Rodger Streitmatter
Professor
Print Journalism

Media and Sexuality

This course examines the powerful role that the American media have played and continue to play in influencing sexual behavior as well as shaping attitudes toward sexual behavior, sexual topics, and sexual identity.

A strong historical theme is threaded into the course through the premise, supported by the professor and a number of the readings, that the media played a major part in fueling the Sexual Revolution.

The course looks at a wide range of media with a particular emphasis on television, which many scholars believe to be the most influential medium in the history of communication. Other media genres considered in the course include magazines, newspapers, motion pictures, and music. Attention also is paid to the role of sex in advertising.

Specific media products that receive considerable attention include Playboy magazine in the 1960s, “All in the Family,” Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1970s, Madonna, youth media of the 1990s, and Internet pornography.

Course content considers messages related both to heterosexuality and homosexuality.

The course also focuses much of its attention on the specific sexual messages that contemporary media products send. Through class discussions and assignments, students hone their skills in identifying and analyzing such messages.

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