*How is gender constructed in the media?

*To what extent do media portrayals of gender influence our everyday perceptions of ourselves and our actions?

*In what ways do the media reinforce and sometimes challenge gender inequalities?

The Media and Gender Reader provides a lively and engaging introduction to the field of critical media and gender research, drawing from a wide menu of exciting and important international scholarship in the field. Featured here is the work of authors studying a wide array of entertainment, news, grassroots and new media texts, institutions and audiences from a diverse range of conceptual and methodological approaches. The topics featured include, among others, gender identity and television talk shows, the commercialisation of masculinity, historical portrayals of women in advertising, representing lesbians on television, the cult of femininity in women's magazines, gender and media violence, the sexualisation of the popular press, racist sexual stereotyping in Hollywood cinema, women in popular music, media production and the empowerment of women, soap opera audiences, girl gamers, the impact of media monitoring, pornography and masculine power, and women's historical relationship to the Internet. It will have international appeal to readers in the Humanities and Social Sciences, especially in Mass Communication, Communication Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Journalism Studies, and Sociology.