Essay 5 Flashcards
Introduction to #LIKEAGIRL campaign.
The role of media in identity formation is complex and contested. In order to understand the impact of media in one’s identity, it is important to consider the media as agents of socialization, carriers of culture and ways of communicating ideologies. #LikeAGirl
What are Binary Oppositions?
The biological essentialist sees gender as being based on genetic, biological and psychological differences. It holds that men and women are essentially different in their biological and emotional make-up, and that this determines how they feel and act. An essentialist would argue that due to hormones and physiology, women are naturally more nurturing and gentle, while men are more powerful and aggressive because of testosterone. Essentialism reduces everything to inescapable binary oppositions with no possibility of change, deviation or development.
Binary oppositions refers to a means of classification that splits the world into a set off dualistic opposing categories, such as male and female or black and white. The concept of opposition or duality is fundamental in the organization of language. In this, we see how words can be truly understood in relation to other words. We wouldn’t understand the concept of heat without understanding the concept of cold. Based on this understanding, we see how our perception of men and women being binary oppositions can only mean that women are what men are not and vice versa.
Basic Stereotypes
- Gender stereotypes
- Men lead
- Girls throw badly
- Girls swing badly when playing golf
- Colours
- Stance
- Weak emotional dance art fashion
- Dominant sporty stronger and faster decision-makers
Implied Narrative Intended message
It is important to consider what the image suggests about the implied message of the advertisement. The image may tell a story about what would have happened immediately before and immediately after the image was take. The reader will have to consider who the target audience was meant to be and how we are positioned in relation to the text.
- Promote confidence by using a phrase usually perceived as negative
- Aims to speak out against female stereotypes and negative phrase that girls experience when growing up (puberty)
Target audience
Aimed at women – particularly girls who have just hit puberty
Anchorage
Images are often polysemic and therefore, the audience may not grasp the true meaning of the message by considering the picture alone. For this reason, anchorage is used to ‘anchor’ or fix the image to one particular meaning and diffuse polysemic interpretations. Anchorage is the use of text to anchor an image to a particular interpretation. In this, anchorage considers the importance of the synergy between an image and the words associated with this image.
• Text anchors image message, each image has a caption
Counter Hegemony
- Challenges dominant ideology by placing women and girls in male poses
- Uses blue – usually associated with male adverts
- LGBTI reference – the girl in the center is wearing a shirt with rainbows on the sleeves, perhaps indicating the LGBTI community and the importance of disregarding stereotype and historically presented gender roles
Persuasiveness
- Awareness
- Empowers and motivates
- Public stand against stereotypes
- Shared across different mediums
- Generates conversation through comments
- Use hashtag to make social media participation easy
- Hashtag makes it relevant for the age of the target audience
- Impactful (stands out)
Feminism
- Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equality of sexes.
- Some scholars consider feminist campaigns to be a main force behind major historical societal changes for women’s rights.
- Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women’s rights, some feminists, including bell hooks, argue for the inclusion of men’s liberation within its aims because they believe that men are also harmed by traditional gender roles.
- Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women’s social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines to respond to issues concerning gender.
Masculinity
- Discuss the nature of patriarchy (Men or the father being the leader of the house/ Indicates masculine power and dominance in social and political institutions)
- Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviours, and roles associated with boys and men.
- As a social construct, it is distinct from the definition of the male biological sex.
- Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in Western society include strength, courage, independence, violence, and assertiveness.
- Masculine qualities and roles are considered typical of, appropriate for, and expected of boys and men.
- Masculine norms are avoidance of femininity; restricted emotions; sex disconnected from intimacy; pursuit of achievement and status; self-reliance; strength and aggression, and homophobia.
Media Portrayal of Feminism
- Building egalitarian societies is one of the priorities of modern democratic states.
- Mass media play a unique and important role in the shaping of a society where men and women enjoy equal rights.
- Raising women’s legal awareness is important for the creation of an egalitarian society.
- In advertising and magazines, women are usually portrayed as young, slim and with beauty that meets the accepted standards.
- Femininity, as well as masculinity, are not biological, but rather, cultural constructs
- In addition, the portrayed female characters are largely influenced by the beauty myth. They have flawless skin, slender stature and embody all components of beauty as perceived in society.
Media Representation of Masculinity
- portray male violence as a normal expression of masculinity.
- tends to reinforce men’s social dominance.
- often associated with the public sphere of work, rather than the private sphere of the home,
- boys are portrayed as tough, powerful and either as a loner or leader, while girls were most often shown as depending on boys to lead them and being most interested in romance.
- socially powerful and physically violent serve to reinforce assumptions about how men and boys should act in society, how they should treat each other, as well as how they should treat women and children.
