Why do the mass media in a capitalist society allow no genuine diversity and can only produce dominant "ideological" representations of gender roles and relations

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The BA (Hons) Art and Design in Education

SD373 Cultural Identity

Lecturer: Yeung Yang

Essay topic:

Why do the mass media in a capitalist society allow no genuine diversity and can only produce dominant “ideological” representations of gender roles and relations

By

Ho Shun Shing

03848738t

        

        

Ideology as defined by Abbott and Wallace “a pattern of ideas included both factual and evaluative, which purports to explain and legitimate the social structure and culture of a social group or society and which serves to justify social actions which are in accordance with that pattern of ideas (1997:9).” In short, it is a system of beliefs that distorts reality at the same time that it provides justification for the status quo. It shapes our everyday feelings, thoughts and actions. The dominant ideologies stated by Abbott and Wallace (1997), can further serve to construct certain aspects of the social world as natural and universal so as to make it unquestionable and unchangeable. Hence, the ideas that dominant ideology conveyed can be treated as natural and universal and thereby protected from the charge of being socially produced. The ideology of femininity and masculinity is one of the typical examples of the dominant ideology that is manifested, accepted and communicated in almost all of the societies. In this article, we particularly shed the light on the dominant ideological representations of gender roles and relations portrayed through mass media. Through revealing the images of men and women that are portrayed in the mass media, we hope to generated the dominant ideological representation of both male and female role and their relation, then examine how and why mass media is relating to such ideology.

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        Before exploring to the rationale behind the relationship between dominant ideological gender role and mass media. It is necessary for us to have a glance of what exactly the dominant ideological gender role and relations are conveyed in mass media in general. Anderson stated that the image of gender roles in the mass media shows that women and men are portrayed in stereotyped ways. It is documented that women tend to be portrayed in roles in which they are trivialized, condemned, narrowly defined, subordinated, resulting in the symbolic annihilation of women by the media as Tuchman, Daniels and Benet suggested ...

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