The Influence Of Media On Gender Roles

Question 1

Gunter

Answer 1

‘Heavy’ viewers if TV had stronger stereotyped beliefs than ‘lighter’ viewers

Question 2

Huston and Wright

Answer 2

Males almost always outnumber females, particularly in children’s programmes (most in children’s tv)
M more dominant and have higher occupational status, W in narrow range of inferior roles and less able to deal with problems
Support idea of gender stereotypes in media

Question 3

Williams Notel/ Multitel Experiment

Answer 3

Studied three Canadian towns with varying access to TV signal
Used questionnaires to asses gender stereotypes of the children from areas
Notel and United weaker sex typed views than Multitel
After 2 years of tv in Notel: views became more sex typed

Question 4

Charlton media effects insignificant

Answer 4

Effects of tv on aggression didn’t find a change in aggression once tv had been introduced
Differences before were due to pre existing community values

Question 5

Causal relationship

Answer 5

Hard to establish as research is correlations
Culture acting as intervening variable
Eg Gunter’s findings may be as those with stereotypes views happen to watch more tv

Question 6

Reductionism

Answer 6

Simplistic to view children as passive recipients of media messages of gender role stereotypes
Children actively seek and select info
More of a cognitive input exists

Question 7

Order of the influence

Answer 7

Arguably, media influences simply reinforc existing gender beliefs rather than create
Media perpetuates but doesn’t create

Question 8

Medias power as an advantage

Answer 8

Tv programmes to counter stereotypes and found that this reduces gender stereotyping
‘This Girl Can’ campaign