Feminist Media Studies
Commentary and Criticism & Reviews Section

We invite short essays for the Commentary and Criticism section of 
Feminist Media Studies on any of the following topics. Potential 
contributors can write to the co-editors, Jane Arthurs 
([log in to unmask]) and Usha Zacharias 
([log in to unmask]), to express preliminary interest in writing a 
brief article of about 1500 words. In addition, we invite you to address 
any other questions that are relevant to Feminist Media Studies. 

1. Transnational Dimensions of Race, Class and Gender in Big Brother 
Gameplay; the ‘Jade Goody/ Shilpa Shetty’ Scandal
 
In January 2007 the UK reality show Celebrity Big Brother became the 
centre of a political furore when Jade Goody, a previous winner of Big 
Brother and now a celebrity herself, along with two other contestants, 
were accused of racial bullying of Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood film star 
and now winner of the competition. The media scandal took on transnational 
dimensions when the Indian state lodged a protest with the British Prime 
Minister Tony Blair, and Blair, in turn, invited Shetty to the House of 
Commons. Goody, meanwhile, was invited by Shetty’s father to visit India 
to learn about the nation firsthand. In the Indian media, critiques were 
leveled against the “underbelly of racism” that still exists in so-called 
civilized nations. Although the show is not screened in India, it invited 
considerable debate in both press and television, where, since the actual 
racist language used could not be reproduced, attention was focused on 
Shetty’s hourly-growing economic exponent. In Britain, the tabloid press 
went on the attack against Jade to defend not only Shilpa but the 
reputation of the British as a tolerant multicultural society. This 
occurred in the face of international protests at the public platform 
given by the media to racist insults. While the media emerged as the 
villain, both Indian and British governments were able to pose as states 
opposed to racial discrimination.

The unfolding drama of this scandal, and the multiple reactions from 
commentators illuminates the transnational politics of race, class, gender 
and stardom in the context of a global media economy feeding on flexible 
cultural labor. Goody’s positioning as a precarious ‘white trash’ 
celebrity persona in contrast to Shetty’s ‘authentic’ stardom, marked by 
ethnic difference, complicates the ‘race’ question, casting it into a 
postcolonial context. The unusual embrace of multicultural tolerance by 
the British tabloids also raises suspicion. Could it reveal the power of 
celebrity scandals to act as a conduit for repressed class as well as 
racial aggression? Also interesting is the Indian media’s focus on 
Shetty’s sudden financial boom and her apparently ascending social status 
in Britain. Does economic mobility function as a silent answer to the 
unresolved race question?
We invite diverse commentaries on these events that seek to locate their 
significance in relation to broader issues of media and culture. 

2. Women Media Workers in the Digital Age

What new conditions have emerged for women media workers as a consequence 
of the digital revolution? What political and personal consequences are 
there for women and how might these be taken up by media researchers? In 
answer to these questions we invite reports on ongoing research as well as 
suggestions for new agendas and ways to conceptualise women’s role in the 
media industries. Topics might include the impact of intensified 
competition and deregulation, the culture of long hours, casual labor and 
its consequences, women’s welfare rights, work/life balance, global 
distribution of production and  new production ‘ethics’. Changing 
production practices such as cross-platform working, technical challenges 
and training, personal digital production, home-working and freelance 
networks also invite gendered analysis. So does the feminisation of work 
cultures: the presence of women entrepreneurs and managers, revaluation 
of ‘soft’ skills in management discourse and gendered professionalism. 
Similarly, the distribution of women’s media in digital contexts, Internet 
marketing and exhibition, the creation of niche markets, women’s roles and 
gender cultures in activist media and global campaigns all call for a 
rethinking of women media workers’ roles in the digital age. We invite 
both broad and focused commentaries on the contemporary transformations in 
women media workers’ lives in global, national, and regional contexts.

3. Mobile Phones and Digital Convergence: Feminist Issues

The spectacular worldwide growth of mobile telephones in the last five 
years has opened up fascinating new spaces of communication and 
transformed the digital media ecology. Mobile phones have been 
sensationalized in news reports worldwide in extreme terms: as a vital 
tool of sociality that every individual must own, as a development 
shortcut for poor farmers in India, as a key accessory to health workers 
in Africa, and as facilitators of romance and dating in digital worlds 
east and west. The phenomenal growth of this personal communication device 
in the Asian and African economies and its near saturation status in 
several nations, including the UK, US, and Japan, is paired with the 
digital convergence that marries the phone to the camera, games, 
advertising, the Internet, and now, to television and film. The SMS -- or 
short message service -- enabled by the mobile phone is marking up huge 
profits for providers in China, Philippines and India, as well as in 
Europe and Australia. Several Indian television channels now carry 
personal SMS messages as running scrolls with chatty programmes such as 
talk shows and anchored music shows. If recent newspaper reports are 
anything to go by, the mobile phone facilitates GPS tracking of your 
potential partner in China, arranged marriages in India, and dating in the 
U.S. The sexual politics of texting – from flirting to pornography – 
invites particular focus given the availability of manufactured 
interpersonal messages ready for downloading and transmitting for all 
occasions including Valentine’s Day or an ex-lover’s birthday. Even as 
individual identities and lives are re-gendered through this micro-medium, 
so are national identities and cultures. The feminized ‘Asian nations’ now 
appear more tech savvy than the innovator-nations themselves, with users 
who embody and expand the potential of the medium, such as the fish 
vendors who transmit local market prices to each other using mobile 
phones, and the generic Asian girl teen who has become a globally floating 
advertising icon for digital technology. In this context, what 
specifically are emerging issues of concern to feminist media scholars? We 
invite writers to identify emerging areas of research and exploration in 
the digital ecology facilitated through mobile phones.   

Contributors should follow the Harvard style of reference and
guidelines for submission of manuscripts outlined on our website,
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14680777.asp. The title page of
the manuscript must contain the complete mailing address,
institutional affiliation, and full contact information including
phone and fax numbers of the author(s). Submissions must be saved and e-
mailed as a
Word attachment to both [log in to unmask]  and to
[log in to unmask] The deadline for submissions is May 4th, 2007. 

Book Reviews

We also welcome reviews up to 1,000 words of books or other media (films, 
documentaries, videos) potentially of interest to feminist scholars. 
Two books recently received are Gender and Media by Ros Gill, and 
Postfeminist Gothic, edited by Benjamin Brabon and Stephanie Genz. Please 
get in touch with [log in to unmask] if you are interested in 
reviewing either of these books with some details of your expertise.