Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - DP120077
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED332242 AUTHOR: Kielwasser, Alfred P.; Wolf, Michelle A.
TITLE: The Sound (and Sight) of Silence: Notes on
Television and the Communication Ecology of Adolescent
Homosexuality.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1991
NOTE: 65 p.; Paper presented a the Annual Meeting of the
Western States Communication Association (Phoenix, AZ,
February 15-19, 1991).
ABSTRACT: Gay and lesbian adolescents are marginalized at
many levels. Their needs and interests are slighted in the
balance of advocacy work that purports a concern for the
welfare of minority children. Their presence is overlooked
in studies of youth and the mass media. Their existence is
excluded from American popular culture. The symbolic
annihilation of gay and lesbian youth exhibited by
television in the extreme (and by most mass media in
general) contributes to a dysfunctional isolation that is
supported by the mutually reinforcing invisibility of
homosexual adolescents on the television screen and in the
real world. Such invisibility and isolation can be examined
through a spiral of silence process, which outlines the
reciprocal communication-based conditions through which the
oppression of gay and lesbian youth is achieved. The social
psychological mechanism of the spiral of silence also
partially accounts for the inefficacy of oppositional
interpretive practices for disrupting pluralistic ignorance
in this case; the relative ability of gay and lesbian
youths to actually subvert dominant meanings, in an
empowering way, is called into question. There is an
exigent need for more programatic research in this area. In
pursuing research within this emergent agenda, researchers
must confront a number of concerns: the position of
argument in social science; the methodological significance
of the relationship between individuals and subcultures;
the value of critical analysis; advocational possibilities
relative to mainstream and alternative media resources;
issues involving mediated intrusions into childhood
"innocence"; and the range of uniquely severe barriers that
stand in the way of research activity in this area.
(Author)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Mass-Media-Use; Popular-Culture;
Programing Broadcast; Social-Attitudes; Subcultures-
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Adolescents-; *Communication-Research;
*Homosexuality-; *Mass-Media-Effects; *Research-Needs;
*Television-
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