This book traces the turbulent history of queer visibility in the Irish media to explore the processes by which a regionally based media system shaped queer identities within a highly conservative and religious population. The book details the emergence of an LGBTQ rights movement in Ireland and charts how this burgeoning movement utilised the media for the liberatory potential of advancing LGBTQ rights. However, mainstream media institutions also exploited queer identities for economic purposes, which, coupled with the eruption of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, disrupted the mainstreaming goals of queer visibility.
Drawing on industrial, societal and production culture determinants, the author identifies the shifting contours of queer visibility in the Irish media, uncovering the longstanding relationship between LGBTQ organising and the Irish media.
This book is suitable for students and scholars in gender studies, media studies, cultural studies and LGBTQ studies.
1. Queer Visibility, Media and Sexuality in Ireland; 2. Respectably Gay? Gay Male Visibility on Current Affairs Television (1974-1980); 3. Fifty Shades of Gay: Lesbian and Gay Visibility on The Late Late Show (1980-1989); 4. AIDS and the Disruption of Queer Visibility (1983-1994); 5. Coitus Interruptus: Queer Visibility on the Sitcom and Soap Opera (1995-1998); 6. Queer Visibility, Television Drama and the Celtic Tiger (1999-2007); Conclusion: Queer Visibility Beyond Marriage Equality and Leo Varadkar
Biography
Páraic Kerrigan is a Teaching Fellow with the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin. His research pertains to the dynamics of diversity in media industries, specifically centred around Ireland’s LGBT community.
