Media, Gender and Identity (PDF)

Media, Gender and Identity is an introduction to the relationship between media and gender identities today. It begins with an assessment of the different ways in which gender and identity have previously been studied and provides new ways for thinking about the media's influence on gender and sexuality.
David Gauntlett explores the gender landscape of contemporary media and draws on recent theories of identity negotiation and queer theory to understand the place of popular media in people's lives. Using a range of examples from films such as Charlie's Angels and What Women Want, soap opera and primetime television programmes, and men's and women's magazines including FHM, Loaded, Maxim, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Vogue, Media, Gender and Identity shows how the media are used in the shaping of individual identity.
Media, Gender and Identity includes:
*a comparison of gender representations in the past and gender representations today
*an introduction to theorists such as Theodor Adorno, John Fiske, Anthony Giddens, Michel Foucault and Judith Butler
*a discussion of queer theory and a review of gender as performance
*the media making of contemporary female and male identities
*a comprehensive and regularly updated website at www.theoryhead.com/gender.