Media and Mothers' Matters

21 October 2011
1-5pm
The Boardroom
University of Winchester
King Alfred’s Campus
Organised by School of Media and Film Studies,
supported by MeCCSA Women’s Media Studies Network and the Mothers’ Union

Registration is free- Contact: [log in to unmask]

Papers and Speakers

Media and Mothers’ Matters: Stella Roberts, Mothers’ Union

The Mothers’ Union in the Winchester Diocese is part of a worldwide Christian organisation that supports marriage and
family life. Over the years Mothers’ Union has addressed issues around the media, including through its Media Awareness pack and more recently through its Bye Buy Childhood campaign. Through its practical programmes across the world, Mothers’ Union provides parenting groups, marriage support and literacy and financial education.
Stella Roberts is the President of The Mothers’ Union in the Winchester Diocese. In her keynote she will reflect how
the Mothers’ Union sees the media. It will demonstrate the media’s capacity for both positive and negative influences on
family life.

Mothers and the Media: Dorothy Hobson, University of Wolverhampton

There are many aspects to this subject and the keynote will identify some important areas that would be worth developing through research, teaching, advocacy and policy. In some ways it is difficult to identify and separate areas of interest to mothers, because for various reasons, they are interested in everything that is on television, not just programmes which are targeted at them. We could be asking ‘What are Women’s Programmes?’ But it is as important to think about ‘What Issues are of Interest to Women across a range of Media?’ Another way of considering the topic is to look at the way that mothers and issues which matter to women are handled in programmes.
I would hope to discuss some of the genres where there are positive images and others where the representation and
the themes are not the most positive But I note that not all programmes are negative. Some stand out for their positive
representations. What is positive, what is inevitable and what should be criticized about Mothers and the Media is a fascinating topic and I hope that we can identify some of the areas which are of concern, interest but also of delight to us all.


Dorothy Hobson is well known for her scholarship and has taught in a number of academic institutions in the British
Midlands. She is currently at the University of Wolverhampton, where she specialises in Drama, Soap Opera, Popular
Television, Television Audiences, Television News and Public Service Broadcasting, Channel 4 Television, Research Methods. Dorothy has also worked as a broadcasting consultant for various broadcasts and cultural organisations including Channel 4 Television, BBC Drama, British Film Institute, BBC Birmingham. She is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and Vice Chair of the Midland Centre of the Royal Television. There she heads the Events group and organises regular programmes concentrating on programmes, technology, production and digital futures. Dorothy has written many books, academic and journalistic articles and she has also featured in broadcasts on various aspects of television in Britain and abroad. Hercurrent work is a new book on Adolescents and the Media.


From Here to Maternity – Motherhood in the Media: Kim Akass, Critical Studies in
Television

Despite the passing of sexual discrimination legislation, the difficulty of combining work and motherhood repeatedly
hits the headlines. This paper looks at the American media phenomenon known as the ‘mommy wars’ and asks if British
mothers can expect to face the same issues and attitudes as their American sisters.

Kim Akass has published widely on US TV, is a co-founding editor of Critical Studies in Television, co-editor of the Reading Contemporary TV Series (I.B. Tauris) and webmistress of CSTonline. She is currently writing a book on the representation of motherhood on US TV.


States of Confusion: Sarah Palin and the Media Politics of US Mothering: Janet
McCabe, Birkbeck, University of London/University of Glamorgan

Rarely has someone emerged so unexpectedly and sensationally on to the American political scene as Sarah Palin. In
August 2008, the 44 year-old, mother of five Alaskan Governor joined the Republican ticket as only the second woman
in US presidential history to become a vice-presidential nominee. Her place on the GOP platform electrified the election
cycle in ways no one could have predicted, provoking an avalanche of media visibility followed swiftly by scandal and
Internet rumour. With Palin came what had rarely, if ever, been seen before on a presidential trail: hockey moms, Caribouhunting, pitbulls in lipstick parcelled as political weaponry. And let’s not forget those five children, including Track 19, set to deploy to Iraq, Bristol, and her unplanned pregnancy at 17, and Trig, a six-month-old infant with Down’s syndrome. Never before had motherhood been so finely balanced with US presidential politics. Biological vigour translated into political energy, motherhood transformed into an intoxicating political ideal. This contribution focuses on Sarah Palin and how her brand of “rugged Alaskan motherhood” (PunditMom 2008) is central to her media image, as well as what this representation has to tell us about the relationship between mothering, politics and the media.

