Gender, Media and Voice: Communicative Injustice and Public Speech

This book explores the increasing imperatives to speak up, speak out, and 'find one's voice in contemporary media culture, particularly for women. However, there is a growing gap between the promise of voice and its actual existence, with communicative injustice operating in more insidious ways. The author critiques the optimistic claims about the 'unleashing of women's voices post-#MeToo and examines the ways that women's speech continues to be trivialized and devalued. Communicative justice is about collectively transforming the whole communicative terrain.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 193 pages
Publication date: 22 July 2021
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This book delves into the growing necessity to express oneself, to speak out, and to find one's voice in contemporary media culture. It examines how, particularly for women, this represents a significant departure from the historical idealization of silence and demureness. However, the author contends that there is a widening and harmful gap between the alluring promise of voice and the reality of voice as it exists. While brutal instruments like the ducking stool and scolds bridle are no longer employed to punish women's speech, Kay suggests that communicative injustice now operates in much more insidious ways. The diverse chapters explore the mediated 'voices of women, including Monica Lewinsky, Hannah Gadsby, Diane Abbott, and Yassmin Abdel-Magied, as well as the challenges and opportunities of gossip, nagging, and the 'traumatized voice' in television talk shows. It critiques the optimistic claims about the 'unleashing of women's voices' post-#MeToo and examines how women's speech continues to be trivialized and devalued. Communicative justice, the author argues, is not about empowering individuals to 'find their voice' but about collectively transforming the entire communicative terrain.

Communicative justice, the author argues, is not about empowering individuals to 'find their voice, but about collectively transforming the whole communicative terrain.

The diverse chapters explore the mediated 'voices of women, including Monica Lewinsky, Hannah Gadsby, Diane Abbott, and Yassmin Abdel-Magied, as well as the challenges and opportunities of gossip, nagging, and the 'traumatized voice' in television talk shows.

It critiques the optimistic claims about the 'unleashing of women's voices' post-#MeToo and examines how women's speech continues to be trivialized and devalued.

Weight: 273g
Dimension: 210 x 148 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030472894
Edition number: 1st ed. 2020