In this issue, we select papers on gender and communication issues published in the first quarter of 2021 (January-March) from journals listed in the China Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI). We categorize these articles by topic and summarize them into an introductory literature review for readers interested in gender communication research.
1. Media representation of gender issues: her film and television works
The representation of gender issues by mass media is an important issue in the field of gender communication, and the presentation of women and gender issues in film and television works is one of the relevant studies. In the first quarter of 2021, the periodical China TV published three articles focusing on domestic female-themed films and TV dramas. The common background of the three papers is the hot broadcast phenomenon of female-themed film and television series represented by the TV series "Thirty Only" since 2020.
Huang Jinhua and Shi Tianyue analyzed the portrayal of the three female protagonists in "Only Thirty", and summarized many innovations in the portrayal of female images in the drama, such as encouraging multiple interpretations of contemporary independent women, highlighting the subjectivity of women's development, and breaking through the narrative rules of "women's absolute victory" in past works about women. Lei Tong explores the reason why "Thirty Only" stands out in the same type of TV series from the level of creative skills. On the basis of comparing the portrayal of female images in domestic films and TV dramas in the past, the author points out that the diversified portrayal of female images in their thirties and the honest and plain narrative perspective in telling female stories are the highlights of Only Thirty.
Zhao Cong recalls the phenomenon of the hot broadcast of female-themed movies and TV series in recent years, and reflects on it under the framework of typology. Zhao Cong believes that the popularity of female-themed dramas is influenced by the worldwide trend of women's equality, and it is also promoted by the commercial power of streaming media platforms. In the article, Zhao distinguishes between "she drama" in the industry and creative discourse and "female drama" in the academic category, pointing out the underlying logical differences between the two similar concepts - the former emphasizes the content consumption power of female users and female audiences, and the latter emphasizes the content consumption power of female audiences. The latter focuses on the creative orientation of female expression - and reminds people to be wary of the bondage of "she economy" capital logic to film and television drama creation.
It should be noted that although the empirical materials used in the above three literatures overlap to some extent, the authors of the three literatures have different emphases in defining the concept of "female-themed films and television dramas". Huang Jinhua and Shi Tianyue use the term "female main drama" to emphasize the leading role of female characters in the plot from the narrative level. Lei Tong regards the "expression of women's emotional life" as an important feature of her TV series. Zhao Cong pays attention to the different representations of female-themed films and TV dramas in the media industry and academic research.
In general, from chick movies to "her episodes", the film and television works of "Women to" have long-lasting vitality in the academic world and the industry. The subsequent research may further deepen the analysis and criticism on the basis of the narrative analysis and representation analysis based on the content of movies and TV dramas. For example, from the level of communicators, combined with the perspective of communication political economy, to examine the production and distribution of female films and TV dramas as media products; From the audience/user level, it focuses on the specific process of audience consumption and interpretation of female-themed movies and TV dramas.
2. Media and women's experience
The media practice of women as audience or user is one of the issues concerned by the research of communication studies. In the first quarter of 2021, two articles examined the role of women in the communication process through the lens of health information design and media empowerment.
Ran Hua and Geng Shupei published an article in the second issue of News University, 2021, entitled "The Risk-takers Who Think ahead: A randomized trial on the effect of health information frameworks on women's attitudes and intentions to receive HPV vaccination." Based on HPV vaccination, a health promotion activity closely related to women, this paper explores the different effects of health information designed based on different frameworks on women's attitudes towards vaccination and related behavioral intentions under the theoretical framework of frame research. In this study, female college students were selected as the research objects, and the method of randomized experiment was used to verify the persuasive effect of multi-frame combined information on HPV vaccination.
The paper "Media Use and Self-empowerment of Rural Women" written by Liu Lele and Zhang Shuhua was published in the 2nd issue of News Enthusiast in 2021. In this paper, under the conceptual framework of empowerment, the author conducts a case study on the case of Li Shuna, chairwoman of Pingdingshan Jinbaoqiao Daughter-in-law Domestic Service Co., LTD., and analyzes the role of rural women's media practice in their personal development. The author believes that the ways of media empowering rural women include: stimulating female subjectivity, improving female discourse power, dispelling urban and rural antagonism, and reconstructing unbalanced gender power structure. However, while positively evaluating the positive significance of the media to the development of rural women, the article equates the development of rural women with the urbanization of women to a certain extent, and there is a tendency of urban centralism.
