Gender and Media

Abstract

Gender and media have been topics of academic interest for over half a century. Media production, content, and consumption have each given rise to vibrant fields of scholarly research on how to understand them in relation to gender. Specific epistemological and ontological viewpoints on understanding gender and its relation to media marks each of these fields. Theoretical and social developments now challenge the concepts of both gender and media. Specifically, digitization and globalization challenge theoretical concepts such as media consumption, the sex/gender dichotomy, and so on. Using three recent cases—SheDecides, the Gender Pay Gap, and #MeToo—as illustrations, current critical inquiries in the study of gender and media are scrutinized. First, the traditional categories in the study of media and gender—production, content, and consumption—are summarized, briefly explicating their major contributions to academic thought on gender and media. Second, the challenges posed by digitization and globalization are discussed.