Challenging Images of Women in the Media Reinventing Women's Lives [Paperback]

Media representations of women proliferate around the world in an ever more confusing jumble of images ranging from sexualized commoditiesboth feared and reveredto legitimate political candidates, including antiquated villains that rewrite womens history. In this volume of carefully selected essays by global scholars, Carilli and Campbell unmask the assertions and demands that such disjointed depictions make on the lives and well-being of real women. But this essential book also illustrates the ways in which women continue to reclaim their own voices, images, desires and power, and in doing so reaffirm our collective humanity.In their edited volume Women in the Media (2005), Carilli and Campbell (respectively, communication and English, Purdue Univ., Calumet) argued that global images of women in the media are problematical. The 15 essays in the present work reexamine the status of women in/on the media, also concluding that although images of women have changed as the second decade of the new millennium continues, presentations of women are more ambiguous than ever. Global media abound with images of woman as powerless and with harmful stereotypes about women's bodies and behavior. North Americans already know this is the case in their own media, but they have little exposure to depictions of women in media beyond North America. These essays provide valuable insight into ways in which foreign media sources have shifted from matronly to sexy depictions. This comes in tandem with the decline of state-sponsored maternity leave, child care, and abortion services. Also examined is global news media's difficulty in covering stories involving world figures like Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton. The study ends with fresh, reflective essays on positive images in North American media of full-figured black women and lesbian comics, suggesting that these women become guides for a new feminist frontier. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates throulS*