Sexual Identities and the Media ─ An Introduction

Sexual Identities and the Media encourages students to examine media as a site of negotiation for how people make sense of their own and others’ sexual identities. Taking a critical/cultural approach, Wendy Hilton-Morrow and Kathleen Battles weave together theory, synthesis of existing research, and original analysis of contemporary media examples in order to explore key areas of debate, including:

• an historical context for contemporary GLBTQ representations;
• the advantages and limitations of media visibility, including a discussion of the strengths and limitations of stereotype research and the quest for "positive" representations;
• the role of consumer culture in constructing GLBTQ identities;
• strategies of mainstream media resistance by GLBTQ community members, including oppositional/queer reading strategies and the production of media products by and for the GLBTQ community;
• the complexities of comedy as a popular narrative device in GLBTQ portrayals;
• the closet as a structuring metaphor in both GLBTQ identities and engagement with media;
• media representations of GLBTQ bodies as sites of non-normative desires and gender identities.

Featuring an enormous range of discussion questions and case studies—from celebrity coming-out narratives, transgender models, and slash fiction writers to Glee and Modern Family—this textbook offers a timely, informative, and demystifying introduction to this vital intersection in contemporary culture.

Wendy Hilton-Morrow is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Associate Dean of the College at Augustana College. She is co-editor of War of the Worlds to Social Media: Mediated Communication in Times of Crisis (Peter Lang, 2013).

Kathleen Battles is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Oakland University. She is the author of Calling All Cars: Radio Dragnets and the Technology of Policing (U of Minnesota Press, 2010) and co-editor of War of the Worlds to Social Media: Mediated Communication in Times of Crisis (Peter Lang, 2013).