Imagining community: Visibility, bonding, and <i>L Word</i> audiences

Kern, Rebecca

doi:10.1177/1363460714524764

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…I referred earlier to conversations that I had had with other older women who were struggling to explain the intensity of their feelings about ‘Berena’; though the unfamiliar appearance on our screens of older wlw is obviously significant (see Kern, 2014 on the particular impact of ‘occasional visibility’), it is not a complete explanation. Many respondents talk about how much time they have devoted to ‘Berena’: ‘One problem is it is addictive and I can’t seem to quit!’; ‘In all honesty I follow the fandom a little too much to be healthy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They describe not just the pleasure of watching two women exploring their sexuality, but the way that this has become a topic of conversation, or has facilitated sexual contact, with their partners. Kern (2014), too, speaks to women who enjoyed the American series The L Word as an ‘outlet’ for their same-sex desires within opposite-sex relationships.…”

Section: Coming Out: ‘I’m Not Sure If I Would Ever Have Had the Couramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In these excerpts, ‘real world’ experience is (implicitly) negatively evaluated against online fandom, which helps women ‘to resist the hold of the local’ (Hanmer, 2010: 148) and forge bonds with potentially distant others. Kern (2014: 435) also reports that The L Word viewers ‘felt supported by a newfound community of viewers in ways they did not find in their daily experiences’. It is perhaps important to remind ourselves, however, of the difference between the post-watershed ‘lesbian ecology’ of The L Word (Sedgwick, 2006) and a BBC primetime family medical drama.…”

Section: Meeting Others: ‘I’ve Made Friends That I Will Always Treasure’mentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Bizarre Sapphic midlife crisis’: (Re)thinking LGBTQ representation, age and mental health

Turner

2018

Sexualities

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This article looks at viewers’ responses to the romance between two older women on the BBC medical drama Holby City. In the context of a continuing lack of representation of (older) women-loving women, viewers of all ages describe a transformative experience, with an emphasis on positive mental health outcomes – yet older women also orient to something implicitly problematic about this being the case. This is premised, I suggest, in the foregrounding of youth and adolescence in academic and public discussions of the role of the media in sexual self-realisation. The research demonstrates the need for qualitative case studies capturing LGBTQ portrayals, taking account of the experiences of older viewers, and of network television even in a fragmented and queer(er) digital market.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Coming Out: ‘I’m Not Sure If I Would Ever Have Had the Couramentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Meeting Others: ‘I’ve Made Friends That I Will Always Treasure’mentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Bizarre Sapphic midlife crisis’: (Re)thinking LGBTQ representation, age and mental health

Turner

2018

Sexualities

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“…Beyond Ireland, there is a considerable amount of research on the representation of LGBT sexuality on screen (Beirne, 2012;Dyer, 1990;Gross, 2001;Russo, 1981) as well as analyses of LGBT screen audiences (Dhoest, 2016;Kern, 2014). With the exception of a few key texts (Caldwell, 2008;Mayer, 2016;Moore, 2009), LGBT production of media has been less extensively researched and a focus on radio is even rarer.…”

Section: Irish Radio and Lgbt Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“Openness through Sound”: Dualcasting on Irish LGBT Radio

Kerrigan¹,

O’Brien²

2018

Journal of Radio & Audio Media

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This article explores how Ireland's first LGBT radio station, Open FM, attempted to offer LGBT radio in a heteronormative media landscape. It uses semi-structured interviews with two of the stations founders as well as posts from online LGBT message bulletin boards to argue how Open FM ultimately became ambivalent about its LGBT status and adopted a dualcasting strategy. Despite its ambitions to be a community-led radio station for Ireland's LGBT community, the dualcasting strategy of the station framed many of its endeavors between the mainstream standards of radio broadcasting and the community of interest that their licence claimed to serve.Open FM was a temporary community radio station that aimed to serve an Irish LGBT audience. However, in terms of the vision for the station, the production practices it adopted, and its reception by the audience, Open FM was ambivalent about its LGBT status. Initially intended to be a platform for queer resistance and one that would contest the broader heteronormative Irish radio landscape, the authors argue that Open FM ultimately adopted a dualcasting strategy, which attempted to appeal to both the gay community while also maintaining a heterosexual audience. Sender (2007, p. 305) coins the term "dualcast" to theorize the connections between programs and imagined audiences. Sender's study of gay-themed programming on U.S. cable network Bravo argues that it "dualcast" in order to attract fragmented audiences; in short Bravo ensured that the same show appealed to different audiences. The authors further contend that a similar strategy of dualcasting was deployed in the context of Open FM. For this reason, it is our intention to expand upon the application of the idea of dualcasting to describe how Open FM reached its audience, but also fostered a dualcasting approach to the vision for the station and within its production practices, whereby it tried to

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“…LGBTQ characters on screen tend to be qualitative and small scale. Existing studies have included straight-identified participants as well as LGBTQ-identified audience members and a range of gender identifications (Jackson and Gilberston, 2009;Kern, 2012;Kern, 2014; Dhaenens 2012). Kern (2012: 245) states that "[q]ueer media ethnographies are largely an unexplored area of research" and that existing studies tend to focus on gay male viewers, such as work by Miguel Malagreca (2007) andMark McClelland (2000).…”

Section: Audience Studies Of Women and Lesbian Audiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose sexuality is it anyway? Women’s experiences of viewing lesbians on screen

Scanlon

Lewis

2016

Feminist Media Studies

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While critical analyses of media representations of lesbians continue to grow, less attention is paid to audience responses to those representations. This paper explores women's experiences of viewing lesbians on screen, analysing qualitative data from focus groups with audiences of a women-only film season screened in a UK cinema: "Lesbians on Screen: How far Have We Come?" We consider how the internalisation of the "male gaze" complicates some women's viewing of lesbian characters and how women attempt to challenge and resist that gaze through their viewing practices and strategies. We discuss audience creativity in re-signifying representations of women, as well as other strategies including choosing to view privately or in women-only spaces. These acts of resistance disrupt the dominance of the male gaze, patriarchal cinema spaces and reception of images on screen. By examining women's reflections on the experience of being in a women-only audience, a unique cinema space that "felt free" of conventional constraints of heteronormativity and patriarchy, this paper also examines how the gendered cinema space affects audience experiences.

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Imagining community: Visibility, bonding, and L Word audiences

Cited by 7 publications

References 24 publications

‘Bizarre Sapphic midlife crisis’: (Re)thinking LGBTQ representation, age and mental health

‘Bizarre Sapphic midlife crisis’: (Re)thinking LGBTQ representation, age and mental health

“Openness through Sound”: Dualcasting on Irish LGBT Radio

Whose sexuality is it anyway? Women’s experiences of viewing lesbians on screen

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