ABSTRACT
The Oxygen Media Research Project is an exciting and challenging research initiative focusing on women, new media, and democratic access to technology. It is an experiment in devising multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches to studying the unprecedented formation of a large, corporate media entity created by and for women. Oxygen Media, an Internet startup company working to develop women’s programming across different media platforms, was founded in 1998 by some of the most powerful women in television, including Marcy Carsey and Caryn Mandabach of Carsey-Werner-Mandabach Productions, the largest independent television production company in the United States (The Cosby Show, Roseanne, Third Rock from the Sun); Geraldine Laybourne, who built Nickelodeon, the first and very successful network for children; and Oprah Winfrey, the talk-show host, film and television producer, and, until recently, organizer of the largest reading club for women in the world. The Oxygen website launched in 1999 and the cable channel began broadcasting in February 2000.
