Media

Gender in the mediaBY: JACKI CONE-AUSLENDER

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

ANALYSIS INCLUDING IMAGES

GENDER COMMUNICATION WITHIN MEDIA

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER OVERVIEWINTRODUCTION

Media as a plural--NOT “the media” (there is no such thing as ‘the media’)

[Media] is used as an expansive understanding of media to counter a “class bias”

Distinction between MEDIA and ART

Characteristics of Media:

Ephemeral (ie. what is popular one year may not be the next)

Contradictory

Variety of Forms and Content

CHAPTER OVERVIEWMEDIA AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION

MEDIA ECONOMICS: Media messages are not simply artifacts created for art’s sake--economic processes and institutional patterns govern them. “Commercial television is first an economic medium”

MEDIA AND POWER: Media exert power over how people “do gender.” A movie is an advertisement and is never JUST a movie. Provide “models” of what it is to be feminine or masculine.

MEDIA AND HEGEMONY: Viewing media as an institution of civil society that shapes the cognitive structures through which people perceive and evaluate social realities.

MEDIA POLYVALENCE AND OPPOSITIONAL READINGS: Oppositional interpretations of mainstream media texts should be understood in their social contexts.

CHAPTER OVERVIEWIT’S NOT ABOUT SEX DIFFERENCE

DIFFERENCES AMONG WOMEN: Differences in reception to media messages exist across races and within sexes. “Although all women may be held to beauty standard, the standard is not the same for all women”

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN: Media representations are a location where hegemonic masculinity is identifiable--especially when relating to sports. “Representations of model men are important because they present an image to which other men can aspire”

CHAPTER OVERVIEWMEDIA CONSTRUCT (AND CONSTRAIN)

GENDER

THE GAZE(S): Focuses on media construction of the audience.

MEN ACT AND WOMEN APPEAR: Men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at; this determines not only most relations between men and women but also the “relation of women to themselves”

OPPOSITIONAL GAZE: Must consider the perspective from which we look and ask ourselves with whom we identify with. One must also recognize the degree in which he or she participates in culture. An oppositional gaze moves from social critique to political action.

MEDIA CONTENT AND MEDIA EFFECTS: Focuses on the product--what is the content of media? (These topics in particular will be covered in detail later on)

WOMEN, MEN, AND VIOLENCE IN MEDIA

MEDIA DEPICTIONS OF RAPE

CHAPTER OVERVIEWMEDIA AS ALWAYS LIBERATORY AND

CONSTRAINING

GENDER IS CONSTRUCTED AND THUS IS ALWAYS IN FLUX

RE-SECURING GENDERS’ BORDERS “MASCULINITY IN CRISIS”

PROGRESSIVE REPRESENTATIONS RE-SECURE TRADITIONAL GENDER NORMS: “MR. MOM” AND “ELLEN”

NEW TECHNOLOGIES REPLICATE OLD GENDER NORMS

MEDIA AND POWER“INSTITUTIONS ARE ORGANIZED IN ACCORD WITH AND PERMEATED BY

POWER”

Media Forms also always influence social norms that concern: gender, race, class, nationality

etc. They provide models of what it is to be

feminine or masculine.

Ex. The Film “V For Vendetta”

MEDIA AND HEGEMONYMASS MEDIA HAVE CONSIDERABLE POWER OVER AN AUDIENCE OR A

“HEGEMONIC HOLD”

[Media] “...churns out products which keep the audience blandly entertained but passive, helping to maintain the status quo by encouraging

conformity and diminishing the scope of resistance” (Gauntlett, 2002)

The BRING IT ON series is an example of this idea

REPRESENTATION OF FAMILY

REPRESENTATIONS OF FAMILY DISTRIBUTED BY MEDIA INFORM EACH PERSON’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE MEANING AND BEHAVIOR OF FAMILY

“...whether the representations are in the form of ‘family values,’ sound bites from politicans or in the form of the idealized family life of the

Camdens on the WB’s [now CW] 7th Heaven or the McNamaras’ dysfunctional family life on FX’s Nip/Tuck”

Leave It To Beaver is an example of the “ideal family” a four person family with two kids.

Honey, I’m home!

7th Heaven is a different example of the idealized family life but perhaps a more modernized version with religious influences.

