Review of Social Media and Hate

Abstract

cosmopolitanism and consumerism. The first case study focuses on Alex, a gay Australian nurse in the RTÉ medical drama The Clinic (2003–2009), who is framed as modern, cosmopolitan, and neoliberal. The second case study, crime drama Proof (2004–2005), analyzes two characters on the fringes of the Celtic Tiger economy who, through their portrayal as marginal, challenge stereotypical narratives around gay culture prevalent in The Clinic. In the conclusion, it is argued that LGBTQ activism created much of the media visibility achieved during the successful 2015 same-sex marriage referendum. Respectability and mainstreaming are shown to have been mainstays of the campaign, similar to activist strategies of the 1970s. Kerrigan concludes by calling for more diverse approaches in queer media research and expresses concern that transgender people, bisexuals, and lesbians remain underrepresented in such research. This book is an excellent contribution to the fields of queer studies and media studies and breaks new ground in its sophisticated analysis of LGBTQ visibility in Irish media. Through focusing on the interplay of visibility and normalization, it highlights the tensions surrounding respectability politics and minority representation. Despite the complexity of the theoretical material, the book is very readable and Kerrigan makes masterful use of diverse primary sources. While acknowledging the need to limit the scope of any study, the claim in the title to cover media is somewhat misleading, given that this is a book almost entirely about television, or in fact RTÉ alone. Given that dominance, the decision in Chapter 4 to briefly sidestep into the queer press and independent documentaries (which ended up being shown on RTÉ anyway) is tokenistic. It would have been preferable to present this as a book about RTÉ while providing an overview of other media in the introduction. For instance, the diverse Irish pirate radio scene in the 1980s and licensed community media since the 1990s both provided innovative spaces for queer representation. Similarly, Kerrigan gives no credit to Irish language television channel TG4, which included a gay couple in its soap opera when it launched in 1996. A discussion of such material would enrich the analysis about the reframing of Irish national identity during the Celtic Tiger era broached in Chapter 6.