Media portrayals of new issues and previously marginalized people are an understudied dimension of the ways ideas, values, and principles are spread – transnationally as well as within countries. In 2014, networks from Russia Today to Al Jazeera extensively covered the gay rights debate surrounding the “anti-gay Sochi Olympics.” Although this shift in media visibility was pronounced in the United States and Western Europe, our data suggest that the influence of the media is not contained by national borders. Beyond entertainment, the news media has also increasingly covered gay rights as such issues have become politicized. Portrayals of lesbian women and gay men have continued to increase over the two decades since they were featured in popular shows like Will and Grace and Modern Family and these portrayals have and recently spread to shows for teenage audiences such as Glee and Teen Wolf. Increases in representations of gay people in news, television, and movies started in the 1990s – prominently exemplified by Ellen DeGeneres’s coming out on mainstream American television in her portrayal of Ellen Morgen in the ABC-sitcom, Ellen. The central question driving our study is: Does the specific nature and context of a nation's media influence attitudes towards homosexuality?
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Building on this idea, we argue that “imagined contact” even with characters in a TV show can change perceptions of outgroups. Gordon Allport, an influential psychologist, is often cited in scholarly research for his contact thesis – which, put simply, says that under the right conditions, interpersonal contact is one of the best ways to reduce prejudice between majority and minority groups. Information that flows through media – via television, movies, music, books and many other channels – encourages contact and communication between groups and even across national boundaries. Our research shows that the media can play a transnational role in shaping political attitudes towards sexuality and minorities in general, especially affecting the views of more impressionable, younger individuals.
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In our recent work, we explore how the media has contributed to this major change. In the United States and beyond, few shifts in public opinion have been as rapid and widespread as attitudes about lesbian women and gay men.