Media Queered: Visibility and Its Discontents

Media Queered is a groundbreaking assessment of minorities and the media. Authorities including Larry Gross, Edward Alwood, Lisa Henderson, and Marguerite Moritz join several new scholars to examine four aspects of visibility: history, expertise, popularity, and technology. To supplement this research, media practitioners including journalists working in the gay and mainstream press contribute a unique series of interludes. The first is by Studs Terkel, who interviewed founders of the U.S. homophile movement. Written for scholars, students, and instructors of media and gender studies, Media Queered is also accessible for general readers intrigued by the recent flowering of queer characters, themes, and images in popular culture.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Kevin G. Barnhurst: Visibility as Paradox: Representation and Simultaneous Contrast - John D'Emilio: Introduction. Progress and Representation - Edward Alwood: A Gift of Gab: How Independent Broadcasters Gave Gay Rights Pioneers a Chance to Be Heard - Bruce Henderson: The Man without a Face: Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Homoerasure - James Allan: And Baby Makes Three...: Gay Men, Straight Women, and the Parental Imperative in Film and Televison - Studs Terkel: Interlude A. The Brass Check and Thomas Paine - Deidre McCloskey: Introduction. Queer Markets - Katherine Sender: Professional Homosexuals: The Politics of Sexual Identification in Gay and Lesbian Media and Marketing - Vincent Doyle: Insiders - Outsiders: Dr. Laura and the Contest for Cultural Authority in LGBT Media Activism - Amit Kama: Israeli Gay Men's Consumption of Lesbigay Media: I'm Not Alone... in This Business - Tracy Baim/Jason DeRose/Deborah Kadin/Ellen Meyers/Laura Kipnis: Interlude B. Commentaries and Reactions - Jaime Hovey: Introduction. Queer Change Agents - Gavin Jack: A Case of Whorephobia? - Marguerite Moritz: Say I Do: Gay Weddings in Mainstream Media - Lisa Henderson: Queer Visibility and Social Class - Todd Mundt: Interlude C. Talking Gay - Steve Jones: Introduction. Queer on Line - David J. Phillips: Privacy, Surveillance, or Visibility: New Information Environments in the Light of Queer Theory - Han N. Lee: Queering Race in Cyberspace - Larry Gross: Gideon, Who Will Be Twenty-five in the Year 2012: Growing Up Gay Today.

About the Author :
The Editor: Kevin G. Barnhurst received his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam. He is Professor and Head of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he teaches media theory, political and visual studies, and qualitative research methods. He is an essayist who has written on the homoerotic images of Lewis Hine, as well as a social scientist who has studied queer representations on U.S. National Public Radio. He has served on the board of the Glaad Center for the Study of Media & Society and on campus diversity committees at Syracuse University and UIC.

Review :
In this state-of-the-art collection, Kevin G. Barnhurst has gathered some of the most exciting scholars in the field of queer media studies. With intelligence and verve, they travel to the many corners of mediated queer life - from pre-Stonewall radio to sitcoms to cyberspace, from niche marketing to personal ads to queer media activism, from weddings to lesbian melodrama to sex work - teasing out the many paradoxes and pleasures of contemporary visibility. (Joshua Gamson, Professor of Sociology, University of San Francisco; Author of 'Freaks Talk Back', among other studies, as well as magazine articles for 'The Nation' and 'The American Prospect') This volume contains valuable historical information about how queer original thinkers, who did not have institutional status or support, were able to influence media representation. And even more interesting is how their bravery made it possible for gays who could not think out of the box to advance in the media/representation business. This book explores how these phenomena resulted in problematic television and marketing representations that may not advance our best interests. An interesting snapshot of what queer academics are thinking about community based rebellion and its subsequent containment. (Sarah Schulman, New York historian, playwright, and author of 'After Delores') In this 'all gay, all the time' era when queers are too often the hip accessories for a still-dominant hetero paradigm, this anthology couldn't be more welcome. A smart, accessible, broad-ranging take on how queers both use and are used by the ever-expanding media machine. From flashy gay TV stations to homos in cyberspace, these chapters provoke needed debate on the vexing problem of visibility in an unremittingly consumerist culture. (Suzanna Walters, Chair of Gender Studies, Indiana University, Author of 'All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America') I've reported news for some 350 gay publications since 1985. I lost the ability to keep up with the flow of gay news in 1992 when Bill Clinton tried to lift the ban on gays in the military. These days, I could easily sit in front of my computer and read gay news 24/7. 'Media Queered' feels my pain and gives it a context. (Rex Wockner, widely syndicated gay reporter (wockner.com))