Hey guys. So one of the fun things I do as a communications student is study portrayals of different people/groups in the media. Obviously, this comes with a feminist slant. And I assume most of my readers here will have the same sort of viewpoint, and maybe some academic backgrounds that can help me out.
So it’s been suggested by one of my profs that I should attempt to do a little crowdsourcing experiment on this paper. I’m posting my topic here, and I would love suggestions from my readers on where to take it, and more specifically, on readings I should check out for it. I’ll be blogging my progress as it goes on, so we’ll see if this helps, hurts, or is just neutral and fun for you to watch me tear my hair out.
Proposal below the fold.
Hockey Mom, Beauty Queen, or Pitbull in Lipstick:
The Many Faces of Sarah Palin in the Media
Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin burst onto the political scene in August with her selection, seemingly last-minute and out of nowhere, to join the McCain campaign and bring something new and fresh to the ticket. Almost immediately, the media seized on her image as a young, attractive woman and the coverage overflowed with stories about her past as a beauty queen, her looks, her style, and the Internet exploded with Photoshopped bikini pictures and Palin Bingo.
The public opinion of Sarah Palin has changed as more information has come out about her, but the one thing that hasn’t is the pervasiveness of feminine stereotypes in the coverage. Feminist theorist Judith Butler has written about gender as a performance rather than as an innate quality, and it is my theory that the coverage of Palin centers on how successfully she performs certain gender roles. Other theorists have also written about the female body as signifier, and this also plays into portrayals of Palin—stories will mention her physical appearance when they would not mention the appearance of a man in the same situation. Critical feminist theory will provide the framework for this study, drawing from several disciplines to analyze her portrayal in the news.
I plan to study the coverage of Palin in two media outlets: Salon.com and the Washington Post, and carry out a qualitative analysis of the stereotypes presented in their stories, both op-ed pieces and straight news. A random sampling of stories will be selected from the volume of stories about Palin in the two sources, and read for stereotypical descriptions of her physical appearance and personality. I will then use the feminist theorists to examine what those particular stereotypes mean, and why they are pervasively applied to Palin, often in place of discussion of policy.
i look forward to reading your analysis
this probably not relevant to your research but i thought it was interesting hearing on the local right wing radio ask the question”How many people are voting for Palin and not McCain”
Weellll…. the nicest I can say about her is that she might just be one of those sorry folks that freeze up in interviews.
I have to say that I support her in her quest for the pro-life movement, and even though it’ll never happen (pop culture, the slew of slutty Mouseketeers, and primetime TV will, of course, stand in the way), I think she’s right on that issue. I think that even though it’s enormously fun (and some people even devote their lives to it), sex is our species’ means of procreation and has been seen as just harmless recreation for about, I dunno, fifty years too long.
However, Palin herself, despite her good intentions, seems to be a bit of an idiot. Hm. Either she’s trying to be underestimated, she underestimates herself, she has a heavy dose of Freezing When Speaking Publicly Syndrome, or… she’s an idiot.
I don’t know.
We’ll probably have to wait to see what kind of a VP she’ll be until– if– she and McCain win the race and she is actually performing under duress.
Sorry, I’m late to this party. Will you be drawing upon any media/communications theory? If so, I have a book on my shelf in the office (will check when get there and send cite) that discusses media constructions of political figures. This is focused mainly on men, of course, but may be useful to add a sentence or two about the way that politicians are constructed by the media more generally before taking on the feminist angle.
Here is the name of the book I was referring to “Celebrity Politics: Real Politics in America” by Darrell West and John Orman. Your campus library should carry it.
I also have a couple of articles I can e-mail you if you send me your e-mail address. Two of them relate to constructions of female candidates (Senate in 2000 and Elizabeth Dole). Not sure of your audience on this one though and these are academic articles.