Loyola Marymount University

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MAR 2604 WENNER ETHICS FORUM FINAL


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

BEFORE "WILL AND GRACE": EXPERT LARRY GROSS EXPLORES THE PORTRAYAL OF THE GAY AND LESBIAN COMMUNITY IN FILM AND TELEVISION

March 26, 2004 -- Loyola Marymount University's Forum on Media Ethics and Social Responsibility presents a special program on "Up From Invisibility: The Ethics of Gay and Lesbian Representation in Media," on Monday, March 29, at 7:15 p.m. in Ahmanson Auditorium (University Hall 1000). The Forum will feature a keynote lecture by Dr. Larry Gross of the University of Southern California.

Gross' presentation will examine how minority and mainstream media were instrumental in bringing together a community that was able to organize a movement and demand change. In his analysis, Gross focuses on the powerful role that media plays in portraying gay people to the majority and to gay people themselves, in ways that have perpetuated harmful stereotypes and, eventually, also in ways that have begun to reverse some of that harm.

Currently, Gross is Professor and Director of the School of Communication at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. Prior to his tenure at USC, Gross was the Sol Worth Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Deputy Dean of their Annenberg School for Communication.

For a twenty-year period at Penn, Gross co-directed the $1.5 million Cultural lndicators Project, which focused on television content and its influence on viewer attitudes and behavior. He is the author several groundbreaking books including Up From Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America (Columbia University Press) and Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing (University of Minnesota Press), among others.

This program is one in a series of LMU's Forum on Media Ethics and Social Responsibility, and is co-sponsored by the School of Film and Television and the College of Communications. The program is hosted by Dr. Lawrence Wenner, LMU's Von der Ahe Professor of Communication and Ethics, who will direct an audience question and answer session following the presentation. The event is free for all members of the LMU community and the public. For more information, contact 310.338.2992.

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