Reading, Interpreting and (Re)constructing: Youth Perceptions about Women in Politics
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Abstract
This paper examines reception practices of contents spread
through the Portuguese newsmagazines “Sábado” and “Visão”,
exploring, in particular, the way young audiences understand,
interpret and position themselves in relation to representations
of women who hold political posts.
The thematic analysis conducted on the data resulting from a
sequence of focus group discussions shows that participants
tended to prefer readings that were aligned with traditional
gender ideology. Despite occasional moments of negotiation,
contestation and resistance, the results indicate that most
participants did not critically problematize the role of the
media in the gendered (re)construction of social reality, supporting
instead the reification of the male-political-public and
female-personal-private triads. Moreover, participants rarely
questioned the economic, socio-cultural and political factors
that exert influence on the news production.
Informed by a feminist perspective, this study therefore highlights
the need to empower the audiences in relation to the
gender assumptions that the news media have spread and to
reflect about the impact of the media representations on the
(re)configuration of the public sphere.
Keywords
reception studies, women and politics, social representations, feminist media studies.Downloads
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