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The article offers a report from an October 24-26, 2013 conference in Kassel, Germany on the relationship between gender and mass media. Topics of presentations delivered included the role of television in subjectivizing gender relations, philosophical aspects of gender in writings on dance, and sexuality in a music video by Lady Bitch Ray.

An estimated 34 million people globally are living with HIV, with Sub-Saharan Africa being the most severely affected area, with nearly 1 in every 20 adults diagnosed (UNAIDS, 2012). Botswana experiences one of the highest adult prevalence rates in Sub- Saharan Africa, with almost 100,000 children, in a country of only two million people, having lost a parent to the virus (Botswana Country Report, 2010). Makgabaneng is a serial radio soap drama that addresses critical HIV/AIDS awareness and behaviour change issues in Botswana. This study aims to understand how fans of the programme understand the storyline that presents narratives where female characters are portrayed as educated, independent and confident individuals. Results of 42 in-depth interviews with self-defined fans of the drama show that males are constructed as uneducated, irresponsible and dependent in society. It is recommended that Makgabaneng address this inequity by creating a more balanced number of positive and negative female and male characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the gender stereotypes, sex and violence in advertisements in all media except radio, from Portugal and Spain. We have conducted this study after ascertaining that gender stereotypes, as well as sexual and violent scenes, are embedded in advertisement as a formula to increase the possibility of remembering them. This advertisement analysis explores gender stereotyping, sex and violence, both for the Portuguese and Spanish advertisement market. We used a sample of 245 messages from Portuguese and Spanish advertising and a specific grid for this analysis from. We used all media, except radio, between July and November of 2008. The messages were selected from the following categories of products: foods and non-alcoholic beverages, cars and accessories, restaurants and commercial spaces, financial services and insurance, household products, electronic devices and communications, clothes and alcoholic beverages. These ads messages were select with a criterion of the characters. All messages must have at least one character, male or female. The messages were selected from the following categories of products: foods and non-alcoholic beverages, cars and accessories, restaurants and commercial spaces, financial services and insurance, household products, electronic devices and communications, clothes and alcoholic beverages. These ads messages were select with a criterion of the characters. All messages must have at least one character, male or female. The results in Portugal and Spain about gender stereotypes are in line with previous advertising studies from different countries across the years, showing that it prevails despite the change in women's role in the world. However, there were practically no situations of discrimination of women or placing them in subordinate roles to men. The results also show us that sex and violence are in a lower level in the advertising of Portugal and Spain. advertising messages from (all) media -- Television 83 -- Press -- 149 -- Outdoor 9 -- Internet 4. The TV ads were found from 200 hours watched in prime time, (between July and November of 2008 in all broadcast in open signal in Portugal, and Spain, the press ads were found from 300 titles consulted, between July and November of 2008, 22 mensal review, 5 weekly review like, and diary and weekly press, the Internet ads were found from 90 visits to the sites with more visits in Portugal and Spain, between July 2008 and November 2008. Finally the messages from Outdoor came from 50 visits to locations where they were placed between July 2008 and November 2008 in Lisbon and Badajoz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between exposure to sexually objectifying music television, primetime television programs, fashion magazines, and social networking sites and the internalization of beauty ideals, self-objectification, and body surveillance was examined among adolescent girls ( N = 558). A structural equation model showed direct relationships between sexually objectifying media and the internalization of beauty ideals, and indirect relationships between sexually objectifying media and self-objectification, and body surveillance through the internalization of beauty ideals. The direct relationships between sexually objectifying media and the internalization of beauty ideals, self-objectification, and body surveillance differed across the types of sexually objectifying media. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings to explain self-objectification among girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much debate has focused on the potential negative role of sexualized violent media on viewer attitudes toward women. One potential issue in previous literature is that depictions of sexuality and violence were confounded with subordinate depictions of female characters. The current study addressed this by randomly assigning young adults to watch either neutral media or sexually violent media with either subordinate or strong female characters. Women who watched sexually violent media were more anxious, and males who watched sexually violent media had more negative attitudes toward women, but only when female characters were subordinate. Sexual and violent content had no influence on viewer attitudes when strong female characters were present, suggesting these are not the crucial influence variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the findings