Globalization, Gender, and Media

Global circulation of extreme gender imagery has pushed well beyond the traditional boundaries of objectification of women. Because such gender imagery can hardly be understood as an expression of women's freedom or a source of agency, it remains at odds with relatively apathetic public reactions to it. This book explores the emergence of 'sexy violence' imagery and the coalescence of the sexual and violent meanings in the contemporary global mainstream, new, and social media. The book focuses on how such imagery is used to advance particular interpretations regarding globalization, and the role of gender is in such projects. The cases analyzed range from serious news journalism and film to social media spectacles, brought under the umbrellas of media production, contents, and perception. The versatile cases examined introduce issues regarding revealing the limits of Western freedom discourse in the social media; universalizing an idea of motherhood and ethnicity in news production; time, home, and class in the formation of global imbalances of power online and in reality TV; instability of sex and gender in discourses of rape and porn; politicizing majority-minority relations in the social media, and a culturally diverse perception of the veiled and unveiled body in an Iranian film. The outcome of the book emphasizes the need to consider the interconnectedness of the material and discursive aspects of globalization and the reality of gender in the media.