Jacquelyn Arcy

Feminized Convergence: Women’s Television in the Digital Age

This book develops a theory of ‘feminized convergence’ to account for the gendered strategies, practices, and content that media institutions use to draw women to interactive media. By analyzing the online content designed for the female-targeted cable networks, Bravo, Lifetime, Oxygen, and WE, this book argues that interactive platforms invite participation through the socially constructed skills of femininity. Through close examinations of industry trade journals, interactive platforms, and social media, this book shows how television networks guide audience interactions to highlight the stereotypical qualities of their target market. This research shows that convergent media intensify gender inequalities by reinforcing the gender division of labor where women disproportionately provide emotional and domestic expertise.

Jacquelyn Arcy is an Assistant Professor of New Media in the Department of Communication. She has her Ph.D. in Critical Media Studies from the University of Minnesota, and her MA in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from the University of Cincinnati. Her areas of specialization are television studies, digital media and culture, media industries, and feminist media studies. Her research has been published in Feminist Media Studies, Celebrity Studies, Screen Journal, and Transformative Works and Cultures.