Awards

• Winner of Shortlisted, ESSE Book Award 2024, The European Society for the Study of English.

Overview

From television shows to the manosphere, and from alt-right communities to fatherhood forums, debates about masculinity have come to dominate the media landscape. What does it mean to be a man in contemporary society? How is masculinity constituted in different media spaces? This growing cultural tension around masculinities has been discussed and analyzed both for general audiences and in burgeoning academic scholarship. What has been typically overlooked, however, is the role that language plays in these mediated performances of masculinity. In Language and Mediated Masculinities, Robert Lawson draws on data from newspapers, social media sites, television programs, and online forums to explore language and masculinities across a range of media contexts. The book offers a critical evaluation of the intersection between language, masculinities, and identities in contemporary society and addresses three key questions: How are masculinities constructed, in both public and private spheres, through linguistic and discursive strategies? How does language about masculinity and men affect (and recreate) gender ideologies in different social, political, and historical contexts? What might the language of men tell us about the state of contemporary gender relations in the twenty-first century? Lawson furthers our understanding of how language is implicated in (re)creating gender ideologies and how it shapes contemporary gender relations. Against a cultural backdrop of rising neoliberalism, ethnic nationalism, online radicalization, networked misogyny, and fractious gender relations, this book is an important contribution to charting how language is used to monitor, evaluate, and police masculinities in online and offline spaces.

Full Product Details

9780190081058

Table of Contents

Reviews

Lawson's book comprises a fascinating and timely account of the provocative and complex relationship between masculinity and language, illustrated with compelling analyses of contemporary real life data—a future classic! * Paul Baker, Lancaster University * How does online life affect the making of masculinities? Robert Lawson explores this creatively with the tools of linguistics. Fascinating (and rather frightening) case studies show how a culture of resentment is built in the echo-chambers of the 'manosphere'. But the book also shows how more humane, positive masculinities are encouraged in other sites. * Raewyn Connell, author of Masculinities * From the 'hard man' to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to caring fatherhood, Lawson deftly and comprehensively brings the study of men, masculinities, and language into the age of social media and polarizing (gender) politics. A sensitive and powerful tour of the ways talk, and the medium in which talk is consumed, shapes who masculine people are and how we think about them. * Scott F. Kiesling, University of Pittsburgh * From 'hard men' to 'incels' to 'caring dads', Language and Mediated Masculinities charts some of the key debates about what 'being a man' means today. Linking his analyses to the rise of new alt-right and men's empowerment movements in the UK and North America, Lawson's book demonstrates the central role that images of manhood play in contemporary political struggles and the importance of critically examining the discourses that sustain them. * Erez Levon, University of Bern *

Lawson's book comprises a fascinating and timely account of the provocative and complex relationship between masculinity and language, illustrated with compelling analyses of contemporary real life data--a future classic! -- Paul Baker, Lancaster University How does online life affect the making of masculinities? Robert Lawson explores this creatively with the tools of language science. Fascinating (and rather frightening) case studies show how a culture of resentment is built in the echo-chambers of the 'manosphere'. But the book also shows how more humane, positive masculinities are encouraged in other sites. -- Raewyn Connell, author of Masculinities From the 'hard man' to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to caring fatherhood, Lawson deftly and comprehensively brings the study of men, masculinities, and language into the age of social media and polarizing (gender) politics. A sensitive and powerful tour of the ways talk, and the medium in which talk is consumed, shapes who masculine people are and how we think about them. -- Scott F. Kiesling, University of Pittsburgh From 'hard men' to 'incels' to 'caring dads', Language and Mediated Masculinities charts some of the key debates about what 'being a man' means today. Linking his analyses to the rise of new alt-right and men's empowerment movements in the UK and North America, Lawson's book demonstrates the central role that images of manhood play in contemporary political struggles and the importance of critically examining the discourses that sustain them. -- Erez Levon, University of Bern

Lawson's book comprises a fascinating and timely account of the provocative and complex relationship between masculinity and language, illustrated with compelling analyses of contemporary real life data-a future classic! * Paul Baker, Lancaster University * How does online life affect the making of masculinities? Robert Lawson explores this creatively with the tools of language science. Fascinating (and rather frightening) case studies show how a culture of resentment is built in the echo-chambers of the 'manosphere'. But the book also shows how more humane, positive masculinities are encouraged in other sites. * Raewyn Connell, author of Masculinities * From the 'hard man' to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to caring fatherhood, Lawson deftly and comprehensively brings the study of men, masculinities, and language into the age of social media and polarizing (gender) politics. A sensitive and powerful tour of the ways talk, and the medium in which talk is consumed, shapes who masculine people are and how we think about them. * Scott F. Kiesling, University of Pittsburgh * From 'hard men' to 'incels' to 'caring dads', Language and Mediated Masculinities charts some of the key debates about what 'being a man' means today. Linking his analyses to the rise of new alt-right and men's empowerment movements in the UK and North America, Lawson's book demonstrates the central role that images of manhood play in contemporary political struggles and the importance of critically examining the discourses that sustain them. * Erez Levon, University of Bern *

Author Information

Robert Lawson is Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics at Birmingham City University. He has held numerous international positions, including at the University of Pittsburgh as a Fulbright Scholar and the University of Jyväskylä as a Junior Visiting Professor. He is the editor of Sociolinguistics in Scotland, co-editor of Sociolinguistic Research: Application and Impact, and has publications in major peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Gender and Language, English World-Wide, Discourse, Context & Media, and Social Media+Society. His research focuses on language and masculinities, the application of language research outside academia, and language in media contexts.

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