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Feminist Media Production in Europe

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Stand-alone Project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (P21187)
2008-2011

Elke Zobl (Project coordinator) (while on leave: Elisabeth Klaus)
Rosa Reitsamer (2009–2011)
Red Chidgey (2008–2010)
Jenny Gunnarsson-Payne (2008–2009)
Stefanie Grünangerl (2010–2011)

Online documentation:
Digital archive Grassroots Media in Europe: http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/sortable_node_list_digital_grass/134
Digital archive Zines: http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/sortable_node_list_digital_zine/124
Interviews: http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/taxonomy/term/180
Zine gallery: http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/gallery/208

Anthology: Elke Zobl and Ricarda Drüeke (eds.): Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship (transcript, 2012):
Table of content, Foreword and Introduction:
http://www.transcript-verlag.de/ts2157/ts2157_1.pdf
Elke Zobl, Rosa Reitsamer with Stefanie Grünangerl: Feminist Media Production in Europe: A Research Report:
http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/sites/default/files/feministmediai...

CONTENT
Women have always played an important role in movements for social justice. Using media to transport their messages, to disrupt social orders and to spin novel social processes, feminists have long recognized the importance of self-managed media. In the past two decades an increasing number of women have taken the tools of media production into their own hands; a vital social phenomenon. However, little documentation and research has been done so far on women’s own media cultures, especially so in Europe and with a focus on current developments in the digital realm. Hence, this project has explored the practices and processes of women-led and feminist alternative print and online media production with a focus on Europe: How does feminist media production in Europe look like today? How do feminist media producers engage in discourses on feminism, challenge the status quo and effect social change by producing print magazines, weblogs and electronic magazines in grassroots, alternative contexts?
Alternative on- and offline feminist media were analyzed in relation to scope, stance, agency and action as well as to discourses of feminism. In total, 425 women-led and feminist media projects in Europe were found, which were analysed in reference to country, founding year, publishers, publication language, frequency of publication, main content and use of social media. In addition, 47 in-depth interviews with feminist media producers from nineteen European countries were conducted as well as five in-depth case studies and a quantitative online survey (with 230 participants) to gain insights into the consumption patterns of feminist media in Europe. All collected data was documented within the digital archive “Grassroots Media in Europe” at www.grassrootsfeminism.net, making contemporary cultural practices more accessible to the general public and the research community.
Out of our fieldwork a conceptual framework of features of feminist media in Europe was developed. The study confirms previous research on alternative media and feminist media in particular in that they are mostly small-scale, collaboratively produced, heterotopic, based on subcultural literacy, ironic, interventionist and perishable (Lievrouw 2011) and in that they aim to challenge power structures and to transform social roles by producing “alternative” content and by reverting to a Do-It-Yourself-organized, alternative economy. Taking into account the specific European context we came to identify three discourses on feminism, namely DIY feminism, intersectional perspectives of feminism, and Pop feminism in the context of the new feminism debate in the German-speaking context. In sum, the most important contributions of our study to the field of feminist media studies are (a) to provide a comprehensive overview on the diversity of feminist media production in Europe, (b) to give a “thick description” of the practices, processes and discourses of feminist media production in Europe, (c) to offer a conceptual framework on features of feminist media in Europe, and d) to enhance research on alternative, transnational media and the feminist movement today.

