{"id":38821,"date":"2011-08-30T10:04:15","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T15:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=38821"},"modified":"2013-11-09T06:03:05","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T11:03:05","slug":"how-media-attention-can-undermine-activist-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/08\/30\/how-media-attention-can-undermine-activist-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"How Media Attention Can Undermine Activist Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sociology PhD candidate Kjerstin Gruys recently guest posted<\/a> about her effort to shun mirrors for one year<\/a> in the hopes of improving her body image. \u00a0As any really interesting and challenging project should, it’s begun to get some major media coverage, including a story at Yahoo News<\/a>. \u00a0When a political project starts getting mass media attention, though, it risks being contextualized and even co-opted by the status quo. \u00a0This is a case in point.<\/p>\n

Interspersed among the article about Gruys’ project are links, an effort on the part of the website to get readers to spend more time on its pages and the pages of its advertisers. \u00a0These are probably randomly generated according to the content of the article. \u00a0So, since Gruys’ project is about her feelings about her body and avoiding mirrors for six months before and after her wedding day, the links center around beauty and weddings. \u00a0The first two links nestled in among the first few paragraphs read “Are you Satisfied with Your Face?” and “A Wedding Dress to Fit Your Body Shape.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By publicizing her project, Kjerstin is trying to make the personal political. \u00a0But one of the only means of drawing awareness to her work includes losing control of how it’s talked about and delivered. \u00a0While she wants women to feel better about themselves, and some may be inspired by her project, in some ways this is also another instance of the mass media reminding women to think about the appearance of their face and body. The inserted links, further, can be read as upholding the very standards that Gruys is trying to combat. \u00a0And in at least some cases, they do. The\u00a0“Are you Satisfied with Your Face?” link, in this vein, goes to a site sponsored by super-beauty project corporation L’Oreal.<\/p>\n

Thanks to my student,\u00a0Kirsten Easton, for sending along this link!<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sociology PhD candidate Kjerstin Gruys recently guest posted about her effort to shun mirrors for one year in the hopes of improving her body image. \u00a0As any really interesting and challenging project should, it’s begun to get some major media coverage, including a story at Yahoo News. \u00a0When a political project starts getting mass media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,218,244,55,2103,2095,129],"class_list":["post-38821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-bodies","tag-fat","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38821"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58713,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38821\/revisions\/58713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}