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 (Anderson, 1997: 55). On the other hand, men are usually depicted in high status roles, characterized by authoritative, managerial, superior, powerful and successful relative to women. Moreover, the role of women and men are mostly linked to domestic sphere and public sphere respectively. It is found that women were mostly described as a mother of children but no mention of parental status in men appointee’s profiles (MRTW, 1993d, cited by Renzetti & Curran, 1995:162). Some might say that images of women in the mass media have improved in recent years, yet, is seems it is limited to certain extend. Many researches stated that men are still the major characters and the women are cast as glamorous objects (Anderson, 1997), and women in traditional role as housekeeper far outnumbered nontraditional portrayals and they are twice as likely as men to appear in television commercials as spouses or parents with no other occupations (Metzger, 1992; cited by Renzetti & Curran, 1995). Anderson also stated that images of women as sex objects and possessions of men have endured over time (1997).
These ideological representations portrayed in mass media has directly lead one to link to the gender inequality persisting in the society. It is doubtful that if the gender inequality, the phenomenon in the real world produce what the mass media conveyed, or the mass media invoke such ideology. In order to investigate this question, we must understand the characteristic of mass media.
Mass media including books, magazine, radio, television, films, songs, advertisement, etc. are a chief sources of information for many people and focus of leisure activity. Its impact on one’s everyday life is unconscious yet perpetuating. Renzetti and Curran claimed that mass media is not merely a channel for transmitting neutral of objective information and messages, it is infused with particular values and norms, and it is one of the subliminal and influential ways that shape people’s idea and expectation, one’s world view, perception of others and one’s personal aspirations and expectation for achievement. (1995).
The power of mass media is evidenced in researches which showed that women who saw the stereotyped commercials tends to stereotype their futures in which they emphasized homemaking and expressed few aspirations for achievement outside the home. Researchers thereby concluded that gender depiction in television commercials have a cumulative effect on one’s real life (Renzetti & Curran, 1995). Anderson (1997) also pointed out that there are numerous studies find that children’s attitudes about gender roles are influenced by the amount of television they watch. As media can actively select content of the programs, set priority for information, choose themes and structure dialogue, it is undeniable a mean to exert powerful influence in shaping and creating culture. Following this logic, social construction of knowledge about gender is produced by mass media and can mass media be identified as the gender socializers as specified by Renzetti & Curran (1995). It is proposed that the image of genders portrayed through media, even is based on distortions of social realities, can influence our mental experiences and in turn become part of the basis for sexist social arrangement.
However, why the mass media depict such kind of image of gender instead of other type? Here, we provided two approaches in accounting for the depiction of gender by media. The first one is the organizational theories of gender inequality. This approach accounts the dominant ideological representation of gender in media by studying the gender inequality within media organizations. It proposed the overwhelming male dominance in the power position, where content is controlled, make the content more biased to the advantage side for men rather than a neutral or pro-women type. Moreover, the bureaucratic and capitalist value that most organization adopted forced even, female mass media worker to conform to the existing practice as the organizational culture discourages controversy (Anderson, 1997). This is supported by recent study done by Buresh (1992, sited by Renzetti & Curran, 1995) which showed that although female journalists quoted women as sources more frequently than male journalists do, they tend to define expertise the same way male journalists do and consequently seek out the same types of experts that male journalists seek.
The second approach which claimed that mass media produce gender perception rather than reflection of it, is the capitalist structure of media organization. This perspective claims that capitalist who sponsor the media, promote any values that will sell, encourage traditional views that uphold the status quo and also discourage and stereotype those that challenge it. As research show that advertisements that use women’s sexuality to sell products to men do appear to be appealing to and effective with that constituency, it is not strange to heard that the dominant philosophy of the industry proclaim that “sexism sells”(Renzetti & Curran, 1995). From this point of view, the media owner or management who are motivated by economic profit nay not have specific intent of exploiting women. Nonetheless, it is the mass media who actively create the ideology in this sense.
However, this active role of mass media is doubt by the reflection hypothesis which “assumes that the mass media reflect the values of the general population” (Anderson, 1997:58). It holds that the media content mirrors the behaviors and relationships and values and norms most prevalent in the society and the media only gives the public what it expects, wants and demands. Thus it is the existing dominant ideology of gender exerts great influence on the content that the media tends to convey, but not the other way round. Yet, the content analysis studies showed that what the media depict does not completely match with real conditions in people’s lives (Anderson, 1997).
The dilemma of whether mass media creates or reflects dominant ideology will be solved if we consider how ideology is produced. Abbott and Wallace (1997) stated that ideology is made up of a set of common-sense beliefs, practical knowledge and it conceal the fact that they are socially constructed and benefit some groups more than others, for example, the symbolic annihilation of women by mass media will benefit capitalists. As it is easily produced and reproduced by those in a position of power, the exclusion of women from position of power in media organization or other institution and from the production of knowledge has fundamentally caused the male ideology to be able to present itself as universal knowledge. And mass media, with certain authority, is one of the powerful channel or institution to reinforce and reproduce the existing pattern of ideas. Nonetheless, in order to investigate why these ideologies are created or exist, further extensive exploration of other sociological domain such as capitalism, patriarchy and socioeconomic structure and components is needed. At this point, they are too gigantic for us to include in this article.
To conclude, a system of beliefs is actually social constructed through different kinds of channel, while mass media is one of the explicit and prevailing channel that on one hand help creating the dominant ideological representation of gender role and relation through its power, authority and practice. On the other hand, help maintaining or reproducing, or reinforcing such kind of ideology. Although numerous researches revealed that mass media symbolically annihilated women as week and sexual object, the power and the perpetuating influence consisting in mass media can acts as an effective tool for one to replace inadequate patriarchal ideologies by intensive transmission of the more adequate and more comprehensive knowledge. In short, mass media, as a strong mediator, can play a significant role in controlling the value system of both individual and the society and in turn the interaction of the two.
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Reference
Abbott, P. & Wallace, C.
1996, (2nd ed.) Introduction: Feminist critique of male stream sociology, and the way
forward. An Introduction to Sociology: feminist perspectives: 1-17 London: Routledge.
Andersen, M.
1997(4th ed.) Images of gender, women and the social construction of knowledge. Thinking About Women: Sociological Perspectives on sex and gender:145-161. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Renzetti, C.M. & Curran, D. J.
1995 (3rd ed.) The great communicators: Language and the media. Women, men and society:146-180. Boston : Allyn and Bacon.
