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The aim of this article is to provide insight into the phenomenon of sexual harassment in the theatre world. A survey among Norwegian actors is presented showing that sexual harassment is much more prevalent in the theatre world than in Norwegian work life in general. Further, the article aims at understanding why the prevalence is as high as it is. Based on qualitative interviews, the article points out some risk factors that shed light on the high prevalence of sexual harassment. Lastly, the risk factors are related to charismatic authority as an important power base in the theatre world.

This article explores the ways in which young adults produce a sense of safety in pubs and clubs. Despite considerable anxiety around issues pertaining to safety and violence in the night-time economy, there is little consideration of how young adults themselves feel about their safety on a night out, or how they achieve a sense of safety in a seemingly ‘risky’ social space. Drawing on mixed-methods research conducted in Melbourne, Australia, in this article I consider the strategies that young adults used to feel safe on a night out. I argue that feeling ‘safe’ is something that is actively produced through the use of these strategies, as well as providing an avenue for ‘doing’ gender.

Beginning in 2014, the LGBTQ Alliance professional network of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) met to develop and publish a broad set of LGBTQ Welcoming Guidelines for Museums. The authors sought to help museums be more inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer staff and visitors. The Guidelines conform to the most recent established standards of professional practice in museums and touch on all areas of museum work; they may be viewed as part informational reference, part institutional self-assessment tool. The Guidelines were unveiled at the AAM’s 2016 annual meeting, and are now available at no charge online (http://www.aam-us.org/resources/professional-networks/lgbtq). The LGBTQ Alliance encourages readers to use and review the Guidelines and to make observations, critiques and corrections directly to the current chair, Mike Lesperance (mike@thedesignminds.com).

Background Music festivals have received relatively little research attention despite being key sites for alcohol and drug use among young people internationally. Research into music festivals and the social contexts of drug use more generally, has tended to focus on social and cultural processes without sufficient regard for the mediating role of space and spatial processes. Methods Adopting a relational approach to space and the social, from Actor-Network Theory and human geography, I examine how socio-spatial relations are generated in campsites at multiple-day music festivals. The data are drawn from ethnographic observations at music festivals around Melbourne, Australia; interviews with 18–23 year olds; and participant-written diaries. Results Through the analysis, the campsite is revealed as a space in process, the making of which is bound up in how drug use unfolds. Campsite relations mediate the formation of drug knowledge and norms, informal harm reduction practices, access to and exchange of drugs, and rest and recovery following drug use. Conclusions Greater attendance to socio-spatial relations affords new insights regarding how festival spaces and their social effects are generated, and how they give rise to particular drug use practices. These findings also point to how festival harm reduction strategies might be enhanced through the promotion of enabling socio-spatial relations.

This article contributes to debates about the value and utility of the notion of postfeminism for a seemingly “new” moment marked by a resurgence of interest in feminism in the media and among young women. The paper reviews current understandings of postfeminism and criticisms of the term’s failure to speak to or connect with contemporary feminism. It offers a defence of the continued importance of a critical notion of postfeminism, used as an analytical category to capture a distinctive contradictory-but-patterned sensibility intimately connected to neoliberalism. The paper raises questions about the meaning of the apparent new visibility of feminism and highlights the multiplicity of different feminisms currently circulating in mainstream media culture – which exist in tension with each other. I argue for the importance of being able to “think together” the rise of popular feminism alongside and in tandem with intensified misogyny. I further show how a postfeminist sensibility informs even those media productions that ostensibly celebrate the new feminism. Ultimately, the paper argues that claims that we have moved “beyond” postfeminism are (sadly) premature, and the notion still has much to offer feminist cultural critics.

This article considers live music policy in relation to wider debates on the cultural (as opposed to instrumental) value of the arts. The findings are based on research into amateur/enthusiast, state-funded and commercial concerts across a range of genres – classical, traditional folk, jazz, singer–songwriter and indie – using the Edinburgh Queen’s Hall venue as a case study. We argue that (1) articulations of the cultural or intrinsic value of live music across genres tend to lapse back into descriptions of instrumental value; (2) although explanations vary from audiences, artists and promoters as to why they participate in live music, they also share certain characteristics across genres and sometimes challenge stereotypes about genre-specific behaviours; and (3) there are lessons to be learned for live music policy from examining a venue that plays host to a range of genres and promotional practices.