Janet McCabe is Honorary Research Fellow in TV Drama at Birkbeck, University of London, as well as Research Assistant
(Critical Studies in Television) at the University of Glamorgan. She writes on US television and the politics of the feminine, and her book, for the TV Milestone Series, on The West Wing is forthcoming.

Teen Drama: Absent, Inept and Intoxicated Mothers, Rebecca Feasey, Bath Spa

University Children’s literature, the Disney franchise and the Hollywood teen movie clearly and deliberately leave motherhood and the maternal role out of the youth picture. Moreover, teen television situates problematic motherhood as a key trope in the genre, focusing on the ways in which these women routinely and repeatedly dismiss, disappoint and deride their children.With this in mind, I will present a brief overview of motherhood, mothering and the maternal role in the contemporary media marketplace before looking at the roles, responsibilities and restrictions of motherhood in the popular 90210 (2008- ).

Rebecca Feasey is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Communications at Bath Spa University. She has previously
published work on the celebrity gossip sector, contemporary Hollywood stardom and the representation of gender in
popular media culture. She is the author of Masculinity and Popular Television (2008) and the forthcoming From Happy
Homemaker to Desperate Housewives: Motherhood and Popular Television.

“Setting the Media Agenda for Maternal Mortality in Nigeria: A long road to travel”
(work in progress): Racheal Agbonkhese, Cardiff University

Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a woman while pregnant, during delivery or within 42 days of termination
of a pregnancy due to complications. It is an indication of the dire state of maternal health, and was designated as
millennium development goal 5 which aims to reduce global maternal deaths by at least two thirds by 2015. In spite of
this mandate, the situation remains almost unabated in some countries for over a decade. Nigeria is one of such. With a
GDP of $194 billion it has the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, second only to India.
This paper discusses the agenda setting role of the media in generating political priority for maternal mortality in Nigeria.
It presents data from a series of source interviews as well as newspaper publications in discussing the various factors which influence the salience of maternal mortality on the media and political agenda, and the implications of these factors for future interventions.

Racheal Agbonkhese is an integrated marketing communication consultant. She is in the final year of her doctoral
research at Cardiff University where she also serves on the teaching team. This paper stems from her doctoral research
which explores Media Agenda Setting and Maternal Mortality, with a goal of identifying a useful framework for successful
media interventions. She has also worked with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and with government and private sector initiatives. She remains actively involved in maternal mortality issues especially in her role as a trustee for the ‘Life for African Mothers’, the Welsh Assembly charity of the year.

The Widening Gender Gap in the UK Creative Media Industries (CMI): Tamsyn
Dent, Bournemouth University/Skillset 

This presentation will introduce research carried out to date on the current gender gap amongst media practitioners employed in the UK’s Creative Media Industry (CMI). The results are quite revealing of the situation of women aged 35 and over, particularly in the TV sector and those with dependent children compared to their male counterparts. It is from a PhD project which is a collaboration between Bournemouth University’s Centre for Excellence for Media Practice (CEMP) and Skillset, the skills council for the creative media industries.
Since 1999 Skillset has been gathering demographic data on the industry’s workforce providing a snapshot of the
employment patterns and trends relating to practitioners.
Starting with the trends of gendered employment that emerge from statistical data the study explores why, despite past industry interventions, women are still under-represented in certain job roles and age groups. In particular it investigates the position of working mothers within the industry’s workforce.
The project considers what conditions exclude working mothers from these industries and the potential impact of these
on creative output. It does this by examining changes in working structures: including the increased reliance on freelancers, the specific structure of the UK broadcasting and media system, other factors in the political and social contexts, alongside evidence from working mothers who work (or have worked) in creative media industries.

Tamsyn Dent joined the Centre of Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) in Bournemouth University in September 2010 as
a doctoral researcher, researching the widening gender gap in the UK creative media industries and exploring ways that the industry can support and hold on to its female workforce. She started her career in the UK TV and film industry in 2004, working as a freelance runner and researcher on documentaries, feature films and TV drama. After studying for an MSc in Gender and the Media at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2007, she started work as Development Manager for the Birds Eye View Film Festival, an annual festival that celebrates the creative talent of women filmmakers.
Tamsyn is based in London and has one son. She writes about her research and experience of juggling work, motherhoodand study on her blog: http://tamsyndent.wordpress.com/