Gender Games: The Portrayal of Female Journalists on \u27House of Cards\u27

This textual analysis focuses on the portrayal of female journalists in House of Cards. The uneven depictions of six female journalists could have a socializing effect on the audience. The researchers argue that the character Zoe Barnes is depicted as childlike, unprofessional, and unethical, while the character Ayla Sayyad is portrayed as a dedicated watchdog journalist. The researchers then explore the ethical implications of these portrayals through the lens of social responsibility theory

Your Ticket to Dreamsville : The Functions of 16 Magazine in American Girl Culture of the 1960s

This analysis reveals the ways in which 16 Magazine functioned in 1960s American girl culture, largely due to the influence of Gloria Stavers, the magazine\u27s editor. Stavers used the features in 16 Magazine to become an emulous mother who guided her readers through their private fantasy space, or Dreamsville, as well as the Cold War culture of the 1960s. 16 Magazine, the most popular youth culture magazine of the 1960s, incorporated dominant ideologies of Cold War anxieties and presented them in subtle, yet effective ways. Profiles of pop music and television stars, advice columns, beauty features, gossip columns, and Your Ticket to Dreamsville contests encouraged normative gender and consumer behavior for girls, yet broadened the definitions of appropriate behavior and style by incorporating countercultural signifiers, while the language throughout the magazine merged youth lingo with discourses of American patriotism. This project also reveals how the relationships between 16 Magazine and youth-oriented television programs functioned as entertainment narratives and models for the negotiations between the public and private spheres during the Cold War era and served as predecessors to contemporary cross-media texts, yet indicate their unique nature as non-corporate transmedia narratives, dependent upon fan participation and interaction while predating new media options for interactivity. This dissertation draws upon historical, cultural, and media theories, including those of Cold War domesticity, youth and girl culture, and transmedia convergence. The interdisciplinary analysis included herein is the first scholarly research that utilizes 16 Magazine as its primary source material

Media Messages and Womens\u27 Body Perceptions in Egypt

This study explores the association between media exposure and women’s body perceptions in Egypt. The thin ideal perpetuated through the media, eating disorders and body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness were thought to be a culturally linked phenomena confined to Western societies. This study has contributed to the debate on cultural determinism of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction in women as it has shown that these concepts are on the rise in non-Western societies in general and Egypt in specific. When exposed to media messages, women in Egypt demonstrated eating disordered attitudes, body dissatisfaction feelings and also chose other compensatory behaviors such as veiling, fasting, and following diet

Women In Post Revolutionary Egyptian Cinema: Female Centered Film Plots (2011-2018)

This thesis investigates the portrayal of women in post revolutionary Egyptian female centered film plots. Following the increase in the social status of women in Egypt as evidenced in the number of women involved in the governmental decision making positions such as the higher participation of women in the Parliament and at ministerial levels. This study explores the representation of women in contemporary Egyptian film. From the literature review, prominent features of female character existing within patriarchal film culture were identified. These characteristics of male dominated female representation include but are not limited to, the representation of women as social roles rather than independent subjects, concealment of femininity, lack of labor autonomy, and a conflicting mother - daughter relationship. In order to determine whether contemporary film culture is aligned with the social progress made by Egyptian women, the deduced schemes of representations were considered the primary frames that the researcher inspected within the films. This inspection was processed through a qualitative content analysis that inferred the continuous existence of the male domination frames. The content analysis was conducted on eleven female characters that played leading or major supporting roles in the five films identified as having female centered plots and produced between the years 2011 and 2018. The choice of qualitative content analysis was made for the purpose of identifying the encoding of women representation. For the decoding of the depicted frames, this thesis conducted an experimental survey on a small sized voluntary sample of female respondents in order to fill in the literature gap and explore the Egyptian female spectatorship’s perception of the female characters depicted. The questionnaire further aimed to identify the potential connections between the general perception on women representation in Egyptian cinema and their perception on the film Asmaa in specific. The contrast between the results obtained from the content analysis and from the experimental surveys highlighted that representation of women in contemporary Egyptian popular cinema has not evolved in alignment with the attained social progress exhibited in society

At the intersection of Patriarch Street, Flower Street and Neo-Orientalist Lane : the oral histories of Afghan women living in Australia

