detailed, fleshy exposure of female celebrities' bodies and body parts, they portray what Weber refers to as body-based shame. This article argues that these flesh-images partake in an aesthetic feminine body discourse where the perfect and the imperfect are intrinsically linked with the ordinary and extraordinary paradox surrounding the celebrity persona. Flesh-images rely on their intertextuality. They indicate a loss of value, presenting female celebrities as ordinary by means of corporeal failure. While the exposure of body faults could point to the unattainable ideals of feminine bodily standards, they do so at the cost of reinforcing the implicit recognition of desire, shame and disgust familiar to female experience and looking relations. Hence, within a culture increasingly driven by a technology of extreme extroversion, fleshimages aimed at a female audience make sense through the logic of the revelation discourse that frames celebrity culture, and through the deeply ambivalent affects surrounding female embodiment.
MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research, 2016
In the wake of the affective turn, emotion and embodiment have emerged as key terms in cultural s... more In the wake of the affective turn, emotion and embodiment have emerged as key terms in cultural studies in order to acknowledge the affective dimension of media texts (Gibbs, 2002; Gregg & Seigworth, 2010). Drawing from the cross-disciplinary field of affect theory, the article examines the writing of desire in Harlequin romances through the delineation of gendered encounters. Against the backdrop of earlier feminist critiques of romance fiction, it argues that Harlequin’s intense focus on corporeal sensations and gazes encompasses a looking relationship that differs significantly from the visual mediation of gender and desire. With its use of an extended literary transvestism, a double narrator perspective, and the appropriation of a female gaze, Harlequin offers readers an affective imaginary space in which the significance of the gendered body is re-made, re-versed, and the male body is stripped of its unique position.
vision is included, as well. The chosen periods capture significant changes in journalism as well... more vision is included, as well. The chosen periods capture significant changes in journalism as well as in society-changes which raise questions about boundaries between the intimate sphere and the public. Discursive methods are used in the analyses of the journalistic texts including images.
The article examines how mediated shame in the reality show The Luxury Trap where individuals wit... more The article examines how mediated shame in the reality show The Luxury Trap where individuals with huge debts are being scolded for ‘their lack of economic self-control’ presents a specific kind of information about class played out as intensities, encounters and experience. Drawing on studies on affective reactivity, it extends the argument of reality TV as a site for classed otherness by examining how discordant affects, such as, non-empathic reactions to others’ emotional experiences, are formed, as well as transformed on the show. The shaming process evolves through different transitory phases: the inducing, internalization and (temporarily) reduction in shame. These sequential phases disclose the reliance on the passionate aspects of shame, that is, participants’ desire to re-enter into the common by freeing oneself from that which carries the mark for exclusion. They also provide the premise for the repetitive power of affect operation intrinsically linking class and shame tog...
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2007
... Some critics argue that in porn a narcissistic relationship with the self is promoted, nothin... more ... Some critics argue that in porn a narcissistic relationship with the self is promoted, nothing more and nothing less (cf. Gade 199714. Gade, Rune. 1997. ... 2–41. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. View all references; Solomon‐Godeau 199732. Solomon‐Godeau, Abigail. ...
... Unge, kjoenn og pornografi i Norden - mediestudier (Young people, gender and pornography in t... more ... Unge, kjoenn og pornografi i Norden - mediestudier (Young people, gender and pornography in the Nordic region - media studies). ...
One emerging form of communication discussed in the present article is the use of visual self-rep... more One emerging form of communication discussed in the present article is the use of visual self-representation as a tool for symbolic interaction between young people on the Internet. Using examples of difference and similarity in young women’s and men’s visual self-representation, the article offers an interpretation of these practices, pointing towards both new visual conventions and references to pre-existing media representations, thus revealing a process of hypervisuality. In this process of transformation, the involvement of new technologies, such as webcam aesthetics and its form of intimacy and authenticity, produces specific visual conventions within the frame of pre-existing media imagery, when the self is presented in online communication.
