Images of «good mothers» saturate the media, yet so too do images of mothers who do not fit this mold. Numerous scholars have addressed «bad mothers» in the media, arguing that these images are a necessary counterpoint that serves to buttress the «good mother» myth. While mediated images of women who fail to enact good motherhood may promote good mothering as an ideal, the essays in Mediated Moms: Contemporary Challenges to the Motherhood Myth, suggest that this is not all that is occurring in contemporary portrayals of maternity. The authors in this volume explore how images of mothers have expanded beyond the good/bad dichotomy, simultaneously and sometimes paradoxically serving to reinforce, fracture, and/or transcend the ideology of good motherhood.

Heather L. Hundley (PhD, University of Utah) is Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, San Bernardino. Her research has appeared in Communication Reports, Communication Quarterly, and New Media & Society, among other journals. Sara E. Hayden (PhD, University of Minnesota) is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Montana. Her research has appeared in The Quarterly Journal of Speech and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, among other journals. She is co-editor of Contemplating Maternity in an Era of Choice: Explorations into Discourses of Reproduction (2010).