Young Women and Consumer Culture

This article is presented as an intervention in the field of feminist media and cultural studies with particular reference to consumer culture. It is concerned with the seeming evasion of critique which can be detected in a number of recent feminist responses to the way in which modalities of ‘popular feminism’ have found themselves incorporated into women's genres of television, such as, in particular, the US series Sex in the City. This usage or instrumentalization of feminism (in its most conventionally liberal feminist guise) also provides corporate culture with the means of presenting itself to young women as their ally and even champion of ‘girls’ while at the same time earning seeming approval for adopting the mantle of social responsibility, which makes the concept of popular feminism more problematic than it first appeared. Such appropriation of popular feminist discourse by the commercial domain prompts a self-critique on the part of the author alongside an analysis of recent approaches toward consumer culture in cultural studies. The article continues by presenting a schematic account of how the commercial domain increasingly supplants state and public sector institutions in the intensity and dedication of its address to girls and young women. Whilst some may argue that the intersection of youthful femininity and the commercial sphere is not a new phenomenon, what is being explored here is the connection between this intensification of attention and the logic of current neo-liberal economic rationalities. The argument is, therefore, that it is by these means including the instrumentalization of a specific modality of ‘feminism’ that there emerges into existence a neo-liberal culture, with global aspirations, which has as its ideal subject the category of ‘girl’

Empowerment/sexism: Figuring female sexual agency in contemporary advertising

This paper argues that there has been a significant shift in advertising representations of women in recent years, such that rather than being presented as passive objects of the male gaze, young women in adverts are now frequently depicted as active, independent and sexually powerful. This analysis examines contemporary constructions of female sexual agency in advertisements examining three recognizable ‘figures’: the young, heterosexually desiring ‘midriff’, the vengeful woman set on punishing her partner or ex partner for his transgressions, and the ‘hot lesbian’, almost always entwined with her beautiful Other or double. Using recent examples of adverts the paper asks how this apparent ‘agency’ and ‘empowerment’ should be understood. Drawing on accounts of the incorporation or recuperation of feminist ideas in advertising the paper takes a critical approach to these representations, examining their exclusions, their constructions of gender relations and heteronormativity, and the way power is figured within them. A feminist poststructuralist approach is used to interrogate the way in which ‘sexual agency’ becomes a form of regulation in these adverts, that requires the re-moulding of feminine subjectivity to fit the current postfeminist, neoliberal moment in which young women should not only be beautiful but sexy, sexually knowledgeable/practised and always ‘up for it’. The paper makes an original contribution to debates about representations of gender in advertising, to poststructuralist analyses about the contemporary operation of power, and to writing about female ‘sexual agency’ by suggesting that ‘voice’ or ‘agency’ may not be the solution to the ‘missing discourse of female desire' but may in fact be a technology of discipline and regulation

HBO and the aristocracy of contemporary TV culture: affiliations and legitimatising television culture, post-2007

The premiere US, pay-TV cable company HBO has done more than most to define what ‘original programming’ might mean and look like in the contemporary TV age of international television flow, global media trends and filiations. This article adopts a cultural sociological approach to make sense of the structure of the cultural field in which the company operates, framed between ‘culture’ and the ‘market’, between exclusive, qualitatively distinct television content and corporate intent. It elaborates on the ways in which the company imposes a vision of an élite TV culture on the field, in and through producing distinct divisions ad infinitum, to validate the taste values of those who validate HBO. In creating incessant divisions in genre, authorship and aesthetics, HBO incorporates artistic norms and principles of evaluation and puts them into circulation as a succession of oppositions – oppositions that we will explore throughout this article

Is this TVIV? On Netflix, TVIII and binge-watching

This article explores the relationship between television and video on demand (VOD), focusing specifically on Netflix and its recent move to produce and distribute original serialised drama. Drawing on a number of conceptualisations of contemporary media, this article positions Netflix within a contemporary media landscape, paying particular attention to how it relates to branding strategies of multi-platform serialised content and subscription cable channels in the United States. It considers Netflix-produced season 4 of Arrested Development (Fox, 2003–2013, Netflix, 2013) as a case study to explore how Netflix positions itself in relation to contemporary ‘quality’ and ‘cult’ TV and associated viewing practices and draws on theories of post-postmodern capitalism to understand its function within a broader socio-political context. As such, it places Netflix within discourses of VOD, TVIII, branding, contemporary viewing practices and consumer practices in post-postmodern capitalism

Hitting the panic button: policing/'mugging'/media/crisis

Policing the Crisis (PTC) is an intriguing text that flickers hazily in the contested histories of both critical criminology and cultural studies in the UK. For 'the last of the true believers' within critical criminology, it remains the most thorough and sophisticated example of how to use Marxism to theorize the problem of crime. The strength of PTC lies in its hard-edged stance on analysis and prescription and its intellectually eclectic explanatory framework. Not surprisingly, re-reading Hall et al.'s analysis of 'mugging' and the news media in 2007 one realizes how much has altered since 1978