of an online survey (N = 707) that assessed the predictive power of media use on sexual excitation and inhibition, as conceived by the dual control model (Janssen, Vorst, Finn, & Bancroft, 2002). Media use explained more variance in sexual excitation than inhibition. Moreover, excitation was statistically associated with several media variables (music, network programming, films, Web sites) while inhibition had a statistically robust relationship with music consumption only. In fact, exposure to religious/devotional music was positively and rap/hip-hop was negatively related to sexual inhibition. Advantages of employing the dual control model to media sex research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Individuals often avoid discussing sexual history and safer sex with sexual partners, increasing the likelihood of negative health consequences. Research and theorizing on narrative influence suggest that television programs in which characters model conversations about safer sex may provide social scripts to viewers and influence behavior. This experiment tested this effect and examined the underlying mechanisms. Participants were randomly assigned to view a program that either did or did not depict characters modeling sexual discussion. Exposure to the modeled behavior motivated viewers to engage in sexual discussions over the next 2 weeks. Greater identification with these characters facilitated this effect by enhancing viewers' self-efficacy and reducing counterarguing. Implications for research on narrative influence more generally are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the media's dissemination of private and public images of celebrities. It notes that the manifestations of judge and jury through different media turns celebrities into detainees as the pop culture continued to influence the public negotiation of norms and values. It mentions that celebrities are publicly castigated and disciplined through media whenever they fail to conform to or present gender or sexual norm.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the association between adolescent sexual behavior and exposure to sexual media content. A three-wave, longitudinal survey sample (N = 506) of 14- to 16-year-olds at baseline is analyzed using growth curves. Growth trajectories are linear for sexual behavior but not for exposure to sexual media content. The signs of the exposure slopes are not uniformly positive: Hispanic and African American respondents show declines of exposure to sexual media content over the age range investigated here. Although changes in exposure to sex content are highly associated with changes in sexual behavior among Whites, there is little or no association between changes in these variables among Blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter examines the Vanity Fair special edition dedicated to Product Red as exemplar of colonial rationality sedimented in the project of globalization. The unabashed purpose of the Product Red campaign is revealed as demand creation aimed at the sophisticated consumers of the Global North. Africa in this regard appeases profligate consumption while offering up to the modern sophisticate the unlimited sexual pleasures of the jungle in its naked freedom, bereft of the staid hetronormativity of Victorian-like sensibilities. The narrative of the campaign for Product Red, by such deployment, is the embodiment of the "Age of Aquarius" with Africa's redemption as its signifying event, ushering in an era of universal "peace, unity, and love." The continent's progeny, now steeped in abjection, will assume its natural place in the space of civilization. Global capital is sustained in the Product Red campaign by the offering up of Africa as solution through the promise of its redemption. For the sophisticated, self-liberation can be realized through consumption at the same time that global crisis of production is resolved by Africa's "natural" entrepreneurship. All becomes well with the world as desire for the black body is freed from the trope of transgression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an exploratory study examining the role of sexual cleansing rituals in the transmission of HIV among the Luo community in western Kenya. Data were collected using both in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study population consisted of 38 widows, 12 community elders and 44 cleansers. Data were collected on non-behavioural causes, behavioural causes and behavioural indicators associated with sexual rituals. Content analysis revealed five central themes: the effect of the ritual on sexual behaviours; factors contributing to the continued practice of the ritual, including a sub-theme on the commercialization of the ritual; the inseparable relationship between the sanctity of sex, prosperity and fertility of the land; and the effects of modernization on the ritual, including a sub-theme on the effects of mass media on HIV-prevention awareness campaigns. Causal factors of unchanging sexual behaviours are deeply rooted in traditional beliefs, which the community uphold strongly. These beliefs encourage men and women to have multiple sexual partners in a context where the use of condoms is rejected and little HIV testing is carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on sexual violence against women immigrants in France. It explains that the media coverage of gang rapes against girls from North Africa increased in late 2000 and argues that the increased media coverage is related to border control and cultural otherness. The attention paid to the gang rapes has increased the negative stereotypes of North African and Muslim men in France and has created links between sexual violence and gender or ethnic difference. The need to promote politics of equality in France to help prevent sexual violence is also addressed.

