CHANGING IMAGES OF FEMALE BROADCAST PROFESSIONALS IN THE POPULAR CULTURE

Existence of women on the air has been a site for contestation over gender identities. popular radio-tv magazines are of the major channels whereby women’s “femininity” is negotiated. this paper explored the mediated negotiation over the meaning of gender in turkey through a thematic analysis of the images of female broadcast professionals in the popular culture from the 1970s to the 1980s. it aims to exhibit the changes and the continuities in these women’s popular representations, keeping in mind the particular socio-historical and cultural conditions of those years. the study demonstrates that popular radio-tv magazines represented female broadcast professionals by highlighting their domestic roles to a large extent, both in the 1970s and the 1980s. however, in the 1980s, harboring to whip up the drive for pretentious consumption, the magazines put a heavier focus on their individuality. on the other hand, they adopted an apparently ambiguous attitude to the visibility of sexuality. the study discusses this is not unexpected at all since the 1980s was not only a decade when sexuality and private life was expressed within a discourse of individualization and liberalization but also one when family was praised as the sound basis of conservative society.