(In)Visible (a)sexuality? Media discourses and representations on asexuality in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Alcaire, Rita
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/100933; https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-7982_38_2
• topic: Asexuality; Mass media; Representations; Asexual activism; Human rights; Assexualidade; Mass media; Ativismo assexual; Direitos humanos; Portugal

This article uses multimodal analysis to explore the representation of asexuality in Portuguese mainstream media from 2011– 2017. After an overview of how the concept of asexuality has been discussed in scientific literature, I briefly address how its relationship with the media has been an object of study internationally and how the concept captured media attention in Portugal. I then proceed to a multimodal analysis of a collection of media stories on asexuality in Portuguese print (newspaper and magazines) and broadcast (radio, television and internet) mainstream media, identifying major themes and then considering the critical trends and absences. The major tendency points to a positive portrayal of asexuality as part of the human experience and puts asexually identified people centre stage, owning the narratives about themselves.