Nip/Tuck exemplifies a dysfunctional family but

in a fictional sense.

DIFFERENCES AMONG WOMEN

MANY MEDIA COMMENTATORS ATTEMPT TO FOCUS ON MEDIA’S REPRESENTATION OF FEMININITY AS THE PRIMARY PLACE IN WHICH WOMEN

ARE SOCIALIZED TO BODY IMAGE IDEALS

“Although much has been made of the lower incidence of anorexia in communities of color, its incidence is on the rise, in part because of mediated images of beauty submerge racial and ethnic differences between bodies such that all women are

held to a SINGLE STANDARD attainable not only by very few women but perhaps not by anyone, considering the degree of airbrushing used in magazine images”

(Bordo, 1997)

CELEBRITIES WITHOUT MAKEUP AND AIRBRUSHINGREALISTIC BEAUTY vs UNATTAINABLE BEAUTY

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN WOMEN

AND MENMEDIA REPRESENTATION ARE ONE LOCATION WHERE HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY IS IDENTIFIABLE , PARTICULARLY IN RELATION TO SPORTS

COVERAGEHOW IT’S DEFINED: POWER IN TERMS OF PHYSICAL

FORCE/CONTROL

OCCUPATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT

REPRESENTATION OF FAMIAL PATRIARCHY

FRONTIERSMAN/OUTDOORSMAN

HETEROSEXUAL DEFINED

MEDIA DEPICTIONS OF RAPE

NOT UNTIL THE 1988 FILM “THE ACCUSED” WAS RAPE DEALT WITH FORTHRIGHT IN A MAINSTREAM HOLLYWOOD MOVIE.

“Vivid depictions of rape potentially repeat, commodify, or eroticize the trauma; when deciding whether to reproduce vivd narratives of rape, one should consider how those whose stories are told would want their stories

told”

THE “GAZE”THE GAZE NOT ONLY REFERS TO WOMEN’S ‘TO-BE-LOOKED-AT-NESS’ BUT ALSO BUILDS THE WAY A WOMAN IS TO BE LOOKED AT OVER THE COURSE

OF THE FILM ITSELF

“The way the camera, the audience and the male character (with whom all spectators--male and female--identify) look at women reinforces the male

as active and female as passive”

THE 1953 FILM “HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE” IS SHOT IN A WAY THAT THE AUDIENCE IS LOOKING AT WOMEN THROUGH THE EYES OF A MAN. ESPECIALLY

DURING THE FASHION SHOW SEQUENCE.

MEDIA AS COMMUNICATION

MEDIA IS A MEDIUM THAT IS OFTEN USED TO COMMUNICATE IDEAS WITH THE GENERAL PUBLIC. NOVELS, FILMS, MAGAZINE, TV SHOW...etc ARE ALL

MEANS OF COMMUNICATION BOTH BETWEEN THE TWO GENDERS AND WITHIN THE SAME GENDER.

MEDIA AS COMMUNICATION pt.2FOCUS ON: THE

INTERNETMEDIA HAS CHANGED THE WAY WE COMMUNICATE AND THE INTERNET PLAYS A LARGE ROLE IN THAT. THIS

IS WHERE WE BEGIN TO SEE THE DIFFERENCES IN MEDIA USAGE

BETWEEN GENDERS. WOMEN USE MEDIA (SPECIALLY THE

INTERNET)AS A MEANS TO STAY IN TOUCH (COMMUNICATION PURPOSES) WHEREAS MEN

PRIMARILY USE IT FOR GATHERING INFORMATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. MEDIA HOWEVER, ALSO ALLOWS

THE TWO GENDERS TO COMMUNICATE IN NEW WAYS TOO. THE INTERNET PROVIDES SOCIAL MEDIA SITES AS WELL AS DATING SITES THAT ALLOW BOTH SAME AND DIFFERENT GENDERS TO

COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER IN A NEW WAY.

CONCLUSION:MEDIA DEPICTS GENDER DIVERSITY

ALLOWS MORE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN GENDERS

CAN BE USED AS A SYMBOL

CAN BE REPRESENTATIVE OF GENDER ROLES (SOCIETAL AND FAMILIAL)