This is a qualitative empirical thesis which will examine the lived reality behind the visual representation of the veiled Afghan woman in the blue burqa. ‘Reality’, is defined as “the state of things as they are or appear to be, rather than as one might wish them to be”. (Hanks 1979, p, 1216). Eight Afghan women, now living in Australia articulate their experience of the residue of cultural and political warfare throughout the Russian (1979–1989), mujahedeen (1985–1989) and Taliban (1994–2001) regimes. The participating women, from Hazara, Tajik and Pashtun tribal groups, expose multiple layers of gendered inequality because of strict patriarchy, and cultural ethnicity in Afghanistan. Their stories illustrate how Afghan women also traverse the western pre-determined and prevailing stereotypical perceptions of the Muslim Other. Nineteenth century Afghan cameleers heralded Islamism into Australia; but it was the events of 11th September 2001 that shone a spotlight on Afghan women in the blue burqa, their stories were concealed beneath the camouflage of retaliation with the West thwarting the chances of social justice for them. Examining visual images is a powerful way to illuminate the disturbing residue of cultural and political conflict no one wants to see. The veiled Afghan woman is breaking new ground, telling her story and claiming her right to represent herself as a woman, “laying bare the prejudices beneath the smooth surface of the beautiful” (Rose, 2007, p. 75), challenging the social effects of meaning as well as our capacity to see, to listen. I will support this examination by engaging with a participatory paradigm based on an objective-subjective ontology. John Heron and Peter Reason (1997), incorporated a co-operative methodology, as well as a broad range of ways of knowing. This method enables the use of visual images of veiled Afghan women that are widely viewed through a tangled western perception of Islamic values and ideologies. Researching visual images is an effective way to elucidate the often hidden, largely unconsidered impact of cultural and political conflict on these women. In so doing, the lived reality of Afghan women, vividly illuminates the morals of exclusion and inclusion and the invisibility and hyper-visibility more vividly from the point of view of being 'the Other.' Decades of conflict have altered the Afghanistan humanitarian landscape, affecting social and cultural practices for Afghan women in especially damaging ways. In the words of Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, “Human rights are what reason requires and conscience demands. They are us and we are them” (Annan, 1997, p.1)

The Effect of Television and Electronic Advertisements on The Mental Image of Women Among A Group of Female Media Professionals

The study aimed to know the effect of television and electronic advertisements broadcast on Arab television screens and on websites on the mental image formed by a group of female media professionals affiliated with the Arab Media Center about women, by answering the sub-questions of the study, the study adopted the descriptive approach through the study tool, which is the questionnaire designed to answer the questions of the study through the respondents, that consisted of 200 female individuals who watch TV advertisements and follow them on the website, and after filling out the questionnaires, analyzing and interpreting them, the following conclusions were reached, the reasons for the respondent’s viewing of advertisements varied, but the largest percentage 94%, was that they watch advertisements involuntarily while watching TV or electronically presented material. This is what is classified as accidental exposure. The percentage of those who believe that the use of women in advertising greatly distorts the image of women is 66.5%. 91% of respondents agreed that women's rights associations and organizations must exert pressure to preserve the image of women and to educate society about their true role through various media, with a rate of 89.5%, the respondents expressed that they were shy when watching an advertisement that aroused in front of family members. 89% of the respondents believe that the ads that appear on social media and YouTube contain in their content greater freedom, and therefore the size of their distance from Arab values is greater, and in the same percentage came the emphasis on the need for some competent authorities to implement training courses for Arab ad directors to comply with our customs and traditions. The percentage of supporters decreased to 30% for the idea that advertising can only be successful by showing the charms of women, the woman's mind by presenting her as a consumer who does not care and only thinks about her elegance and beauty 30%. The study recommended that if a woman must appear in the advertisement, then this appearance should be appropriate to her reality and reflect the real role of women in society. Women's rights associations and organizations must exert pressure to preserve the image of women and educate society about their true role through the various media

Cyberbullying: teenage girls’ online experiences of, and challenges to sexual harassment.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The emergence of the internet has allowed for new modes of self-expression, whilst also providing new platforms for abusive social dynamics. There is a dearth of support in the response of schools, parents, and advisors to the experience of sexual harassment of young girls online. Cyber security practices, specifically the monitoring and support of online behaviour in academic policy can address the problem of sexual harassment and cyberbullying. Due to the rapidly changing nature of online landscapes, research connecting sexual harassment and cyber spaces remains minimal. Given the everchanging development of online spaces and dynamics, both governments and academic researchers have lagged in providing either sufficient study or governmental policy in the interest of protecting young people from online abuse. This study examines teenage girls’ online experiences of cyberbullying and sexual harassment and aims to understand how girls confront and challenge these issues. The dissertation adopts a multi-theoretical approach focusing on gender relational theory, femininities, theory of performativity, and feminist new materialism. Data was collected and collated through qualitative research methods in the purposive sampling of South African girls aged 13-18 in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. This research was executed in Victoria High School through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, vignettes, and photo elicitations. While the results highlighted the pervasive experience of sexual harassment online, unexpectedly, the participants revealed their complicity in this harassment by actively engaging in harmful online practices. In response, this dissertation recommends that key stakeholders listen to the voices of young girls and work in synergy to offer support from abusive online behaviours. As attitudes about sex remain taboo in homes and schools, it is the role of these advisors to make comfortable spaces for discourse about sexual harassment. Furthermore, policy makers need to sanction greater penalties to prevent the recurrence of cybercrimes and protect young girls in these spaces

Sex & the Series: Sexual and Romantic Scripting in Young Adult Series Literature

The content of series books for young women is an understudied area. With the growing young adult market and its influence on contemporary culture, the sexual content of series books should be examined to gather a better understanding of what kinds of messages these books are sending to the young adult women reading them. By analyzing the sexual and romantic content in series books from the last ten years, in conjunction with previous romantic and sexual scripting research done with magazines and romance novels, this study found evidence that supported existing theories and identified additional themes