A personal narrative is presented which recounts the author's experience of studying sexual representation in film, video, photography and the graphic arts.

The article presents a letter to queer philosopher Beatriz Preciado concerning her discourse on pornography. It discusses the porn film "Bella's Auditions for Dirty Talkings," produced by Belladonna. Belladonna is a performer and director who turned as a contrasexual culture producer. The letter sender shares his experience of watching a porn film for the first time. He also discusses Linda Williams book titled "Hard Core" and declares that Williams took a relaxed view of the issue. For Williams, porn cinema could be studied and analyzed like any other film genre. The sender also declares that the center of attention and penetration in the new millennium is not the vagina but the anus.

Most work on adolescents' contact with sexuality in mainstream media has been framed in terms of media effects upon the sexual self-concepts, attitudes, and behaviors of youth, even when such causality cannot be inferred. Rarely examined are the sexual characteristics of adolescents that may predict contact with sexual media. Using Steele's (1999) Media Practice Model as a foundation, we reported on these associations for 2,184 Dutch adolescents. This study emphasized sex differences in the characteristics that predict such contact and the role of youths' critical evaluations of information about sex in the media. Correlation and regression analyses revealed several sex differences in the characteristics related to sexual media contact, with individual characteristics accounting for more variance infernales and critical evaluations accounting for more variance in males. This study underscores the need for more comprehensive, longitudinal studies of adolescents ' media consumption and its connections to sexual development in youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We described the use of pornography in Norway, including how many people have used pornographic magazines, films, and internet sites and to what extent those who watch pornography on the internet also use it as an arena for erotic chatting. The data stem from a survey on sexual behavior among a random sample of 10,000 Norwegians between 18 and 49 years. The response rate was 34%. A total of 82% reported having read pornographic magazines, 84% had seen pornographic films, and 34% had examined pornography on the internet. Statistically significantly more men than women reported use of pornography. There was a 20% difference between men and women in use of magazines and films. Among those exposed to pornography on the internet during the past year, 14% had participated in erotic chatting. Gay/bisexual men and lesbian/bisexual women reported higher use of pornography than straight men and women. Gender was the most significant variable for the prediction of use of pornography. Level of education predicted exposure to pornography on the internet, in magazines, and in films. Younger individuals were more likely to utilize the internet both for viewing pornographic material and for chatting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the portrayal of Western German (FRG) sexuality in the media were received in East Germany (GDR) and assesses the impact of this portrayal on sexual attitudes and practices in East Germany. Until the Wende in 1989, the two Germany appeared to harbor diametrically opposed and mutually hostile attitudes to sexuality. The FRG saw the GDR, as backward, repressed, and nonerotic, while people in the GDR associated FRG with exploitative, consumer-oriented attitudes toward sex that were outdated and damaging. After forty years of separately developed approaches to sexuality, reunified Germans struggled to establish a working moral consensus, a sexual code for the new Germany. In this effort, Western German media led the way, creating a normative, value laden image of GDR sexuality. This article will focus on four specific publications: the mass-circulation daily tabloid BILD-Zeitung, the weekly magazine Neue Revue, the soft-porn monthly Playboy, and Super- Illu, a magazine created by the Burda group in August 1990 specifically for the Eastern market. The very crassness of tabloid reporting of sexual issues helps to bring into focus some of the mechanisms that were more subtly at work in other aspects of the Unification process.

This paper offers a review of the ways in which the Thai print media presents images of transgendered and/or homosexual identities or what may be termed 'gendered/transgendered sexualities'. The author argues that the varied, and at times contradictory, images of gendered sexualities used by the print media can be understood as discursive devices in broader social debates within Thai society. The paper reviews three cases recently covered by the Thai print media: the emergence of lesbian/gay youth cultures (tom-dee, gay); the Rajaphat College ban on transgendered/gay students; and sex crime cases in which the defendant is labelled as 'Tuy' or a type of homosexual male. These three cases offered particular representations of gendered sexualities that can only properly be understood within the social-political context of modern day Thailand. In particular, they operate as a kind of Thai 'Orientalism', or cultural critique, which contrasts sharply with the ironic silence of the media towards high profile individuals who are well known to be transgender/homosexual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with a study which reviewed scientific literature on adolescents and sex in the media. Adolescent sexuality and consequences in the United States; Results of studies which assessed the association between the degree and nature of adolescent exposure to sexual content and their sexual attitudes; Approaches with adolescents and patients.

Focuses on the role of the journal, `Fem' in documenting the evolution of feminist politics of sexuality in Mexico from 1970 to 1979. Incorporation of foreign feminist ideologies and practices into women activism; Implication of feminist politics of sexuality for the liberation of women from male supremacy; Efforts of `Fem' in promoting independent feminism.

