Jaime Loke

Spaces For Feminist (Re)Articulations: The blogosphere and the sexual attack on journalist Lara Logan

This discourse analysis explores traditional and feminist articulations of rape in online mediated discourse regarding the sexual attack on CBS journalist Lara Logan in Egypt in February 2011. Examination of 175 stories and links in the top ten news blogs in the United States showed that the blogosphere contested traditional rape narratives that blamed Logan for the attack and conceptualized rape through a more varied means. In doing so, bloggers engaged in a struggle for meaning, and mainstreamed feminist understandings of sexual violence within the online public space.

Voices of Dissent in the Iraq War: Moving from Deviance to Legitimacy?

Using indexing theory as a framework, this content analysis of 2003–2007 Time coverage explores the range of dissenting voices of the war in news dialogue. Findings show that war criticism remained constant throughout the years and was largely targeted toward the Bush administration. While most dissent originated from official sources, American and Iraqi civilians did have space to voice their dissatisfaction. Journalists themselves became increasingly vocal in their condemnation of the war. These results suggest that clashes between public opinion and official perspectives have implications in news coverage and promotion of debate about current affairs.

Wave of Hope: African American Youth Use Media and Engage More Civically, Politically than Whites

The study is based on a multi-wave panel survey on media use, and political and social attitudes among 12- to 17-year-olds. The results show that African Americans were more likely than Whites to engage in civic activities, politically participate in online and offline settings, take part in political consumerism, talk about news, follow the news, and demonstrate overall interest in news. This suggests that race is a complex, influential characteristic affecting youth behavior.

Where Are the Women? The Presence of Female Columnists in U.S. Opinion Pages

Empirical and anecdotal evidence shows that the news media are male-dominated. This study updates the extant literature on women’s representation in the op-ed pages of ten U.S. newspapers. A content analysis showed that female authors are moving beyond topics traditionally linked to females and are writing columns on topics such as politics and economy. However, they remain a minority, and, thus, women’s voices have yet to gain more visibility in the world of opinion writing in U.S. journalism.

The Symbolic Annihilation of Women in Globalization Discourse: The Same Old Story in U.S. Newsmagazines

This quantitative and qualitative analysis of Time and Newsweek explores how women are incorporated into a globalization discourse that often is seen as a masculinized public sphere. Results indicate that although female journalists integrate women into the news more than their male counterparts, females are invisible in globalization discourse. When discussing female empowerment via globalization, it is through an economic lens with an eye to the impact on womens traditional roles as wives and mothers.

Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Hearing Coverage: Political Competence, Authenticity, and the Persistence of the Double Bind

ABSTRACT Despite inroads made toward gender equality, research has shown that news coverage of female politicians typically follows gendered lines that disregard women’s competence in political affairs. Grounded in a feminist theoretical framework, this textual analysis examines articles from eight news websites covering then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2013 congressional testimony about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The findings suggest that though this news media coverage shows there has been progress regarding how a notable female politician was represented, this discourse still employs stereotypical feminine frames and questions her competence as a leader. Moreover, coverage hinted at a new bind pitting competence against authenticity, with Clinton’s emotional displays during the hearing deemed as either a lack of control that undermined her capability or an insincere show of emotion to escape blame for the situation.

The spectacle of politics: Wendy Davis, abortion, and pink shoes in the Texas ‘fillybuster’

Abstract Despite important inroads, women’s marginalization in the public sphere is still very real. From a feminist theoretical perspective, and informed by Guy Debord’s conceptualization of the society of spectacle, this study examines local and national newspaper coverage of Wendy Davis’s filibuster to block an abortion-restricting bill in the Texas State legislature in 2013. Qualitative and quantitative assessments show that gender was particularly encoded and marked in the mediated discourse, with reports focusing on Davis’ personal life and giving her celebrity status. The filibuster became a political spectacle that reified dominant gender values and norms.

Co-opting feminism: media discourses on political women and the definition of a (new) feminist identity:

While feminism is a heterogeneous and complex ideological perspective, mainstream news media have routinely portrayed it in simplistic terms and as social deviance. Within a context of increasing visibility of public women in the political arena in the United States – many of them self-proclaimed feminists – this study examines and illustrates the ideological struggle for defining ‘feminism’ in mediated discourse. A textual analysis of more than 200 US news websites stories from 2007 to 2011 shows how this struggle for meaning centers on women in the political public sphere. In doing so, this article addresses the consequences of such coverage for women and gender equality.

Rape, storytelling and social media: how Twitter interrupted the news media’s ability to construct collective memory

Abstract This study, using the Mary Kay LeTourneau interview on ABC’s 20/20 television program, investigates how social media coupled with citizens’ voices interact with mainstream media in the telling of a story and the construction of collective memory. Grounded in discourse analysis, this research examines the 20/20 story and accompanying Twitter conversations to understand how dominant and feminist ideologies about gender, rape, sexual violence, sexuality, and love are presented and (re)articulated in these texts. In doing so, this study considers how a newly opened public sphere via social media may have the capabilities to influence our collective memories and remove some of this long-held power away from traditional mainstream media.