1. Quilted News: Mixing Hard &
Soft News to Create a New
Definition of Women’s News
Kimberly Voss, PhD. Associate Professor
University of Central Florida
Lance Speere, M.S., Visiting Assistant Professor
University of Tampa
Florida Communication Association Conference, October 2013

2. Hard News vs Soft News

3. Kay Mills:
• “Hard news and soft news were by no
means gender-free terms. Instead,
they evoked rich gender implications.”

4. Women & Newspapers: 1950s &
1960s

5. Women’s Page Content

6. Hard News in Women’s Pages

7. Re-evaluating Soft News

8. Quilted News

9. Why It Matters
•Changing the historical
narrative
•Including women’s roles
•Re-evaluating definitions of
news