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A. K. KENNEDY
It has been well noted that specific trajectories in affect theory like what I described above and that have inspired affective turns across many disciplines over the past two decades are difficult—if not impossible—to pin down or define due to affect’s theoretical complexity and disciplinary border-crossing. Still, many have attempted to excavate and trace various genealogies of affect theory from their disciplines of origin (see, for instance, Seigworth and Gregg 2010), such as feminist theory and queer and critical-cultural studies, identify where new affective turns are presently occurring, and where affect theory may be headed next—including in feminist media studies (Cvetkovich 2012; Tyler 2008). This chapter will review some of these undertakings to define or map the affective turn, specifically in feminist media studies, beginning with a brief overview of the fields of feminist media studies and feminist affect theory. A review of the affective turn in feminist media studies will be followed by a discussion of theoretical apertures and suggestions for ways forward departing from intersections of feminist media research and affect. To conclude—and along the way—I will propose how affect theory has challenged, transformed, and opened new spaces for thinking about the meaning of the “feminist” in feminist media studies.
Feminist Media Studies To begin, it is useful to define the central terms and concepts I rely on in this chapter—namely, feminist media studies, affect theory and the affective turn, and affect itself. Steiner (2014) summed up the sub-field of interest: “[F]eminist media studies deploys feminist principles and politics in researching media processes and organizations, regardless of whether the media content expresses a feminist ethos” (359). Further, feminist media studies “relies on feminist theory. That is, it applies philosophies, concepts, and logics articulating feminist principles and concepts to media processes such as hiring, production, and distribution; to patterns of representation in news and entertainment across platforms; and to reception” (Steiner 2014, 359). Hence, feminist media studies is informed by feminist theory, which encompasses (many versions of) affect theory. More generally, media studies has been described as interdisciplinary, inter- methodological, and as having a broad focus on media messages, images, senders (encoders), and receivers (decoders) (Puustinen 2000). Goldberg (2012), linking media theory with cultural studies, assessed: “Media/cultural studies occupies a rare methodological position within and between the humanities and social sciences, with one foot in various theoretical
