GENDER IN THE MEDIA!BY: JACKI CONE-AUSLENDER!

PRESENTATION OUTLINE!

!   CHAPTER OVERVIEW!

!   ANALYSIS INCLUDING IMAGES!

!   GENDER COMMUNICATION WITHIN MEDIA!

!   CONCLUSION!

CHAPTER OVERVIEW!INTRODUCTION!

!   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 OVERVIEW!MEDIA 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 OVERVIEW!IT’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 OVERVIEW!MEDIA 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 OVERVIEW!MEDIA 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 HEGEMONY!MASS 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 AIRBRUSHING!REALISTIC BEAUTY vs UNATTAINABLE BEAUTY!

!

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN!

MEDIA REPRESENTATION ARE ONE LOCATION WHERE HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY IS IDENTIFIABLE , PARTICULARLY IN RELATION TO SPORTS COVERAGE!

!HOW 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.2!

FOCUS ON: THE INTERNET!!

MEDIA 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)!