According to Tuchman (1978) women’s issues are also marginalised as newspapers contain “women’s pages” and he uses the concept ‘Symbolic annihilation’ to describe the way women in the media are absent, condemned or trivialised. Diana Meehan (1983) states that there are only 10 female character types presented in American drama serials and whilst men play more subtle roles, women are portrayed as the extreme as either typically good or evil. I also believe that women are represented as a minority within the media which is quite ridiculous considering that women take up over ½ the worlds population. For example, in the USA in the mid-1990’s women took up only 6% of top newspaper management and wrote only 19% of front pages which allows the media to be constantly dominated by males and therefore their authority will be generally expressed. Thus I believe that the negative media representation of women reinforces men’s continuing domination.
Evident also in music Karen Saucier (1986) discovered that women are portrayed in terms of her man, with no status or economic role in the community but have an acceptable place as housewife, mother or lover. This provides a contrast with the ways in which men are portrayed in high status occupations away from home and are assigned more credibility as authorities rather than consumers. This explains why 90% of voice-overs for TV adverts are male, thus reinforcing authoritative association. However if women are ever presented in high jobs, they are also depicted to have problems in other areas of their life for example in ‘Ally McBeal’ a series of problematic relationships exist, whereas successful men are rarely portrayed this way. However, Euguene Provenzo (1991) suggests that in games both males and females are strictly portrayed in a limited representation of roles. He found that women were projected to be passive and anonymous and men were associated as macho in orientation with both men and women depicted to be young and physically good looking. Even in games such as ‘Lara Croft’ in which a woman is portrayed to have some dominance and authority, they still depict her to be young and physically attractive to men.
Regarding the subject of ‘sex appeal’, it is apparent that most women in films and TV especially presented tend to be under 30 years of age in which physical looks, sex appeal and youth are necessary attributed for women to be successful in TV. However this is not the case for men as often male presenters are over 30 years of age. Wolf (1990) believes that media advertising in particular presents a physical image as the ‘ideal’ body image for women to have even though for most women this is unattainable. Orbach (1991) links such images to anorexia and bulimia in teenage girls. This supports my belief that media is a powerful influence and therefore a negative portrayal of women will become visible to the younger generation who are socialised to believe such false ‘ideals’ to be normal and perfectly acceptable. Further emphasizing this point, Beuf (1974) stated that many women suffer anxiety and stress as advertising and soap operas create concerns about body image and the need to make you look attractive to be in competition with other women to get a man. I believe that this ideology that women should be thin and beautiful would not be evident if the media didn’t create a false representation of women as in society this is not typically true, yet women are constantly represented to be sexual objects to be enjoyed by men.
Young people are often presented as an instrument of gradual social degeneration: a dangerous problem. Creating moral panic, often groups are labelled as “chavs” or “punks” in which their behaviour is portrayed to be a threat to the existing balance of society. Groups soon become “folk-devils”, evil youngsters who hinder the supposed smooth function of society. For example the ‘boy-racer’ concept, obviously a percentage of under-20 drivers do cause serious problems but the media generalise this defining that all drivers under 20 years can be potentially dangerous. This type of media stereotyping is often found in local newspapers but also in TV soaps, both ‘Emmerdale’ and ‘Coronation Street’ contain storylines that incorporate labels in relation to young people. This type of generalisation reinforces stereotypes and thus formulated an extremely negative view of the younger generation. There are consequences to this however; often the media endorses the behaviour that it criticises as many young people are attracted by the sensational coverage of youth groups that they otherwise wouldn’t have joined. Not aware of this, many young people therefore begin to conform to these media stereotypes.
Clearly, the ways in which females and males are represented within the media are very different, with males stereotypically figures of authority whilst women are represented to be passive and concerned with little but body image and pleasing men. However the main concern, I believe is the affect this has on the audience and the ways in which it affects their viewpoint. The ‘Hypodermic Syringe Model’ suggests that the audience is passive, homogeneous with the media as a powerful influence that provokes an immediate response from the audience. However I do not agree with this suggestion as it has been criticised for failing to recognise the different social characteristics of audience members. I believe that although the media is a powerful influence, most people are intelligent enough to realise that the media is not a microcosm of society, and reflects a very selective stance. Therefore I believe that the ‘Selective Filter Model’ presents a more realistic approach towards the media as I believe that as Klapper (1960) suggested that selective perception takes place as different people accept and reject different messages. To conclude, in general I don’t believe that the media representation of males and females is perceived by it’s audience to be entirely true as I certainly don’t accept that women are passive, anonymous figures in society or the view that males are aggressive and should therefore be feared.