Intersex, infertility and the future: early diagnoses and the imagined life course

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordInfertility is often recognised as a status that is medically identified in adulthood after unsuccessful attempts to conceive. This paper develops existing literature by illustrating how current conceptualisations of infertility do not incorporate a full range of experiences. Drawing on detailed, reflective diaries and in-depth interviews with five participants, I explore how infertility is experienced and understood by women with variations of sex characteristics (VSCs) or intersex traits. I argue that greater consideration needs to be applied to intersex people and the circumstances of an infertility status that may be received in infancy, childhood or adolescence, before or outside of attempts to conceive, and without undergoing fertility treatment. Through discussions of time and futurity, this paper seeks to explore how visions of the future coalesce with an infertile status that is received in combination with an atypical sex status early in life. The paper indicates that early infertility can hinder some intersex children and young people’s ambitions. However, infertility is not understood to be pathological or consistently prohibitive throughout the lives of everyone affected. Intersex women's conceptions of a potentially childless future are varied, complex, ambivalent, and in some cases transitional throughout the life courseEconomic and Social Research Council (ESRC

No news from the East? Predicting patterns of coverage of Eastern Europe in selected German newspapers

The aim of the article is to expand the scope of news flow parameters that can be predicted from country characteristics and to propose an enhanced explanatory model for news flow prediction.Based on the theory of newsworthiness, an unconsidered determinant of international news coverage is identified: it is hypothesized that, next to the generalized interest in high‐status and close countries, there is an issue bound interest in some countries that predicts coverage.To test the model, the study investigated the coverage of Eastern European nations in 2006 in German newspapers. Results showed that, beyond mere amount of coverage, permanence of coverage of a country, topical variability, and variability in journalistic presentation (genres) of a country can be predicted from a country’s status and proximity. Additionally, it was shown that issue bound interest is a key determinant of the amount and continuity of coverage a country receives