Feministische Medienproduktion in Europa
Feministinnen haben die Bedeutung alternativer Medien schon lange erkannt, um Inhalte zu transportieren, soziale Ordnungen aufzubrechen und neue gesellschaftliche Prozesse anzutreiben. In den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten hat eine wachsende Zahl an Frauen die Werkzeuge der Medienproduktion in ihre Hände genommen; ein bedeutendes soziales Phänomen. Jedoch wurden unabhängige (oder basis-demokratische ‚grassroots’) Medien von Frauen – speziell in Bezug auf Europa und gegenwärtige virtuelle Entwicklungen im digitalen Bereich – bisher kaum dokumentiert und erforscht. Um dieser Lücke zu schließen und um Prozesse, Wirkungen, Potenziale und Limitationen weiblicher Medienproduktion zu untersuchen, fokussiert diese Studie auf unabhängig produzierte feministische Medien in gedruckten und digitalen Formaten: Wie sieht feministische Medienproduktion in Europa heute aus? Wie bringen sich feministische Medienproduzentinnen in feministische Diskurse ein, wie fordern sie den Status Quo heraus und bewirken sozialen Wandel?
Alternative feministische on- und offline Medien wurden im Hinblick auf Umfang, Ausrichtung, Handlungsmöglichkeiten und feministische Diskurse analysiert. Insgesamt wurden 425 Projekte in Europa gefunden und in Bezug auf Land, Gründungsjahr, Gründerinnen, Sprache, Veröffentlichungsfrequenz, Hauptinhalt und die Nutzung von Social Media untersucht. Es wurden 47 Tiefen-Interviews mit feministischen Medienproduzentinnen aus 19 Ländern durchgeführt sowie fünf Fallstudien und ein quantitativer online Survey mit 230 Teilnehmerinnen, um Einblick in die Rezeption von feministischen Medien zu gewinnen. Alle gesammelten Daten wurden in dem digitalen Archiv “Grassroots Media in Europe” (www.grassrootsfeminism.net) dokumentiert. Damit wurden zeitgenössische kulturelle Praktiken der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht.
Aus der Feldforschung wurde ein theoretischer konzeptioneller Rahmen von Merkmalen feministischer Medien in Europa entwickelt. Die Studie bestätigt bisherige Forschungen zu alternativen und feministischen Medien in folgenden Ergebnissen: Sie werden meist in kleiner Zahl, gemeinschaftlich produziert; sie sind vielfältig, subkulturell geprägt, ironisch, interventionistisch und vergänglich (Lievrouw 2011); sie stellen Machtstrukturen in Frage und wollen soziale Rollen transformieren.
Im europäischen Kontext wurden drei Diskurse zu Feminismen identifiziert: Do-It-Yourself Feminismus, intersektionale Perspektiven auf Feminismus, und Popfeminismus im Kontext der neuen Feminismus-Debatte im deutschsprachigen Bereich. Zusammengefasst sind die wichtigsten Beiträge der Studie zum Forschungsfeld der feministischen Medien folgende: (a) ein Überblick über die Diversität, (b) eine dichte Beschreibung der Praktiken, Prozesse und Diskurse, (c) ein theoretischer Analyserahmen für Merkmale feministischer Medienproduktion in Europa und (d) die Weiterentwicklung der Forschung in Bezug auf alternative Medien und der feministischen Bewegung heute.

Publications

Anthology:

Zobl, Elke / Drüeke, Ricarda (eds., 2012). Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: Transcript. (published)

Journal articles and book contributions:

