ABSTRACT
Historically, public visibility has been pursued by many LGBT groups in the West, and included using different kinds of media. Print media were especially important to early LGBT rights movements. This chapter is primarily concerned with how media is used for LGBT rights advocacy, the large body of media effects work that addresses how media, particularly news content, can inform public thinking warrants acknowledgement. Internet has facilitated the construction of shared identities and communities amongst LGBT users that have political import in themselves, but not all who claim such identities are involved in LGBT activism. Additionally, there are more complex phenomena that inform the transnational contours of LGBT advocacy. In a related transnational dynamic, the export of conservative Christian rhetoric and politics to the global South has played a key role in heightening anti-gay sentiment in countries such as Uganda and Nigeria, with same-sex relations and LGBT rights now commonly understood there as a Western phenomenon.