The study of media and women's empowerment is of great significance both in theory and practice: on the one hand, it enrichis the research results in the cross-field of gender communication and development communication, on the other hand, it can provide support for social actions committed to women's development and gender equality. Scholars concerned with relevant issues can further improve the theoretical framework and research methods of media and women empowerment in future studies, and provide more local empirical materials.
3. Research on gender communication from the perspective of globalization
The global perspective is of profound significance to the study of gender communication. From the perspective of academic theory, both gender studies and communication studies have been deeply influenced by overseas academic circles, which need to deal with the two problems of "localization" and "going out" at the same time. From a practical point of view, in the in-depth construction of a community with a shared future for mankind today, the living conditions of women and even the entire people of a country are not immune from the contact with other countries in the world. The two papers included in this section highlight analyses that include a global perspective.
Zhu Xuefeng and Wang Qin published their paper "Media Expression of Gender Issues and Improvement of China's international Discourse Power: Based on the Analysis of China Daily and New York Times Reports on the issue of Leftover Women" in the first issue of Women's Studies, 2021. This article takes the practice of gender news reports as the starting point to explore the strategies of enhancing China's international discourse power through media expression. The author selects a representative report on "leftover women in China" as the analysis text, and samples the news information published by China Daily and the New York Times, two English newspapers representing Chinese and Western media respectively, and makes a comparative analysis of the sampling results. This paper believes that improving the quality of media expression on gender issues is an important way to improve China's international communication power. From the perspective of media organizations, the improvement of media expression quality can be carried out from four aspects: coordinating diversified, balanced and appropriate information sources; Seek diversity of expression; Enhance the awareness and ability to cope; Strengthen audience awareness in four aspects.
The Journal of Beijing Film Academy published Xu Fangyi's book "New Changes in Gender Narrative under the Background of Globalization: A Case Study of the screen image of Mulan". The story of the heroine Hua Mulan was passed down from generation to generation through traditional Chinese folk tales, and was introduced to the world at the end of the 20th century with the popularity of Disney's animated film adaptation. In this context, under the framework of post-modern feminist film research, Xu takes the media image narrative flow of "Mulan" in different versions of adapted films as an example to explore the new changes of gender narrative in films from the perspective of film text, director and audience. In the process of the story of Mulan being spread worldwide through the adaptation of different versions at home and abroad, this paper sorts out a vein of female creative subjects fighting against the implicit patriarchy in the world. The author positively comments on the breakthrough made by Disney's live-action Mulan film adaptation in 2020 in transcending gender stereotypes and shaping the image of independent Chinese women. In general, the film adaptation of Mulan provides very inspiring empirical materials for the study of feminist films, and subsequent relevant studies may further take into account the perspectives of cross-cultural communication and political economy of communication.
Gender, Communication and Chinese history
The two articles included in this part are "Memory of Time and Space: A Narrative study of female images in propaganda pictures in the Soviet Area" and "Health Knowledge and Gender Division of Labor: A Study on the Gendered Transmission of Infectious Disease Knowledge in Modern China". Both articles choose to analyze the communication practice in Chinese history under the framework of gender theory, which is helpful to expand the historical depth of current gender communication research.
"The Memory of Time and Space" by Wang Yanxia, published in January 2021 "Editor's Friend" issue 1. This paper focuses on the media communication practice during the construction of the rural revolutionary base areas of the Communist Party of China, focusing on propaganda painting as a special carrier of communication. The author believes that the female theme posters published in the central Soviet area newspapers are a brand new female image discourse system based on the Marxist theory of women. On the basis of the above understanding, the author carries out a semiotic analysis of the propaganda pictures of Soviet newspapers and periodicals with the theme of women, summarizes its narrative characteristics, and points out that the narrative of female images in the propaganda pictures of Soviet newspapers and periodicals is a cross-media narrative in essence, and a temporal extension of spatial narrative dimension. Wang believes that although the physical and mental development of women under the exhortation of propaganda pictures has a certain passive and subordinate nature, female image narration still played an important role in the construction of women's revolutionary team and the cause of women's liberation at that time.