1) Zobl, Elke (2009): Cultural Production, Transnational Networking and Critical Reflection in Feminist Zines. In: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 35 (1), pp. 1-12. (published)
2) Chidgey, Red (2009): Free, Trade. Distribution Economies in Feminist Zine Networks. In: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 35 (1), pp. 28-37. (published)
3) Chidgey, Red / Gunnarsson Payne, Jenny / Zobl, Elke (2009): Rumours from around the bloc. Gossip, Rhizomatic Media, and the Plotki Femzine. In: Feminist Media Studies. Vol. 9 (4), pp. 477-491. (published)
4) Gunnarsson Payne, Jenny (2009): Feminist Media and Alternative Media?: A Literature Review. In: Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, Vol. 1 (2), pp. 190-211. (published)
5) Gunnarsson Payne, Jenny (2010): ‘Sexing the Raspberry’: A Brief Portrait of Bitte Andersson. In: Feminist Media Studies. Vol. 10 (2), pp. 236-241. (published)
6) Chidgey, Red (2011): Abortion Democracy: An Interview with Sarah Diehl. In: Feminist Review, 99, pp. 106-112. (published)
7) Gunnarsson Payne, Jenny (2012): Blogging the Third Wave? Citizens’ Media, Intimate Citizenship, and Everyday Life. In: Mazzarella, Sharon R. (ed.): The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies. Vol. III: Content and representation. Malden/Oxford/Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. (published)
8) Reitsamer, Rosa (2012): Female Pressure: A translocal youth-oriented cultural network. In: Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies. Vol. 26 (3), pp.399-408. (published)
9) Reitsamer, Rosa / Zobl, Elke (2013): Alternative Media Production, Feminism, and Citizenship Practices. In: Boler, Megan / Ratto, Matthew (eds.): DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press. (forthcoming)
10) Chidgey, Red (2009): DIY Feminist Networks in Europe. Personal and Collective Acts of Resistance. In: Transform! European Journal of Alternative Thinking and Political Dialogue, 5, pp. 159-165. (published)
11) Chidgey, Red (2012): Hand-Made Memories: Remediating Cultural Memory in DIY Feminist Networks. In: Zobl, Elke / Drüeke, Ricarda (eds.). Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 87-97. (published)
12) Chidgey, Red / Reitsamer, Rosa / Zobl, Elke (2009): Ladyfest: Material histories of everyday feminist art production. In: n.paradoxa, Vol. 24, pp. 5-12. (published)
13) Grünangerl, Stefanie (2012): Making Feminist Media: Feminist Media Activists Share their Views. With Jessica Hoffmann/Daria Yudacufski (make/shift, USA), Sonja Eismann (Missy Magazine, Germany), Jeanna Krömer (AMPHI magazine, Belarus), and Jenni (Emancypunx, Poland/international). In: Zobl, Elke / Drüeke, Ricarda (eds.). Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 110-119. (published)
14) Grünangerl, Stefanie (2012): Feminist Media Production in Europe: A Selected List of Projects. In: Zobl, Elke / Drüeke, Ricarda (eds.). Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 272-287. (published)
15) Gunnarsson Payne, Jenny (2012): Feminist Media as Alternative Media? Theorising Feminist Media from the Perspective of Alternative Media Studies. In: Zobl, Elke / Drüeke, Ricarda (eds.): Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 55-72. (published)
16) Reitsamer, Rosa / Zobl, Elke (2011): Queer-feministische Comics: Produktive Interventionen im Kontext der Do-It-Yourself-Kultur. In: Eder, Barbara / Klar, Elisabeth / Reichert, Ramón (eds.): Theorien des Comics: Ein Reader, Transcript, pp. 365-382. (published)
17) Zobl, Elke (2008): Pockets of Resistance: Grrrl Zines im Spannungsfeld von Selbstbestimmung und Ermächtigung. In: Susemichel, Lea / Rudigier, Saskya / Horak, Gabi (eds.): Feministische Medien. Öffentlichkeiten jenseits des Malestream Königstein/Taunus: U. Helmer Verlag, pp. 41-55. (published)
18) Zobl, Elke (2009): Für eine kritische Reflexion und intersektionale Perspektive in feministischen Zines. In: Visuelle Lektüren \ Lektüren des Visuellen 2. Band der Schriftenreihe querdurch der Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. Hamburg: Textem Verlag, Material Verlag, pp. 63-72. (published)
19) Zobl, Elke (2011): Grrrl Zines: Fanzines mit feministischem Anspruch. In: Handbuch der ALTERNATIVmedien 2011/2012. Printmedien, Freie Radios & Verlage in der BRD, Österreich und der Schweiz. Neu-Ulm: Verlag AG SPAK, pp.88-97. (published)
20) Zobl, Elke (2011) “A kind of punk rock ‘teaching machine’”. Queer-feministische Zines im Kunstunterricht. In: Art Education Research – eJournal des Institute for Art Education der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. Jg.2/Nr.3: Queer und DIY im Kunstunterricht: http://entrepreneurship.zhdk.ch/fileadmin/data/iae/documents/Zobl-A_kind... (published)
21) Zobl, Elke (2012): From DIY to Collaborative Fields of Experimentation: Feminist Media and Cultural Production towards Social Change - A Visual Contribution. In: Zobl, Elke / Drüeke, Ricarda (eds.). Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 265-269. (published)
22) Zobl, Elke / Reitsamer, Rosa (with Stefanie Grünangerl) (2012): Feminist Media Production in Europe: A research report. In: Zobl, Elke / Drüeke, Ricarda (eds.). Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 21-54. (published)
23) Zobl, Elke / Reitsamer, Rosa (2013): Gender and Media Activism: Alternative feminist media in Europe. In: Carter, Cynthia / Steiner, Linda / McLaughlin, Lisa (eds). The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. New York: Routledge. (forthcoming)
24) Zobl, Elke (2013): Transnational networks of everyday feminist practices: From Grrrl Zine Network to Grassroots Feminism. Labrys Nr. 23 (issue on pop culture), Brasilien. http://www.tanianavarroswain.com.br/labrys/labrys23/culturepop/elke.htm
25) Chidgey, Red / Zobl, Elke (2013): Feminist Zines: intersections of music, gender, and race. In: Mania, Thomas / Eismann, Sonja / Jacke, Christoph / Bloss, Monika / Binas-Preisendörfer, Susanne (Hg.): SHEPOP - Frauen Macht Musik! Katalog zur gleichnamigen Austellung im rock'n'popmuseum, Gronau. Münster: Telos. S. 259-273.

publications for the general public and other publications:

1) Reitsamer, Rosa (2010): DIY Media – Das Netzwerk feministischer Zines und Blogs. In: Malmoe, Nr. 52, http://www.malmoe.org/artikel/tanzen/2125 (published)
2) Zobl, Elke (2009): At the Grassroots: Feministische Medienproduktion in Europa. Kulturrisse. Zeitschrift für radikaldemokratische Kulturpolitik, 3/2009. (published)
3) Zobl, Elke (2011): Junge Frauen und feministische Medien im Internet. In: Magazin für SalzburgerInnen, 01/2011. (published)
4) Zobl, Elke (2012): Partizipation und Empowerment durch alternative Medien. Die Produktion von Zines mit Jugendlichen. In: Seibt, Martin / Bieringer, Ingo / Wijnen, Christine / Fraunberger, Julia (eds.): Handbuch: Jugendarbeit – Medienpädagogik., Salzburg: Akzente, pp. 94-96. (published)