This article examines the feminist response to a 2013 online “feud” between singers Miley Cyrus and Sinéad O’Connor that began when Cyrus connected the video for her single “Wrecking Ball” to O’Connor’s video for “Nothing Compares 2 U.” O’Connor’s response criticised Cyrus’ sexualised image, and the exchanges that followed sparked debate among feminists over the limits of sexual “agency,” and the sexual politics of feminism. This took place within a wider media context that has seen an apparent increase in female celebrities explicitly identifying themselves as feminist. Critics of this “celebrity feminism” argue that the sexualised star systems of its proponents are at odds with the aims of feminist politics. This article draws on post-structuralist feminist theory to question the positioning of celebrity feminism as exterior to an imagined “feminist movement.” Using the Cyrus/O’Connor feud, I argue that such a binary potentially reaffirms the structures of power that feminism seeks to oppose, and ignores the ways celebrity culture and contemporary media practice might combine to produce new understandings of the field of feminism.

Female journalists’ experiences of sexual harassment are barely documented in the literature about Australian news journalism despite evidence of its ongoing prevalence. There have been some stories of harassment detailed in autobiographies by female journalists and the occasional article in the mainstream media about individual incidents, but it wasn’t until 1996 that a union survey provided statistical evidence of an industry-wide problem. That Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance survey found that more than half of the 368 female participants had experienced sexual harassment at work. In 2012, I conducted the largest survey of female journalists in Australia finding that there was an increased number of respondents who had experienced sexual harassment in their workplaces. In a bid to better understand female journalists’ experiences of sexual harassment, this paper analyses written comments made by survey participants in relation to key questions about harassment. It finds that most downplay its seriousness and do not make formal reports because they fear victimisation or retaliation. As a consequence, a culture of secrecy hides a major industry problem where many women believe they should work it out themselves and that harassment is the price they have to pay for working in a male-dominated industry.

The present study explores the contemporary status of women harassment in Pakistani media industry taking alongside theoretical consideration of liberal feminism theory. An empirical method was adopted and in-depth interviews were conducted with media employees of both genders at television channels of the country. The study examined six core dimensions of harassment including working environment of the organization, male dominance, women harassment at workplaces, stereotype thinking patterns about women, offensive remarks on appearance of female colleagues and reporting of harassment issues to explore the current situation of women harassment in television channels of high repute. Findings of the study revealed that regardless of their ample role in thriving Pakistani media, women journalists are facing harassment at their workplaces but majority of them lesser likely to report harassment issues. Existence of stereotype thinking patterns about women and offensive remarks about appearance of women point towards severity of situation about women harassment at Pakistani media industry. Interestingly, despite male domination in media industry, general environment of media organizations is reported as satisfactory at large, whereas research concludes with highlighting areas for people working within and outside media organizations to eradicate harassment at workplaces. Keywords: Women harassment, male dominance, stereotype thinking patterns, Pakistani media, reporting of harassment.

Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts, particularly in the UK. Whilst there is a wealth of work on traditional areas of inequality, such as those associated with income or gender, the relationship between culture, specifically cultural value, and inequality is comparatively under-researched. The article considers inequality and cultural value from two points of view: how cultural value is consumed and how it is produced. The paper argues that these two activities are absolutely essential to understanding the relationship between culture and social inequality, but that the two activities have traditionally been considered separately in both academic research and public policy, despite the importance of culture to British and thus international policy agendas. The article uses the example of higher education in the UK to think through the relationship between cultural consumption and production. In doing, so the article maps out a productive possibility for a new research agenda, by sketching where and how research might link cultural consumption and production to better understand inequality.

This article considers Canadian comedian Debra DiGiovanni’s self-deprecatory humour as a performative strategy. In keeping with a performance tradition of self-deprecation as established by women like Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers, DiGiovanni offers ‘failure’ as a comic strategy. Her comedy is heavily reliant upon the framing of her lack in relationships, in self-control and in body image (in relation to normative gender standards and expectations). At the same time, however, DiGiovanni also engages critically with gendered expectations of heteronormative desirability, lampooning thin women, superficial men and celebrity culture. Although her comedy is generally characterized by self-deprecation, her humour also leaves space for an ambivalent politics of gender.

This study is an exploratory analysis of how bar staff perceive their role in preventing sexual harassment and assault. In particular, through qualitative focus group interviews, this study explores bar staff's attitudes surrounding sexual harassment/assault, how they currently handle these situations, and their opinions regarding programs and policies that currently mandate responsibility. Six major themes emerged including their hesitation to discuss sexual violence, their unique position as a service provider, their lack of knowledge (but eagerness to learn), and their reliance on stereotypical scenarios of sexual violence and interventions. These findings are situated in a framework for understanding barriers to bystander intervention and implications for community-based bystander programs are discussed.