The transgender community in India, commonly known as hijras, consists of people who were born as males but address themselves as females. They have been considered as the third gender in India for millennia and have had specific religious and sociocultural values and roles, but are forced to live in shadows in this day and age. Isolation of this community is also reflected in the way transgender characters are represented in Indian entertainment media. The study analyses two transgender themed films semiotically and the audience reception of those representations by 20 members of the transgender community. Semiotics is a helpful tool to understand the ways signs communicate ideas to viewers. This study applies syntagmatic and paradigmatic analyses to understand how images are used to represent and relay information to the audience. Reception theory along with double colonization has been incorporated in this study to analyse the ways in which the transgender community interprets the representations in entertainment media.

About 30 million women in the U.S. are estimated to be victims of sex crimes in their lifetimes. However, sex crimes, especially those committed against immigrants are the least reported crime in the country. Some sex crime victims say the fear of media criticism discourages them from reporting the crime. in May 2011, an African maid working at a New York hotel accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former director of the International Monetary Fund, of sexually assaulting her. This qualitative content analysis examined the coverage of the DSK case, by three leading international newspapers: the New York Times, the Guardian and Le Monde. Findings suggest that Strauss-Kahn received more favorable coverage than Diallo. Frames identified in the coverage include the importance of status/prominence, race, culture differences, victim-blaming, male privilege, socioeconomic differences and focus on appearance. the study recommends that news organizations avoid judgmental coverage of sex crimes and consider identifying victims by allowing them to tell their side of the story.