Graduate Guest Editor’s Note

Welcome to the graduate research section of the latest edition of Global Media Journal.  The 2006 fall edition features two invited and three refereed articles on gender and the media.

The invited papers include “Women, Political Discourse, and Mass Media in the Republic of Belarus” and “CSI: The New Face of the Male Gaze.”  “Women, Political Discourse, and Mass Media in the Republic of Belarus” was written by Natalia Koulinka, a graduate student at Belarusian State University in Minsk, Belarus.  It examines the roles that patriarchal ideologies and the mass media are playing in incorporating more women in state decision-making processes in the Republic of Belarus.  Koulinka shows that paradoxically patriarchal beliefs that pervade Belarus’ dominant culture have been invoked by Belarusian President Lukashenko to increase women’s presence in parliament.  But, Koulinka reveals, Lukashenko’s advocacy of women’s leadership reinforces rather than resists the president’s patriarchal style of governance.  “Women, Political Discourse, and Mass Media in the Republic of Belarus” is part of a larger research project that Koulinka is conducting on gender and the Belarusian mass media.

Ami Kleminski, who is pursuing a master’s degree in Communications at Purdue University Calumet, wrote “CSI: The New Face of the Male Gaze.”  In it she argues that current television depictions of working women in male-dominated fields represent them from the point of view of the male gaze (Mulvey 1975).  Kleminski discusses the performance of the male gaze in CSI:  Las Vegas to demonstrate her claims and to highlight the dangers inherent in audience members’ acceptance and performance of objectifying, stereotypical images of women.

The refereed papers published in this issue of Global Media Journal are “Equality and the Muslima: Negotiating Gender Justice in the Online Muslim Public Sphere” by Saman Talib, “Lynch `N England: Figuring Females as the U.S. at War” by Anna Froula, and “The Importance of Community-Based Media for Building and Sustaining Lesbian Subcultures:  The Role of Montréal’s Dykes on Mykes Radio Show” by Marie-Claire MacPhee and Mél Hogan.

Saman Talib, a Ph.D. candidate at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., contributed “Equality and the Muslima: Negotiating Gender Justice in the Online Muslim Public Sphere.”  This article examines the emergence of the transnational progressive Muslim movement after September 11, 2001. The central element of this movement, writes Talib, is a belief that the principles of peace, mercy, equality and justice must be crystallized through meaningful communication between a diversity of interpreters of Islamic source texts. The movement is particularly adamant about the necessity for enacting gender justice in the daily lives of Muslims around the world. Talib argues that the Internet has played a critical role in enabling and mediating the growth of this nascent movement and in facilitating its attempts at stirring debate on issues of social justice for women. Using the Progressive Muslim Union as a case study, Talib’s paper seeks to understand the distinct ways in which the Internet is being employed to advance and sustain identity-specific communication in support of Muslim women’s rights.

“Lynch `N England: Figuring Females as the U.S. at War,” by Anna Froula, a doctoral candidate in U.S. literature and film studies at the University of Kentucky, is a provocative look at the U.S. media’s politicized depictions of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was captured by Iraqis early in the Iraq War and then “rescued” by U.S. troops, and Pvt. Lynndie England, the Abu Ghraib prison guard photographed torturing prisoners.  In her article Froula first analyzes how dominant narratives about Lynch embody the U.S. captivity narrative, which is a racial and gendered assertion of national identity. Second, Froula explains how Lynch’s story was aggressively exploited as political, economic, and emotional capital and how such marketing strategies display a symbiotic relationship between President George W. Bush’s administration and the corporate mass media. Finally, she argues that England’s story inverts the generic conventions of the captivity narrative and in so doing reveals the violence wrought by “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

The authors of “The Importance of Community-Based Media for Building and Sustaining Lesbian Subcultures:  The Role of Montréal’s Dykes on Mykes Radio Show” are the current hosts and technicians of the show.  Their article documents and presents the authors’ preliminary research on this groundbreaking lesbian queer program.  MacPhee and Hogan collected data in interviews and focus groups with past and present show hosts.  They found that although there have been various shifts in the show’s areas of interest, politics, music, art, culture, hosting styles, and guests, Dykes on Mykes has always addressed issues that otherwise would have been overlooked on most community radio shows.  The authors write that their contributions to Dykes on Mykes history include 1) maintaining a lesbian identity as distinct and worth preserving; and 2) continually pushing the boundaries of that definition of lesbianism by addressing the complexities of peoples’ lived experience while unifying against all forms of oppression. MacPhee and Hogan conclude that they and previous hosts and technicians of Dykes on Mykes simultaneously create and document their community’s identity. In other words, while they raise questions and confront challenges on the show, they also are recording the artistic and political history of the lesbian and queer community in Anglophone Montreal.

The graduate research included in the fall 2006 edition of Global Media Journal is impressive in its depth and scope.  This research testifies to a robust and growing interest in examining global media through the lens of gender, an interest that this edition’s editors are committed to nurturing.

Colette Morrow, Graduate Research Guest Editor

Fall 2006 Issue of Global Media Journal-American Edition

Past President, National Women’s Studies Association

Senior Fulbright Scholar

Purdue University Calumet