Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Interest Group
The Construction of Queer Memory: Media Coverage of Stonewall 25 • Guillermo Avila-Saavedra, Temple University • Through discourse analysis of the media coverage of the Stonewall 25 celebrations in 1994, this paper examines the role of memory in shaping a collective queer identity and constructing a founding mythology for the queer social movement. This paper examines media uses of memory and considers their cultural consequences. It argues that the media are complicit in shaping a memory of Stonewall that reflects the political goals of the American queer movement in the 1990s.
Structuring the Status Quo: The L-Word and Queer Female Acceptability • Rebecca Kern, Temple University • This paper argues that The L-Word sustains the dominant ideals of femininity and hetero-normativity in Western society. The L-Word makes queer females visible in the mass media; however, the structure of the episodes, themes, and characters encourage femininity and eroticize lesbian sexuality. This is significant in that the resistant possibilities for a text such as The L-Word may subsume under the need for audience appeal by the network and the media industry in general.
Person Perception in the U.S. Ban on Gays in the Military: A Content Analysis of News Photographs in The Advocate and Newsweek • Nicole Elise Smith, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • When considering media messages, a vital area of inquiry is media images, specifically news photographs. Based on the theory of person perception, this study compares images of gay men and lesbians within articles about the U.S. ban on gays in the military in the leading gay newsmagazine, The Advocate, with images in a leading mainstream newsmagazine, Newsweek. Findings indicate that Newsweek did not present images of gay men and lesbians as favorably as did The Advocate.
Soap — A Gay Man Comes to American Television • Rodger Streitmatter, American University • This paper examines and analyzes the groundbreaking television program Soap, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1981, as a milestone in the increasing visibility of gay men and lesbians in the media. The study begins with a description of how the nation – first journalists and then social conservatives – responded to the news that a television network was creating a program that featured a gay character in a recurring role.