RIS ID
18751
Abstract
The identities of places do not exist a priori, but are derived from various representations constructed through social and cultural processes. The media is a key producer and disseminator of place images and identities in contemporary society. This paper examines the way the gay/lesbian media have imagined the King Street precinct, one of Sydney’s ostensible gay/lesbian localities, between 2003 and 2005. Through textual analyses of these media commentaries, I argue that King Street is often represented in comparison with Sydney’s other notable gay/lesbian space, the Oxford Street precinct. I find, moreover, that this imagined binary relationship is shifting and changing: sometimes King Street is represented as Oxford Street’s ‘alternative’, and at other times as Oxford Street’s ‘successor’, the ‘new centre’ of gay/lesbian Sydney. In either case, however, King Street is made to rely on Oxford Street for its own place-identity in these media commentaries.
Link to publisher version (URL)
Annual Conference of the Australian Sociological Association
Included in
Life Sciences Commons, Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons, Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons
Publication Details
Gorman-Murray, A. W. (2006). Imagining King Street in the gay/lesbian media. Sociology for a Mobile World: TASA 2006 Annual Conference of the Australian Sociological Association (pp. 1-9). Perth: TASA.