Conference presentations

1) Chidgey, Red (2009): Invited Speaker on the Round Table discussion "Transnational Feminisms: Possibilities and Challenges". Transnational Feminisms Conference (University of Manchester, UK, 4-6 December 2009)
2) Reitsamer, Rosa (together with Christoph Reinprecht) (2010) “Transitions to work of young people from ethnic minority and immigrant groups: between social exclusion and resistance”, lecturer at the summer school “Youth: Actor of Social Change” (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 20 June – 3 July 2010)
3) Zobl, Elke (2010) „Inklusion und Exklusion in partizipativen medialen Identitätsräumen“ within the panel „Ungleichheiten in den Medien“. Symposium: Die nächsten 40 Jahre – Selbstverständnis und Praxisrelevanz der Kommunikationswissenschaft. Fachbereich Kommunikationswissenschaft, Universität Salzburg.
4) Zobl, Elke (2010) „DIY: Internationale queer-feministische Zines“ within Netzwerkmoduls Art Education, Persönlichkeitsverwicklung #1: Queer und Do-it-Yourself im Kunstunterricht, 12.-15.1.2010, Züricher Hochschule der Künste, Schweiz.
5) Zobl, Elke (2009) „Feministische Alternativmedien und das transnationale Zine Netzwerk“, Kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Tag 09 der ÖGK (Salzburg)
6) Chidgey, Red (2009): Chair and organizer of panel discussion „Feminist Media Production in Europe“, Civil Media Conference: Social & Technological Innovations In Open-Access Media (Salzburg, Austria 5-7 November 2009)
7) Chidgey, Red (2009): Transnational Feminisms: Possibilities and Challenges (panelist). Transnational Feminisms (Manchester, UK, 4–6 December 2009).
8) Chidgey, Red / Zobl, Elke (2009): „Alternative Media and Communication Processes Transformed”, Civil Media Conference: Social & Technological Innovations In Open-Access Media (Salzburg, Austria 5-7 November 2009)
9) Gunnarsson Payne, Jenny (2008): "The State in/of the Swedish Feminist Blogosphere: Reflections on the Politics of Blogging", Civil Media Conference (Salzburg, Austria, 4-6 December 2008)
10) Gunnarsson Payne, Jenny (2009): Paper "Beyond Different Wave-Lengths in the Study of Feminist Media". Networks for Methodological Innovation (University of Essex, 23-24 April 2009)
11) Reitsamer, Rosa (2010): “Challenging the ‘anyone can do it’: DIY citizenship and mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion”. DIY Cititzenship. Critical Making & Social Media (University of Toronto, Canada, 11-14 November 2010)
12) Reitsamer, Rosa (2011) “Youth Cultures and Careers”. Youth (Sub)cultures in Changing Societies (Tallinn University, Estonia, 2-4 February 2011).
13) Reitsamer, Rosa / Zobl, Elke (2011): Organization and chair of “Feminist Media Production” stream and of the panel discussion “Alternative media & feminism: Communication, production and networking processes”, Civil Media Conference: Community Media For Social Change: Low Threshold - High Impact (Salzburg, Austria, 14-16 April 2011)
14) Zobl, Elke / Chidgey, Red (2008): “DIY Feminist Action!: The use of Web 2.0 in creating a collaborative transnational anthology & website”, Civil Media Conference (Salzburg, Austria, 4-6 December 2008)
15) Zobl, Elke (2009): Grrrl Zines: Feminist self-publishing across the globe, Mundos de Mujeres (Madrid, Spain, 3-9 July 2009)
11) Zobl, Elke (2009): Chair of panel discussion „Medien und sozialer Wandel", Civil Media Conference: Social & Technological Innovations In Open-Access Media (Salzburg, Austria 5-7 November 2009)
16) Zobl, Elke (2009): Chair and organizer of panel discussion “Participatory culture in on- and offline networks”; Civil Media Conference: Social & Technological Innovations In Open-Access Media (Salzburg, Austria 5-7 November 2009)
17) Zobl, Elke. Poster ‘Feminist Media Production in Europe’. Symposium: Die nächsten 40 Jahre – Selbstverständnis und Praxisrelevanz der Kommunikationswissenschaft. Fachbereich Kommunikationswissenschaft, Universität Salzburg. (Poster)