19/02/24

Media
1 Attitude: intro and context
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3
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Media
4 About attitude…
5 - Founded in 1994 – UK’s best-selling gay magazine.
6 - Owned by Stream Publishing Limited
7 - Sold worldwide as a physical magazine, and as a digital download.
8 o Digital convergent, media convergent
9 - Renowned for its high-profile celebrity events such as… Prime Ministers
10 Tony Blair and David Cameron
11 o Star vehicles – engage audiences.
12 - Heterosexual males – pull in the audience.
13 o Male gaze front covers
14 - Offers a variety of representations of LGBTQ+ - a “homogenised” view of
15 sexuality in other media.
16 o “emancipated” LGBTQ community – empowered to gay
17 o Andrew Scott “I love being gay so much, on so many
18 levels”
19 - Offers a diverse range of serious features on a range of subjects –
20 including the plight of gay asylum seekers and the rise of the far right in
21 Eastern Europe, the US Presidential election campaign.
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25 Sinergy and Convergence
26 Attitude is available on a variety of platforms.
27 Attitude brand also hosts an awards dinner every October with all the proceeds
28 going towards Elton John’s AIDs foundation.
29
30 Stereotypes
31 - LGBTQ community often appear in mainstream media represented
32 stereotypically as camp, effeminate, theatrical and flamboyant.
33 - Mainstream media condenses representations to fit the mainstream
34 audiences.
35
36 A History (context)
37 1988 & section 28
38 - In 1988 the government at the time, passed a law sec.28, this forbids the
39 promotion of homosexuality in schools. Teachers could be dismissed for
40 talking to students about their sexuality.
41 - Masculinity is often equated with heterosexuality in mainstream media,
42 perpetuating the myth that to be masculine you have to be heterosexual.
43 Therefore, stereotypes that present effeminacy as an intrinsic part of gay
44 identity could be seen to reinforce and uphold hegemony. Other elements
45 are being theatrical, dramatic and flamboyant.
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47 Queer Rights timeline
48 1950s
49 1951 - Roberta Cowell is the first known British trans woman to undergo
50 reassignment surgery and have her birth certificate changed.
51 1958 – The Homosexual Law Reform Society is founded to campaign for the
52 legalisation of same-sex relationships in the UK.
53 1960s
54 1963 - The Minorities Research Group becomes the UK’s first lesbian social
55 and political organisation and goes on to publish a monthly journal – Arena
56 Three.
57 1967 - The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalises sex between two men
58 over 21 and ‘in private’. It did not extend to the Merchant Navy or the Armed
59 Forces, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man,
60 where sex between two men remained illegal.
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62 Binary Oppositions
63 The idea that texts can best be understood through an examination of their
64 underlying structure, and meaning is dependent upon pairs of opposition.
65  Attitude seemingly focuses on binary oppositions relating to competing sets
66 of values as well as different individuals, groups and cultures.
67  Binary oppositions often play an important role in the construction of
68 cultural or subcultural identity as they set up borders or boundaries between
69 different social groups.
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71 Bigotry vs. tolerance
72 “Non-binary student dies from severe head injury after being attacked in school
73 toilet”.
74 “Greece’s legalisation of marriage”
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76 Belonging vs. alienation
77 “Graham Norton opening up about his marriage”
78 Developed vs. underdeveloped world
79 Public vs. personal
80 “ITV News UK Editor Paul Brand on juggling family life with a 24/7 news cycle.”
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82 Mainstream vs. alternative cultures
83 Majority vs. minority
84 “Suicides in Poland have increased amid country’s anti-LGBT bills, research
85 states
86 The paper has drawn parallels between the effects of Poland's “LGBT-free
87 zones” to proposed “bathroom bills” across the USA.”
88
89  As attitude is produced for a minority audience, it arguably operates in
90 binary opposition to the values of the majority culture.
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92 Representation
93 Media representations of sexuality in Britain are overwhelmingly heterosexual
94  Sexuality is unique in that it is an invisible part of our identity.
95  Heterosexuality is not generally ‘encoded’ with signs and signifiers to make
96 it apparent.
97  Homosexuality, however, is often made visible through the media language
98 codes e.g. dress code, body language, colour etc.
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100 The misrepresentation of the LGBTQ+ community in the mainstream media
101  The representation of the LGBTQ+ community is often narrow and
102 stereotypical.
103  Gay men are often represented as camp, effeminate, theatrical or
104 flamboyant, functioning as visible markers of difference concerning
105 heterosexuality and masculinity.
106  While this may represent some gay men, it does not reflect the diversity of
107 gay male identities.
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108  These representations can be said to be promoting a hegemonic
109 understanding of masculinity by constructing the gay man as the ‘other’.
110  Masculinity is often equated to heterosexuality.
111  This construction of dominant ideologies can link to Hall’s theory.