Comparing US and World Covers for Time Magazine – by David Harris Gershon

A great resource for talking about social construction of reality and perceptions/knowledge about the world! 

“Yes, what you see is TIME devoting its cover in international markets to a critical moment in Egypt’s revolution – perhaps the most important global story this week – while offering Americans the chance to contemplate their collective navels (with a rather banal topic and supposition, to boot).

This is not an isolated incident, for perusing TIME’s covers reveals countless examples of the publication tempting the world with critical events, ideas or figures, while dangling before Americans the chance to indulge in trite self-absorption.”

time

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/25/1039957/-STUNNING-Comparing-U-S-World-Covers-for-TIME-Magazine#

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Intersectionality: Feminism Can’t Be Just for White Women by BY JAMIE NESBITT GOLDEN, Salon.com

“Because for most of us, intersectionality isn’t a buzzword or a catchphrase. It’s our life. When Quvenzhané Wallis was insulted by the Onion, brown feminists were told by their white allies to take the joke or reclaim the word used to insult a 9-year-old girl. Others, as Clutch writer Kirsten West Savali pointed out, chose to remain silent. When George Zimmerman was freed by five white women, many white feminist allies still chose to remain silent. Our stories are ignored or half-told or erased completely. (A perfunctory Google search about the hashtag will yield several stories from sites like Jezebel and Al Jazeera where Kendall’s involvement has been minimized or glossed over — Jezebel has since edited the story to include Kendall’s contribution.) These aggressions — both micro and macro — along with a host of others, have made bridging the divide nearly impossible.

Honestly, there is little expectation of real, radical change. If this current kerfuffle has taught us anything, it’s that we don’t need to rely on mainstream feminist sites to tell our stories or champion us. It would be nice, though. But some of us remain hopeful that — now that this conversation is public — it will continue in an open and honest way. And it won’t be nice, or pretty, but it will finally be productive.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/15/feminism_cant_be_just_for_white_women/

New Book — African American women in the news: Gender, race and class in journalism (Routledge, June 2013) by Marian Meyers

From CRT-NET: “African American Women in the News offers the first in-depth examination of the varied representations of Black women in American journalism, from analyses of coverage of domestic abuse and “crack mothers” to exploration of new media coverage of Michelle Obama on Youtube. Marian Meyers interrogates the complex and often contradictory images of African American women in news media through detailed studies of national and local news, the mainstream and Black press, and traditional news outlets as well as newer digital platforms. She argues that previous studies of African Americans and the news have largely ignored the representations of women as distinct from men, and the ways in which socioeconomic class can be a determining factor in how black women are portrayed in the news. Meyers also proposes that a pattern of paternalistic racism, as distinct from the “modern” racism found in previous studies of news coverage of African Americans, is more likely to characterize the media’s treatment of African American women. Drawing on critical cultural studies and black feminist theory concerning representation and the intersectionality of gender, race and class, Meyers goes beyond the cultural myths and stereotypes of African American women to provide an updated portrayal of Black women today.”

I haven’t read it, but it looks interesting!