The article presents information on a study which explores how young women make interpretations about the implicit portion of an implicit sex act portrayed in an R-rated movie clip. Content analyses suggest that television and movie viewers are exposed to numerous sexual portrayals without references to safer sexual practices and/or possible negative consequences. Thus, this study investigates how viewers interpret these portrayals. The inquiry of viewer interpretation is particularly important for sexual content because most sex acts portrayed on television are implicit rather than explicit. Also, this study explores the interpretations of implicit sexual portrayals for a group of young women. Surveys show that teenagers generally say they get their information about sex from parents, schools, or peers. However, the media have been cited as the fourth source of information. In the current study viewers were not provided with a definition of safer sex. It could be that certain schemata were used to make interpretations about pregnancy prevention rather than disease prevention.

Willingness to ban various forms of sexual violent and sexually violent media was assessed through a random digit dialing survey of adults in Seminole County, FL. Of 1,291 eligible adults contacted, 304 (23.5%) completed the interview. Substantial majorities (71-77%) supported censoring sexually violent media about half (47-54%) supported censoring nonsexual violent media, and about one third supported censoring nonviolent sexually explicit movies (32%) and videotapes (28%). Principle components analysis of these items revealed two clear factors; support for banning sexual media and support for banning violent and sexually violent media. Sexual conservatism, sex role stereotyping, authoritarianism, age, gender, concern about pornography's effects, and support for a local anti-pornography for censoring violent media. Regression analysis showed that support for banning sexual media and concern about pornography's effects both contributed to the prediction of support for anti-pornography campaigns. Contrary to expectations, those low in sex role stereotyping showed low levels of support for censoring sexual media and low levels of concern about pornography's effects, relative both to fundamentalists and other respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the depiction of professional discourse on homosexuality in "The Ladder," the first widely circulated lesbian publication in the United States. The views of medical and psychiatric professionals had an important effect on lesbians' conceptions of themselves and their sexuality in the 1950s and 1960s. In this context, the author notes that "The Ladder" shows evidence of changes in lesbians' acceptance of negative conceptions of homosexuality during the period 1956 to 1965. These changes are in part attributed to the increasing militancy of the homophile movement during the 1960s. The staff and readers of the publication were familiar with psychiatric and medical opinions about homosexuality, and in the early years of publication, they reported on radio shows, public lectures, and panel discussions and reviewed books by psychiatrists and other experts with very little editorializing. Some of the reports focused on whether or not homosexuality was a form of mental illness per se, or whether homosexuals tended to be neurotic or mentally ill because of the social pressures of living in a heterosexual world.

This article discusses how women's sexuality is contained and controlled through their representation in four mainstream media documentaries which were made to address the issue of heterosexual transmission in the United States. In 1986-87, when it could be no longer denied that women, and therefore, heterosexual men, were at risk for AIDS, the makers of mainstream media faced a difficult dilemma. In the AIDS documentaries of this time, women were depicted as contained threats: an oxymoronic representation that allowed them to register simultaneously as iconographic site of danger and as easily controlled subject. In 1986 and 1987, the mainstream media responded to this dilemma with several AIDS documentaries geared specifically for the heterosexuals and ostensibly produced to explain to them their potential risk. The author contends that in a world with AIDS, the surface or image of a woman's body is not all a male needs to know of her. If she is not only symbolically, but potentially diseased, patriarchal society is less concerned with sexual fascination over the surface of her body than with scientific control over what is going on inside her body, and sexual control over what she does with her body.

This article presents a study, which examines the issue of representation of women in advertising and in the motion picture "Fatal Attraction." The aim of this study is to draw attention to the dangers, implicit in certain feminist approaches to media, of reinforcing the culturally privileged distinction between "good girls" and "bad girls." It draws a parallel between the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction and the monster in Mary Shelley's literary work "Frankenstein" in order to illustrate the persistence, and the consequences to women, of this patriarchal division of their ranks. The impact of feminism is apparent everywhere. It is seen not only in the ubiquitous genre of advertising but also in the very plot of a recent movie like "Fatal Attraction." Some feminists engaged in this debate have concluded that the representation of pleasure in mass media is so tied into sexist gender relations that the women do not know what pleasure would be outside of the determinative construction.

