NEWSLETTER

Society for the History of Children and Youth

Riorden “Intersections and New Directions: On Feminism and Political Economy”

1. Why does Riorden suggest feminist communication scholars have abandoned  political-economic issues? (3)

2. How then are women’s actions political and economic? (3)

3. Why is dividing the political-economic context of daily life detrimental to women? (4)

4. What is mean by the term “feminist political economy in communications?” (4)

5. What is political economy and how does it change when dealing with issues of communication? (5-6)

6. What is the role of consumption in all of this? (6) and Commodity fetishism (8)?

7. Is Riordan in favour of research that focuses on consumption or production? And why? (8)?

8. What is Riordan suggesting by asking for a feminist mode of inquiry? (9)

9. What role does multiple subjectivities play in all of this? (10)

10. Define the following statement: “Feminist political-economic research is self-reflexive at the core. It is critical and materialist, challenging a patriarchal institution of capitalism in its various manifestations. (13)

Geraghty “Representation, Reality, and Popular Culture: Semiotics and the

Construction of Meaning”

1. What is semiotics? What is representation? (46)

2. What are the “significant principles” that Geraghty speaks of? (47)

3. How do things like abstraction, convention, and construction work in how we make meaning? (47) Geraghty looks at three forms of media as case studies: photography, soap operas, and factual entertainment:

Photograph

4. In analyzing a photograph, Geraghty wants to stress two points in particular. What are they? (51)

5. What role does Barthes give to the audience according to Geraghty? (51)

Soap Operas

6. The complaint that „women are not really like this” rests on a number of assumptions. Name them. (52)

7. Why does Pollock argue that “one needs to study the meanings signified by women in images”? (53)

8. How does feminine discourse affect the audience’s role? (54)

Factual Entertainment

9. What is Factual Entertainment? (55)

10. How does construction and fiction work in these types of programs? What about talk shows? What about reality TV? (56-57)

11. How do audiences respond to these kinds of shows? (57)

Dyer “Stereotyping”

1. How do roles and types work?

2. How does the establishment of hegemony through stereotyping work?

3. How does stereotyping through iconography work in film?

4. How does stereotyping get established through structure in film? What’s the connection to eating the other?

5. How does the creation of the individual work as an alternative to types in film?

6. What are member types?

Bugeja “Bias”

1. Define the following terms (216-225):

a. Racism

b. Tolerance

c. Cultural exclusion

d. Cultural inclusion\

e. Racial inappropriateness

f. Sensitivity

g. Bias

h. Diversity

i. Stereotype

2. What are some of the consequences that come with stereotypes? (226)

3. What does Bugeja suggest is the criteria for identifying stereotypes? (229)

4. What is the difference between the anticipated and received message? (231-232)

5. How than the ideas behind: appropriate relationships, appropriate descriptions, and appropriate coverage relate to children’s studies? (232-235)