Media Flows
Invisible Women: A Case Study of Posters in the Workplace
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Madison Winter Kurchik
This paper provides a case study analysis of gendered content featured in a sample of posters present in a technology startup work environment. More specifically, this study has two major purposes: to establish the nomological network in which a causal relationship between posters in the workplace and the experience of female employees in that space might exist and to provide an initial case study of a sample of posters as a first step towards future, more positivist, research. The case study is situated in a theoretical framework that combines the philosophies of feminist and organizational studies. The case study sample is six posters collected from a technology startup company. These posters were examined for a number of gendered features including language use, colour, character depiction, and roles and dress of characters. The analysis showed that the content of the posters was significantly dominated by masculine linguistic trends and male representations. The case study analysis illustrates a method by which workplace posters can be scrutinized for implicit gender bias. In addition, although it is a single example, the case study suggests that masculine language and images might contribute to the exclusion of women in a technology startup work environment. The primary suggestion to be garnered from this case study analysis is to include diverse consultation in the process of of poster design for a work environment.
A View into a Different World: The "World Journal" as a Case Study to Explore the Impact of American Chinese Newspapers on Ethnic Identity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yaching Hung
The core question that this study addresses is what kind of role the "World Journal," a newspaper which has a huge impact on Chinese people in America, plays in the process of the construction of Chinese ethnic identity. This research explores three issues. Is the "World Journal," the largest Chinese newspaper or is it the largest newspaper in Chinese? What does the term “Chinese” mean in a newspaper published in Chinese by a Taiwanese newspaper office in the United States, and how does it relate to the Sinophone? What are the reasons for its existence and what are its impacts? News is generated through the selective processes of values, interests, and recognizability, but it is also a product of the cultural air. The cultural values it reveals symbolize the ideology of the society. Can a Chinese media organ maintain multidirectional critiques and a critical attitude toward China, Taiwan, and the US at the same time? If the Chinese diaspora is used as an organizing concept, then it is possible to propose new organizing concepts by uncovering deviations from this concept. Newspapers have certain intriguing functions that set them apart from literary works. Chinese people from different regions can overcome the limitations of time and space to read symbols and signs with metaphorical cultural connotations, which through this process of transmission and accumulation enter people’s real world. Can this kind of behavior break the original group barriers, build a new sense of belonging, and thus form a new Sinophone?
