Keeping Up and Shutting Out: Media Use Among Female Inmates.

This paper is a work in progress, exploring the use of media among female jail and prison in-mates. Correctional facilities constitute unique environments of media use that warrant a reassessment of conventional approaches to media audiences, including the exploration of gender. First, two areas of research will be introduced that provide a framework for this study: an overview of the issues concerning women and incarceration, as well as the scant literature on media use in prisons. This paper then presents initial findings of surveys and personal interviews about media use conducted with female inmates at two correctional facilities in the southwestern United States. The study concludes that those media that provide the most privacy and potential to take the inmate symbolically out of the environment (such as books, magazines, and the radio) are most popular among the female inmate population. Further, particular content, such as Lifetime television is embraced by many incarcerated women as a way to cope with personal issues, while others reject it for bringing them too close to those issues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]