The concept of the ‘Male Gaze’ means that the media is from a patriarchal perspective and everything is seen though a male viewpoint. I feel this is a crucial concept for my study because it relates directly to my hypothesis that the media objectifies women are presented through sexualised ways within the media.
My second concept, ‘Objectification,’ in this case, is when people assign meaning to people and it affects the behaviour of how women are treated, which is as an object and not a fellow human being. Only certain types of publications objectify women. There is a clear distinction between a semi naked model in a fashion magazine and a semi naked model in a men’s magazine.
Feminist Naomi Wolfe (1991) argues that women living within a Western culture are becoming damaged from pressures for them to conform to an idealized concept of female beauty, which in real life is unattainable. She also argues that ‘The Beauty Myth’ is political as it’s a way of maintaining the patriarchal system in society. It allows women to enter the labour force but under controlled conditions. Wolfe also claims that this system keeps women under great control by the weight of their own insecurities. One of her conclusions is that the public’s interest in a woman’s virginity has now been replaced by public interest in the shape of her body. This research has compatibility to my hypothesis as its stating the ways in which the people objectify women based on things they see in the media.
Word Count: 403
Main Research Method and Reasons
The main method of research to be used here is content analysis, because this clearly links to my hypothesis as I am analysing how the media objectifies women. I will be measuring the content in men’s magazines such as Nuts and Zoo and how their contents objectify women, and this clearly links to both my concepts ‘The Male Gaze’ and ‘Objectification.’
The method will enable the collection of quantitative data (numerical) and it is an objective and systematic method for analysing the content of such magazines. This method also measures the simple objective aspects of content as I will be counting how often naked/semi-naked images of women appear in 5 issues of Nuts, 5 of Zoo and 5 of FHM and tally each time one is apparent and make additional notes when going through the magazines. The final totals for each magazine will greatly effect my conclusion, the stronger the number the more critical the conclusion.
The data will also be reliable because I will be analysing real public media documents, which will validate my research, meaning that my findings will have credibility because my conclusion is likely to be evident for people to see just by looking at the publications.
My sources of data, which will be the men’s magazines Nuts, Zoo and FHM, will be easy to find because they can be easily accessed by purchase and I will also be able to make additional research to support my findings by viewing their actual websites in order to see how frequently they sexualize women.
By using a content analysis, further research can be done, as comparisons can be made between different types of media publications, by this I mean by identifying what types of images actually objectify women, for instance, a semi-naked model in Vogue, or a semi-naked model in Nuts?
When conducting my research I should be aware of any ethical dilemmas that may arise. I must consider the effects if my work is misused. Also, being a female myself, I must ensure that I am clear about the limits of detachment and involvement in my study and let the data speak for itself, as this could result in biased conclusions. Another ethical issue, is that I must acknowledge the possible consequences of my work and responsibility is closely linked to this, because its vital that I don’t make any drastic conclusions with little supporting evidence.
Word Count: 399
Potential Problems
I could encounter a number of obstacles in conducting my content analysis. An important one is that of subjectivity as I must ensure that I do not allow my own beliefs and views influence my research, allowing it to remain objective, because being a female myself could have slight natural effects even if they’re not intended, therefore I must let the data speak for itself, because otherwise this could lead to another problem which is biased interpretation. Ultimately I will base any conclusions on the statistics alone that are gathered.
I should also be aware of the possible consequences of my work, and attempt to anticipate people being offended by conclusions, for instance if I were to conclude that the media does not objectify women, some feminists may oppose and challenge my view.
Another problem is that my research is only a snapshot giving only a brief picture as I am only analysing the content of fifteen magazines from three different companies, which means it will not be able to be generalised as a whole, as the media is to broad for me to cover all aspects. It is also atheoretical, as I’m merely describing the content of the magazines as opposed to actually attempting to explain the findings.
Time consuming is another problem I may come across, because it could take a lot of time and effort to thoroughly analyse the content of fifteen magazines. Also, the significance of the magazine publications are not explained which means the study will lack in internal validity.
Word Count: 255
Total Word Count: 1161