The article presents an updated longitudinal content analysis of sex references in mass circulation magazines. In 1973, the author reported on an analysis of sex references in mass circulation magazines comparing 1950, 1960, and 1970. the authors found that the number of sex references increased each decade for each magazine examined and that the overall percentage of liberal references had increased from 1950 to 1970. Here the authors examine sex references in mass circulation magazines in 1980 and compare these findings to the earlier analysis. The most publicized and perhaps the most voluminous analysis of U.S. sexual attitudes as reflected in the mass media was conducted by A. Ellis in 1950 and again in 1960 Ellis concluded that the mass media not only contained both references to sex in 1960 than in 1950 but also were more endorsing and accepting (reflecting what Ellis calls the liberal attitude) of almost all forms of sexual practices. A number of problems with Ellis' study and his conclusions have been pointed out.

A review of magazine coverage during the 1960s suggests that the Sexual Revolution was discovered by the mass media in 1963-64. As commonly used, the term "sexual revolution" indicates a revolutionary uprooting of traditional sexual morality. It is associated with a plethora of attitudinal and behavioral changes. The metaphor of a Sexual Revolution captured the imagination of a generation of Americans, but poorly describes and generally exaggerates the changes in the sexual mores of Americans. The trends in sexual attitudes that can be tracked hardly amount to a Sexual Revolution. They are both smaller and more nuanced than aptly fits a revolutionary characterization. And without a revolution people cannot have a counterrevolution. Yet on a modest level, there is support for the imagery of revolution and counterrevolution. Notable increases in approval of premarital sex, sex education, and birth control did occur over the last generation. However, at least since the early 1970s there appears to have been no liberal shift, and even some conservative movement, in attitudes on homosexuality, extramarital sex and pornography.

A sample of soap operas was recorded and references to sex abstracted and analyzed. Analysis indicated that the representation of sex on soap operas is more complex than previous studies have suggested. Talking about sex not only is far more prevalent than engaging in it, but the talk frequently consists of rejecting it, fantasizing about it, and desiring it, in addition to consenting. The vocabulary of sexual euphemisms was also abstracted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of the representation of sex work and striptease in several documentary films and videos. It is pointed out that such analysis is used as basis for exploring the politics of sexual representation and documentary representation. The means by which the construction of the body as an area for fantasy and pleasure crosses with the construction of the body as an area of labor, control, and exploitation, is also given attention. It is inferred that the discussion is intended to look into some contemporary changes in feminist cultural practices. Sex work in a global and local context and feminism in sex work are also discussed.

A sample of 660 adults watched one of 15 randomly selected half-hour or hour programs which were representative of prime-time major network offerings in the fall 1977 season and which had been objectively analyzed for the presence of physically intimate and sexual content. The adults were asked to rate the amount of sexual content in the program and the suitability of that content for adult, teenage, and child audiences and to estimate how often specific physically intimate behaviors were present in the show. Each adult provided demographic data, completed an attitude survey on TV sex, and evaluated how suitably 13 sexual topics have been portrayed on TV. Through correlational analyses, the study provides information about what kinds of people are responding in which ways to specific kinds of physically intimate portrayals on television. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the book "The Social Organization of Sexuality," by Edward Laumann, John Gagnon, Robert Michael and Stuart Michaels, which deals with sexual practices in the U.S. The book's goal is to challenge common presumptions about sexuality as the province of individually oriented biology and psychology and to show its association with other socially constructed behaviors. An objection debated in and outside sociology is honesty. It is implied that the study of sexuality gives special pause and clause for subjecting all social phenomena to a sort of Kantian critique of sociological theory in conjunction with the method. Inquiry needs to be made just as systematically into what type of questions might or might not be well approached through rationally biased means. The authors believed that the media is responsible for the promulgation of earlier misconceptions about the sexual character of people in the U.S. This re-interpretation suggests that abstract images of sexuality may be inseparable from desires experienced throughout everyday life. Continuing where the authors left off requires commitment to the freeing and diversifying of sexual and social life and sociological imagination.

This study investigates the mass media's coverage of sexual topics during the years 1950, 1960, and 1970. An examination is made of the quantity of references to sex, the percentage of liberal references, and the coverage of specific sexual activities. It is ascertained that specific references to extra- marital sex and noncoital sex decreased from 1950 to 1970. References both to sex relations leading to pregnancy and to sexual deviance have doubled in the number and percentage of total sexual references in this same period. The possible effects of the activities of special interest groups in altering the mass media's coverage of sexual activities is also taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes an activity aimed at exploring issues related to gender and communication in the realm of popular media. Popular media has a significant relationship with an individual's perception of gender and identity. Themes that are present in the media and help form that perception include the underrepresentation of women and minorities, stereotypical portrayals of women and men, and stereotypical images of relationships between men and women.