Media and communication

#MeToo has changed how the media portrays rape

14 March 2023

Sexual violence happens in every country, yet journalists have often depicted it as some kind of sensation. “I wanted to find out if this changed as a consequence of the MeToo movement,” says journalist Thea Storøy Elnan.

Critical colleagues may prevent researchers from stepping into the public eye

29 April 2022
Researchers are particularly worried about criticism from colleagues and superiors working in the same field, according to sociologist Marte Mangset. In a new book, she has studied factors that may prevent researchers from expressing themselves in the media.

Game of Thrones tampers with traditional gender roles

1 June 2021
The Science fiction genre is able to move the boundaries for how we see the world, according to Ingvil Hellstrand.

Intelligent robots may strengthen gender norms

30 November 2018
Machines and technology increasingly fill more and more human functions. According to researchers, society’s gender roles affect the development of robots and artificial intelligence, but technology may also shape ideas about gender.

Returned girl soldiers in Congo are stigmatised

28 November 2017
Congolese girl soldiers are labelled violent and sexual, also by international media and aid organisations. This hampers the girls’ reintegration, according to researcher Milfrid Tonheim.

Iranian women become political players through Facebook

20 November 2017
By mourning women as martyrs in Iran, they become recognised as political players, says Gilda Seddighi. She has studied Facebook pages dedicated to dead or incarcerated Iranians.

Design may alter gender stereotypes

7 November 2017
Subconscious attitudes towards women and men affect design. According to researcher Nina Lysbakken, designers need to be aware of their own power to shape ideas about gender.

Eternal witch-hunt for the fat body

5 October 2017
“The fat body carries a secret that has to be revealed at all costs; it is a living symptom that something has ‘gone wrong’,” says Camilla Bruun Eriksen. She has studied the representation of fat bodies in popular culture.

Gender matters in war reporting

27 February 2017
Being a journalist in war zones and armed conflicts is becoming increasingly dangerous. Most of the journalists killed in the field are men, but the concern is about the security of their female colleagues.

Football on high heels

17 November 2010
When the men’s national team loses a match they are called “sissies”, and women who are good at football “play like men”. Both men and women are the losers when gender stereotypes are used in sports journalism, according to Professor Gerd von der Lippe.

Martyrs on Facebook

23 February 2012
Can a woman be a genuine martyr? Is it a compliment to say to a woman that she is “equal to a thousand men”? Feminist activists in Iran are waging an ideological war on Facebook.

Media images of women are getting worse

9 December 2013
The way in which women are represented in the media is getting worse every day, according to professor of Communication and Media Studies Liesbet van Zoonen. However, the representation of the Norwegian female politicians Siv Jensen and Erna Solberg, may be the exception from the general rule. 

Female criminals more interesting to the media than women's suffrage

20 December 2013
An in-depth look into Norwegian newspapers from 1913 shows that most of the stories about women involved female criminals. The fact that women’s suffrage was introduced in Norway went unnoticed.

Sound focus on health or eating disorder in disguise?

7 September 2015
According to Norwegian fitness bloggers, the ideal female body is supposed to be slim, muscular, feminine and strong. However, the eating and workout regimes they promote are so strict, that even the bloggers themselves almost fail to follow them.

Why women's football isn't real football

26 January 2015
The female body is not suited for real football, according to debaters in the online debate forum of Norway's biggest tabloid newspaper. Why is football the only sport in which women’s performance is constantly compared to men’s?

News Magazine

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