This article discusses some of the problems with pornography, or more properly why pornography is... more This article discusses some of the problems with pornography, or more properly why pornography is such a problematic field for feminists. It also focuses on some of the problems to be found in anti-pornography arguments - especially their implicit understanding of female and male sexuality as two distinct areas. By seeing pornography from a media perspective - and therefore including questions of genre and modes of address - one can get a clearer view on how pornography - soft or hard - operates in different media. The expression 'the sexualising of the media', is often used as a way of understanding the fact that sexuality as a thematic mode is widespread nowadays in many different kinds of media outlet. The expression, however, implies that sexuality is an already defined area. It is more accurate, I argue, to see this development as an expression of the 'medialization' of sexuality. In mainstream media there are two different kinds of sexual discourse, which are h...
Revolution pa svenska : ett vittnesseminarium om jamstalldhetens institutionalisering, politiseri... more Revolution pa svenska : ett vittnesseminarium om jamstalldhetens institutionalisering, politisering och expansion 1972-1976
Mediers känsla för kön är skriven i en tid av stora mediala förändringar. Ny kommunikationsteknol... more Mediers känsla för kön är skriven i en tid av stora mediala förändringar. Ny kommunikationsteknologi har öppnat för nya sätt att bruka medierat innehåll. Att upprätthålla särskiljande mellan å ena sidan ”producenter” och å andra sidan ”konsumenter” blir allt mer knepigt och irrelevant.Medier kan ses som ett av de viktigaste områdena för hur idéer om kön och om normer kring kvinnligt och manligt formas, representeras och förs vidare
Our contemporary culture is in many aspects obsessed with emotions and authenticity. The media fi... more Our contemporary culture is in many aspects obsessed with emotions and authenticity. The media figures as a key locus in this development. However, the function and display of emotions vary depending on media type and genre. The article studies the construction of bodily emotionalism in reality-Tv where corporeal signs such as tears confirm the display of emotional authenticity. It argues that authenticity appears to be synonymous with foremost the exposure of so called primary emotions, which are considered expressions for more direct and less controlled impulses. The specific value placed on tears in our culture is discussed in relation to televisions emotional script, the authentic claims of the
The mass media’s production of the obvious – their construction of common sense – can be said to ... more The mass media’s production of the obvious – their construction of common sense – can be said to largely characterise the institution of journalism. By naturalising a special way of thinking in their descriptions of the world, society and its people, this common sense seems to be the only and most natural one (Ekecrantz & Olsson, 1994). Gender is a fundamental part of this production of the obvious. The categories man and woman are “filled” with different meanings which vary depending on context, time and societal conditions. Daily papers and weekly magazines can be viewed as elements of a specific cultural and historical time, in which they both represent a certain “spirit of the times” or mentality – what people talk about and how – and, at the same time, contribute to the construction of this reality – to the very images of the world and the sexes they convey. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the gender ideology of journalistic products as it has been expressed in ...
The construction of moral dilemma, or what Hawkins (2001) refers to as ethical crises, has emerge... more The construction of moral dilemma, or what Hawkins (2001) refers to as ethical crises, has emerged as the content a priori in televised infotainment. At the same time, mediated spectacles of punishment and shame penalties have, according to Kohm (2009) permeated popular culture in a diversity of ways.In the wake of this development, the proliferation of reality programs concerning excessivenconsumerism and lack of economic self-control provides an interesting site for exploring how shame is constructed through the coupling of emotionalism, moralism and consumerism. Shame is commonly understood as a self-conscious emotion evoked by feelings of inferiority and negative evaluation of the self, when failing to meet perceived expectations of others or the self. Since the shame experience is one of utter isolation (from the group), it resonates with the worst of our fears of abandonment. In contrast to guilt, which usually regards our actions, shame concerns our core being, our quality of...
In the last decade celebrity gossip magazines targeted at a female audience have emerged in Swede... more In the last decade celebrity gossip magazines targeted at a female audience have emerged in Sweden. With inquisitive attention paid to the detailed, fleshy exposure of female celebrities' bodies and body parts, they portray what Weber refers to as body-based shame. This article argues that these flesh-images partake in an aesthetic feminine body discourse where the perfect and the imperfect are intrinsically linked with the ordinary and extraordinary paradox surrounding the celebrity persona. Flesh-images rely on their intertextuality. They indicate a loss of value, presenting female celebrities as ordinary by means of corporeal failure. While the exposure of body faults could point to the unattainable ideals of feminine bodily standards, they do so at the cost of reinforcing the implicit recognition of desire, shame and disgust familiar to female experience and looking relations. Hence, within a culture increasingly driven by a technology of extreme extroversion, fleshimages aimed at a female audience make sense through the logic of the revelation discourse that frames celebrity culture, and through the deeply ambivalent affects surrounding female embodiment.
MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research, 2016
In the wake of the affective turn, emotion and embodiment have emerged as key terms in cultural s... more In the wake of the affective turn, emotion and embodiment have emerged as key terms in cultural studies in order to acknowledge the affective dimension of media texts (Gibbs, 2002; Gregg & Seigworth, 2010). Drawing from the cross-disciplinary field of affect theory, the article examines the writing of desire in Harlequin romances through the delineation of gendered encounters. Against the backdrop of earlier feminist critiques of romance fiction, it argues that Harlequin’s intense focus on corporeal sensations and gazes encompasses a looking relationship that differs significantly from the visual mediation of gender and desire. With its use of an extended literary transvestism, a double narrator perspective, and the appropriation of a female gaze, Harlequin offers readers an affective imaginary space in which the significance of the gendered body is re-made, re-versed, and the male body is stripped of its unique position.
vision is included, as well. The chosen periods capture significant changes in journalism as well... more vision is included, as well. The chosen periods capture significant changes in journalism as well as in society-changes which raise questions about boundaries between the intimate sphere and the public. Discursive methods are used in the analyses of the journalistic texts including images.
The article examines how mediated shame in the reality show The Luxury Trap where individuals wit... more The article examines how mediated shame in the reality show The Luxury Trap where individuals with huge debts are being scolded for ‘their lack of economic self-control’ presents a specific kind of information about class played out as intensities, encounters and experience. Drawing on studies on affective reactivity, it extends the argument of reality TV as a site for classed otherness by examining how discordant affects, such as, non-empathic reactions to others’ emotional experiences, are formed, as well as transformed on the show. The shaming process evolves through different transitory phases: the inducing, internalization and (temporarily) reduction in shame. These sequential phases disclose the reliance on the passionate aspects of shame, that is, participants’ desire to re-enter into the common by freeing oneself from that which carries the mark for exclusion. They also provide the premise for the repetitive power of affect operation intrinsically linking class and shame tog...
NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2007
... Some critics argue that in porn a narcissistic relationship with the self is promoted, nothin... more ... Some critics argue that in porn a narcissistic relationship with the self is promoted, nothing more and nothing less (cf. Gade 199714. Gade, Rune. 1997. ... 2–41. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. View all references; Solomon‐Godeau 199732. Solomon‐Godeau, Abigail. ...
... Unge, kjoenn og pornografi i Norden - mediestudier (Young people, gender and pornography in t... more ... Unge, kjoenn og pornografi i Norden - mediestudier (Young people, gender and pornography in the Nordic region - media studies). ...
One emerging form of communication discussed in the present article is the use of visual self-rep... more One emerging form of communication discussed in the present article is the use of visual self-representation as a tool for symbolic interaction between young people on the Internet. Using examples of difference and similarity in young women’s and men’s visual self-representation, the article offers an interpretation of these practices, pointing towards both new visual conventions and references to pre-existing media representations, thus revealing a process of hypervisuality. In this process of transformation, the involvement of new technologies, such as webcam aesthetics and its form of intimacy and authenticity, produces specific visual conventions within the frame of pre-existing media imagery, when the self is presented in online communication.
This article discusses some of the problems with pornography, or more properly why pornography is... more This article discusses some of the problems with pornography, or more properly why pornography is such a problematic field for feminists. It also focuses on some of the problems to be found in anti-pornography arguments - especially their implicit understanding of female and male sexuality as two distinct areas. By seeing pornography from a media perspective - and therefore including questions of genre and modes of address - one can get a clearer view on how pornography - soft or hard - operates in different media. The expression 'the sexualising of the media', is often used as a way of understanding the fact that sexuality as a thematic mode is widespread nowadays in many different kinds of media outlet. The expression, however, implies that sexuality is an already defined area. It is more accurate, I argue, to see this development as an expression of the 'medialization' of sexuality. In mainstream media there are two different kinds of sexual discourse, which are h...
Revolution pa svenska : ett vittnesseminarium om jamstalldhetens institutionalisering, politiseri... more Revolution pa svenska : ett vittnesseminarium om jamstalldhetens institutionalisering, politisering och expansion 1972-1976
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