New article in Girlhood Studies by Shayla Thiel-Stern. I can’t wait to get the inter-library loan copy of this, it sounds great:
This article raises issues related to the gendered representation in the print media, particularly English-language newspapers, of girls who use MySpace as foolish innocents who invite sexual predation. It examines the ways in which the stereotyped representation of girls and boys promotes the hegemonic discourses that construct girlhood as a time of helplessness and lack of control, and that blame the technology itself, in this case MySpace, for a multitude of cultural problems. Ultimately, these discourses portray MySpace as a dangerous place where adolescent girls flaunt sexuality, where sexual predators lurk, and where boys commit violence, thus creating and reinforcing a moral panic and extending stereotypes about girls and boys, and about technology.
After so many panicked empirical studies of girls’ risks online, I’m glad that I’m finally starting to see more scholarship on the discourses about the internet, myspace, and sexual predators.
Amy A. Hasinoff 