PD Dr. habil. Kathrin Friederike Müller
Department of Communication
Bispinghof 9-14
D-48143 Münster
Tel.: +49 251 83-24260
kathrin.mueller@uni-muenster.de
Consultation hour
Thursday 13.15-14.15 after appointment via mail in the previous week
Department of Communication
Bispinghof 9-14
D-48143 Münster
Tel.: +49 251 83-24260
kathrin.mueller@uni-muenster.de
Thursday 13.15-14.15 after appointment via mail in the previous week
Born in 1978 in Bochum (Germany), schooling and university entrance-diploma in Celle (Germany). From 1997 to 2003 studies in Communications, Dramatics and Comparative Literature at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and at Université Charles-de-Gaulle - Lille 3. After reaching a master’s degree, Kathrin Müller did a PhD at at the Department of Communications and Media Culture, Leuphana University Lüneburg, which she passed with distinction in 2009. Her doctoral thesis discusses the appropriation and usage of Brigitte, a German women’s magazine. In brief, it examines how the reception of Brigitte is linked to biography, everyday life and doing gender.
Before starting to work at the University, Kathrin Müller worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Leuphana University from 2010 until 2012. In advance, she was employed as a research assistant for the joint research project Spitzenfrauen im Fokus der Medien. Die mediale Repräsentation von weiblichen und männlichen Führungskräften in Politik, Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft (Head: Prof. Dr. Jutta Röser). During 2005 until 2008, she was a lecturer at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Additionally, she taught two semesters at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 2005.
The study analyzes meaning production during the reception of Brigitte, a German women’s magazine. Thus, the study opens up new perspectives on reading women’s magazines by focusing on the relation between society, gender and the appropriation of women’s magazines. Based on a profound theoretical background, three aspects of reception are analyzed: The study examines how women’s magazines are used 1.) at different ages and during different biographical stages, 2.) in everyday life and 3.) for (un)doing gender while reading them. It focusses on the idea that analyzing the appropriation of women’s magazines is tailor made for understanding gender-related media use and how gender is de- or deconstructed during appropriation, because women’s magazines explicitly broach the issue of femininity and gender-related interests.
A media-biographical interview, a guided interview and a copy test were triangulated. A detailed ethnographically oriented analysis on the appropriation of women’s magazines was conducted by questioning 19 female readers of Brigitte with different biographical and social backgrounds. The findings allow an extraordinary insight into the meaning of gender-related media use. They show that readers use the medium as a “compendium of female everyday culture“. Gender is articulated during appropriation. Furthermore, the (de-)construction of gender becomes visible as a productive, but not subversive element of reception: Femininity is enhanced; nevertheless gender binary and therefore power and hierarchies are the reproduced.
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