Sexual Fluidity In The Media Essay

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1.2 Research Focus and Rationale
This research will examine gender and sexual fluidity, analysing its portal in the Irish media. LGBTQ identity has become a topical subject due to the growing social change over the last two decades, and looking at how sexuality is frequently discussed in the media, it can be seen that people in Ireland now have the ability to talk more about sexuality and sexual identity.
Hall argued that the media message does not end with the text but that it follows a process in which audiences interpret what the media is telling them (Hall, 1997). Therefore the media has a significant role in representing non-normative identities. This research is focused on minority identities within the LGBT community, which for the …show more content…

There is a need to recognise and explore the role the media plays in informing the general public. In recent times non-normative sexual identities have become more widely represented in the media. Sexual fluidity and gender fluidity are the idea that gender and sexuality are not fixed, binary terms but they can exist on a continuum. Diamond defined sexual fluidity as “situation dependent flexibility in sexual responsiveness”. (Diamond, 2009, 1) Through research found that the last extensive and well-known study on sexual fluidity was the Kinsey Report (Kinsey et al. 1948, 1953; see also Igo 2007). Kinsey looked at sexual fluidity in both men and women and came up with a scale to explain the fluidity of sexuality. When researching a topic such as human sexuality the data can be unreliable. Reports such as Kinsey’s, which use interviews, are not always reliable or accurate representations of the population being studied (Schaefer, 2010, 43). Gender fluidity will be examined based on Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity (Butler, 1990). While this research will focus on media discourse analysis of a particular group, therefore using a qualitative research approach focusing on existing

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