In academic as well as in public debates audiovisual media have often been accused of perpetuating gender stereotypes and of confronting viewers time and again with traditional role models and binary concepts of masculinity and femininity. In recent years, films, television series and music videos increasingly have shown women and men who transgress the traditional gender dichotomy. One of the central ideas behind this volume is the attempt to bring together explorations of 'gendering’ in different audiovisual media. The contributions seek to explore in particular shifting constructions of femininity and masculinity and aim to provide further insight into the media- and genre-specific ways of constructing, perpetuating and challenging gender concepts in audiovisual media, taking into consideration the interplay of the different levels on which gendering occurs in them. Thus, two articles in the present volume address the processes of constructing, perpetuating and challenging notions of femininity and masculinity in music videos, while other contributions are dedicated to the analysis of gendering in films and/or TV series.

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