S.E.A.R.C.Hing has been used in order to uncover social differences between different groups in society. Each letter stands for the different categories in which individuals may be socially advantages and disadvantaged.

Authors Avatar

Reading Media Texts Journal                Ellise Daniel

Reading Media Texts: Journal Activities

Week Two March 7th 2004

S.E.A.R.C.Hing has been used in order to uncover social differences between different groups in society. Each letter stands for the different categories in which individuals may be socially advantages and disadvantaged.

S stands for Sex

In society men are usually at an advantage to women. Men get all the powerful jobs, which means they earn more money to buy more possessions to show- off their social status. However, in the media, women are becoming a lot more powerful. Decades ago women were in the media purely to promote products such as household items. A popular one was an appliance such as the washing machine or vacuum cleaner. Women were portrayed in the media as housewives either cooking dinner for their husbands or cleaning the house.

I got an example for the Internet. It is an advertisement from a woman’s magazine in the 1960’s. It shows a woman standing in a really messy kitchen smiling and writing something in a notepad. This advertisements conveys the idea that the woman in still happy and cheerful even in her chaotic, messy kitchen. These advertisements were the norm in magazines up until the 1970/80/90’s. The portrayal of women in the media reflected the change of status of women in society. Women gained rights such as voting rights and entered the workforce. Main occupation for women however was teaching but this wouldn’t always be the case.

Join now!

In today’s society women are seen as much more powerful, sexual beings. In advertisements you hardly ever see a washing machine or vacuum cleaner present, nor is she ever in the kitchen. An advertisement that I came across in Cleo’s March issue in 2003 showed two women holding a stick with a man ‘hog tied’ to it. The women were dressed all in black, looking very powerful. The man was looking really helpless and scared, something we would never have seen in the 1960’s. These two advertisements show how women were socially disadvantaged in the past but now are ...

This is a preview of the whole essay