Feminist theories and media studies

This essay discusses the assumptions that ground radical, liberal, and socialist feminist theoretical frameworks, and reviews and critiques feminist media research. I argue that liberal feminism, which characterizes much U.S. mainstream media research, speaks only to white, heterosexual, middle and upper class women and is incapable of addressing most women's concerns. Radical and structuralist feminist communication scholars, however, tend to focus exclusively on texts and often ignore important contextual considerations. I conclude that socialist feminism offers the greatest potential for a comprehensive framework to address women's devaluation in communication but that much more theoretical and empirical work still needs to be done. Finally, I encourage the recent tendency among feminist communication scholars to ignore disciplinary boundaries and draw freely on literary, film, and speech studies, as well as mass communication and feminist theory.