The article "Health Knowledge and Gender Division of Labor" was published in the first issue of Women's Studies in January 2021. The author is Yao Fei, Department of History, Shanghai Normal University. The analysis of this paper combines the perspectives of medical sociology research and gender communication, which not only enriches the research results of Chinese women's history, but also expands the discussion dimension and historical depth of Chinese local research on women's health communication. From the perspective of gender theory, this paper investigates the transmission of modern infectious disease health knowledge with female target audience. At the same time, the role of other social and economic factors such as social class, education level and interpersonal network is included in the analysis dimension. Specifically, this paper investigates the historical materials of women's newspapers, girls' school textbooks and women's interpersonal communication, and analyzes the gendered transmission process of modern health knowledge from the perspectives of mass media, school education and social education. In the article, Yao Fei pointed out that the spread of modern women's health knowledge, on the one hand, tied disease prevention and care with housework, reflected and strengthened the traditional gender division of labor, and on the other hand, in the process of women imparting modern medical knowledge, objectively resonated with the contemporary feminist movement to realize the goal of women's modernization. Yao also believes that the historical experience of modern women's health knowledge dissemination can provide references for contemporary research and practice of women's health dissemination.
Gender communication and feminist theory
The study of gender communication is closely related to the development of feminist theory and practice at home and abroad. The three articles included in this part not only comment on the development direction of feminist theory, but also summarize the local existing gender communication research, which will help readers grasp the trend of gender communication research from the development of feminist theory.
In March 2021, Jin Chunzhi from Hunan Institute of Science and Technology published a paper titled "The Breakthrough of cyberfeminism on Gender Dualism and its Value" in the second issue of "Seeking", which introduced and commented on Cyberfeminism, an emerging school of feminist theory. Cyberfeminism is also known as network feminism, and the development of related theories is closely related to the rise of the Internet and digital media technology. Western academic circles have a rich discussion on this, and Chinese scholars can also learn from the perspective of studying the gender communication phenomenon in contemporary cyberspace. In this paper, the author first makes a brief introduction to the current feminist schools, and believes that both traditional feminism and technical feminism have gender dualism analysis methods, while cyberfeminism is born out of both and surpasses them in many aspects. Cyberspace dispels many boundaries, helps women hide their true selves, and enables women to gain freedom and liberation in cyberspace.
Reproduction, Mutual Construction, and Production: Feminist Theory and Practice in Chinese Urban Films, co-authored by Huang Luo and Li Mingde, was published in the journal Modern Communication in February 2021. Based on the philosophical logic of consciousness and reality, Huang and Li have combed the practice and theory of feminism in urban feminist films since the 1990s, and extended the analysis of practical cases to theoretical analysis. It is believed that feminist film has experienced a process from reproducing social reality to constructing with social reality and then constructing discourse space with media and reality, which is closely related to social practice and is also the self-proof of the unity of feminist theory and practice. But at the same time, the author also reminds us to keep vigilant for the "big heroine" film and television and rational cognition of cyberspace.
In March 2021, "People's Forum · Academic Frontier" published a paper written by Bu Wei titled "Media Research in feminist Thought: Reconstruction and Reflection". This is a reflective article based on a series of media and gender research and practice in China after the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, and summarizes three types of academic frameworks for gender communication research in China:
(a) The framework of "transmission mode + women", i.e. communicator + (research on female journalists or journalists) → media + (research on women's media) → information + (gender analysis of information/text) → audience + (research on media behavior and attitudes of female audiences) → effect + (research on media influence on women). The framework includes women in the production and dissemination of information, focuses on gender analysis of media content, and tries to expose the unequal cultural ideology behind stereotypes.
(2) Cultural research framework. The framework emphasizes audience-centered research, analyzing how people in different social and economic structures use their structures to make sense of the information they receive, to adapt to them, and to subvert them through strategies.
(3) Research on communication activism. Its research initiation, research process and research results are all related to local action to promote change, and may also be an action research, which echoes the "actor research" with local characteristics in the framework of "transport mode + women".
Pu Wei pointed out that feminist theory and media theory are always in the process of development and change, and the concept of social gender as a theoretical framework has its complexity and fluidity. This urges us to think more deeply about the influence of the evolution of various feminist trends on media and gender studies, and seriously reflect on the three key concepts of knowledge production, media and women, as well as the pedigrees and traditions of local knowledge, so as to produce a local knowledge system with the significance of liberating women.
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