Gender representation in the media

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Gender representation in the media

Hannah Taylor

 It is undeniable that the media shapes our conceptions of what it means to be male or female. We encounter many different male and female representations in the course of a day’s media consumption. I will now look at the different ways that each gender is represented and the ways in which their messages can be interpreted by an audience and shape identity, with particular significance on the ideal man and woman.

Feminism has been recognised for more than 30 years and the changes that have occurred in society have been amazing. Yet media representations of women remain worrying. Does this reflect that the status of women hasn’t changed or that the male dominated media does not want to accept it has changed? Representations of women in the media tend to highlight the following: beauty- with narrow conventions, size- again with narrow conventions, sexuality, emotional dealings and relationships. Women are often presented as part of a context and working as a team. They tend to take the role of helper or object, passive rather than active. Men are still represented as TV drama characters upto 3 times more frequently than women do and tend to be the predominant focus of news stories. These representations tend to be stereotypical in conforming to societal expectations and so the characters that do not fit this mould are seen as dangerous and deviant.  The cultural effects model would suggest that this inundation of media messages about women is very limited and that it is hard to retain a critical viewpoint. Thus, over a period of time come to accept the dominant values such as “you must look like the models in magazines” or fit themselves into one of the narrow categories supplied by the media. However, one of the most obvious developments in recent pop culture has been the emergence of the icons of “girl power.” As a result of this, journalists, culture critics and pop fans themselves have adopted the language attached to this phemomeon- self-confidence, toughness and intelligence, all going against the traditional image of women in the media. Magazines for young women set up a determination for young girls based around doing their own thing, being themselves and being as sexy and sassy and possible. From examples of pop culture like these magazines, audiences can borrow bits and pieces of their public persona to use as their own, role models can serve as navigation points for individuals to steer their own personal routes through life having already prior beliefs and attitudes which will determine how effective a media message is. The model that supports this argument is the uses and gratification model. However, the selective filter states that choices of viewing depends on peoples interests, work commitments and so on and so these diverse messages from the magazines will only be exposed to teenage girls meaning older generations may still submit to the traditional ideology.

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Masculinity is a concept that is made up of more rigid stereotypes than femininity. Representations of men across all media tend to focus on the following: power, sexual attractiveness, physique and independence. Male characters are often represented as isolated and as not needing to rely on others. Increasingly, men are finding it difficult to live up to their media representations as women are to theirs. This is partly because of the increased media focus on masculinity- men’s magazines, both lifestyle and health and the increasing emphasis on an ordinary white-collar worker to have the same muscles as an athletic swimmer. ...

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