Abstract
What subtleties lie in the ways that gender, age, and sexuality are present in the media? How can these inform our understanding of the intertwined systems of privilege and oppression in European media? These are the questions that contributors to Gender and Sexuality in the European Media: Exploring Different Contexts Through Conceptualising of Age seek to answer through empirical and theoretical studies and insights. In the three-part volume research contributions cover a spectrum of contexts, countries and representations of European media texts and genres ranging between Spain, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Finland, and Albania and extending to platforms of film, TV and social media. The relationship among gender, sexuality, age and media is explored to show the back-and-forth discourse between them and how each informs and influences the other. The three parts are divided into age categories beginning with Part I, ‘Young People. Sexuality and Gender Performance: Texts and Audiences’, then stepping into adulthood in Part II, ‘Adult, Sexuality, Gender and the Media in Research Perspective’ and to Part III, ‘Elderly have a Voice (?): Sexuality, Gender and the Media across Texts and Audiences’. Some notable research within the volume includes a comparative analysis of adolescents’ patterns in discourse regarding sex in Italy and Portugal and concludes with highlighting the importance of gender (Chapter 3), qualitative and quantitative studies into hate speech against women in Albania (Chapter 7) and, explorations into the ageing body in relation to pornographic preferences (Chapter 10). The volume offers valuable research that would be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in gender and sexuality.