Gender and the Media Flashcards
What did Tuchman discuss?
Symbolic annihilation
What does Tunstall argue?
The presentation of women in the media is biased because it ‘emphasises women’s domestic, sexual, consumer and marital activities, men are seldom presented nude and their domestic and marital roles are ignored’
What did the report ‘Just for Women - 2012’ find?
Selective reporting perpetuates stereotypes about victims of sexual violence
Photographs and reports focus on womens appearance, and behaviour that conforms to stereotypes
Reporting/advertising glamorises and erotises violence against women
What did the Fawcett Society find?
Cbeebies
Only 30% of the main characters were female
All the narrators were male and most of the anchors
What did Tebbel find regarding womens magazines
They have 10.5 times more adverts and articles promoting weight loss than mens magazines do
75% of covers of womens magazines include at least one message about how to change a womens body appearance - by diet, exercise or cosmetic surgery
What does Gauntlett argue?
Recent movies have featured self-confident, tough, intelligent female lead characters
Female pop stars sing about financial and emotional independence, inner strength, and how they don’t need a man - Beyonce - Independent women
What did Tunstall state regarding traditional representations of masculinity?
Men are rarely presented as sex objects as women are, or judged by the media in terms how how well they conform to a feminine idea of an ideal mate
What did the ‘new man’ content suggest?
Men are emotionally vulnerable
They should be more in touch with their ‘feminine’/emotional side
They should care less about their appearance
Treat women as equals
What does Mort argue about the ‘metrosexual male’?
Mens masculinity was changing in the late 1980’s in response to increased economic independence and assertiveness on the part of women
What did Mort and Rutherford argue about the metrosexual male?
Advertising aimed at men focusing on clothing and toiletries reflected changes in masculine social attitudes
What does Edwards argue about the metrosexual male?
This new masculinity was just a product of advertisers who wanted to sell designer brands to young affluent men
What does Collier note about retributive masculinity?
Mens magazines are contradictory in their representations of masculinity
They continue to define success in traditional terms - work, salary, materialism - while women are objectified in an explicitly sexual fashion
What does Rutherford suggest about retributive masculinity?
The content of ‘lads’ magazines is symbolic of what he calls retributive masculinity - a attempt to reassert traditional masculine authority by celebrating traditional male concerns (birds, booze, football)
What did McNamara say about retributive masculinity?
Skeptical that media representations of masculinity positively celebrate being a man
Analysis over 6 months - men are predominately portrayed in the media as villi ans, aggressors, perverts and philanderers
Men are widely demonised, marginalised, trivialised and objectified by the mass media
What role do Liberal Feminists think mass media plays a major role in?
The social construction of gender roles
Mass media emphasis of females and domestic goddesses and sex objects - believe it has a limiting effect on young womens behaviours and aspirations
What do Liberal Feminists believe?
There is cultural lag between the media which still ignores or trivialises women and social and economic change
What do Marxist and Socialist Feminists believe?
The roots of stereotypical images of men and women are economic - they are a by-product of media conglomerates desire to make profit - aim to attract largest audience possible so emphasise traditional role models
What do Marxist and Socialist Feminists argue the content of womens magazines is influenced by?
Advertising
It is in the interests of magazines/the media to create ‘false needs’ around beauty, size and shape in order to attract advertising revenue from the cosmetics, diet and fashion industries
How much is the diet industry alone worth per year in the USA?
Estimated - $100 billion
What do Marxist and Socialist Feminists argue staying youthful is another form of?
Exploitation that Marxists comment on - the media fuels womens anxieties and ageing, and in doing so creates a consumer market for body related products
What do Radical Feminists feel strongly about?
Media reproducing society
In patriarchal societies men dominate positions of power and have a vested interest in keeping women in subordinate positions
Traditional images are therefore transmitted by male-dominated media to keep women in this subordinate position
What do Radical Feminists believe?
Media fool women into believing in the ‘beauty myth’ - that they should conform to media stereotypes (male dominated) of what it is to be a ‘proper’ women - women are encouraged to link these goals/ideas to personal happiness
According to Radical Feminists, what can the beauty myth create?
A form of false consciousness in women and deters them from making the most of opportunities available to them
What do Radical Feminists claim about retributive masculinity?
Mens magazines than celebrate and encourage retributive masculinity are examples of a social backlash directed against the gains made by women which attempt to compensate for the crisis in masculinity as mens economic and social power declines
What does McRobbie, who is a post/popular Feminist, argue?
Contemporary media directed at young women today is a form of popular feminism that promote the concept of girl power
This type of Feminism looks like a rejection of feminism of previous generations that focused on patriarchal forms of exploitation
What does McRobbie argue about popular Feminism?
It is now a part of mainstream commercial culture whereas earlier forms of feminism were marginalised
What did Gill, who is a post/popular Feminist, suggest?
Media presents women as more empowered in recent year
What are the three stereotypes Gill suggested there are in recent advertising?
The young, toned smart heterosexual using her sexual power to control men
The vengeful heterosexual beautiful women set on punishing her ex-lover
The hot lesbian
What does Gill argue?
That although adverts claim to empower women, in fact these stereotypes conform to traditional templates of male sexual fantasy with very narrow standards of beauty and sex appeal
What does Gaunlett, who is a Postmodernist, focus on/argue?
Mass media and identity
He argues that the mass media today challenge traditional definitions of gender - can be seen as a force of social change
Media provides consumers with a great deal of choice as identity is more fluid
What does Gaunlett reject?
The idea that young men are attracted to media that focuses on retributive masculinity because of a crisis of masculinity
He believes that young men have grown up with women as equals, and do no feel threatened of emasculated by powerful women
What does Gauntlett argue?
That we no longer have one idea of masculinity or femininity, but that audiences bowwow ideas from lots of different sources to construct their own idenities
What do Pluralists believe?
Feminist critiques underestimate womens ability to see through gender stereotyping and media manipulation
Feminists are guilty of stereotyping women as easily influenced
Media simply represents social attitudes and tastes - the media is meeting both mens and womens needs, and if women were really unhappy about the way they are represented they wouldn’t but some types of media products
What is representation?
Process by which the media interprets the world
Can be seen as ‘second hand’ information
Form of social construct
What is mediation?
The process all representations go through
Any media product is subject to mediation - and the production process will have changed the meaning in some way
E.g. photoshop
How have the roles women are allocated been limited?
Allocated limited number of roles Less visible in the media than men Presented as ideals Selected to appeal to men Men = aggressors, women = victims
What did Newbold find about representation?
TV sport presentation
Little coverage - but when there is it tends to sexualise, trivialise and devalue womens sporting accomplishments
What did Mulvey find about sex appeal?
Film makers employ a ‘male faze’ whereby the camera lens essentially ‘eyes up’ the female characters, providing erotic pleasure for men
What do mens magazines (FHM) encourage young men to do?
Dress, smell and consume in particular ways
