topic 4 Flashcards
what do pluralists say about stereotyping being inflicted in the media?
stereotyping occurs because media audience want to see them.
what do liberal feminists say about stereotyping being inflicted in the media?
they see media representations as a product of under representation of women. they believe this will change as we gain more power and equal opportunities.
what do marxist feminists say about stereotyping being inflicted in the media?
they see media imagery of gender as rooted in the need to make profits. media owners and producers need to attract advertisers.
what do radical feminists say about stereotyping being inflicted in the media?
they say that media representations arise from the necessity to promote and reproduce patriarchy.
what did the international women’s media foundation (IWMF) find?
they found that in UK news companies women were marginalised in news rooms and decision making hierarchy. glass ceiling.
what is the statistic relating to British journalism?
94% white. 86% university educated. 55% male.
what is the male gaze? who identified it?
mulvey. where men look/ gaze at women as sexual objects. they focus on physical appearance.
what did wolf add to the male gaze?
they build on this discussing how women are expected to male conceptions of female beauty.
what did the leveson inquiry report find?
they looked into the culture, practices and ethics of the press and found that there was a tendency to sexualise and demean women.
what did tuchman et al find?
they described the under representation of women as symbolic annihilation involving three aspects trivialisation, omission and condemnation.
what did the global media monitoring project study?
in their study across the world they found that about 76% of people heard or read about in print, radio and television news were male compared to only 24% female.
what did cumberbatch et al find?
that women especially older women are under represented on popular tv shows compare to men.
what stereotypes did wolf identify in the media?
the wag
the sex object
the supermum
the angel
explain transgressive roles
it has been suggested by many sociologists, including post-feminists, that media representations reflect the way society has changed for women. Since the 1970s and 1980s, women are much more likely to be focused on their careers, and career women now feature much more centrally, and positively, in the media.
explain sexually powerful
The idea of women as passive “sex objects” in the media, including in advertising, has changed. Gill suggests that women are not much more likely to be shown as powerful, using their sexuality to get what they want.
explain independent
There is a lot of focus in the media on independence and aspiration for women and girls. Pop music is a particular source of this, with singers like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga often singing about women’s independence and control.
AO3 evaluations of changing representations of women
Knight that although portrayals show women who can take care of themselves in ways that have historically been seen as typically male, there is still an underlying conventional femininity being shown in the media. The media still show women conforming to the male gaze
with conventional attractiveness.
how are men represented?
carrying a higher status, bosses/ managers.
stereotypes of men
hegemonic masculinity connell. the idea that there is a particular view of masculinity – of being a “real man” – that is dominant in Western culture. That view includes both gender hierarchy (real men are above women in the hierarchy) and a hierarchy among men: boys should aspire to become “alpha males”.
what is the crisis of masculinity?
where the precise role for men in society is in crisis. men do not need to do all the work or provide for their family.
media portrayals of male characters
the joker- laughter to avoid displaying emotion.
the jock- avoids being soft and uses aggression to demonstrate power
AO3 evaluation of male stereotypes
Gauntlett (2008) suggests that media portrayals of men are changing, with a wider range of representations of masculinity, opening up new choices for men to construct identities different from traditional hegemonic masculinity. Men’s lifestyle magazines are offering some
new ways of thinking about what it is to be a man.
representations of homosexuality
ground breaking. but times are changing and many tv shows have had a range of gay characters.
what did gross say
the media have often symbolically annihilated gay men and lesbians by excluding them together, trivialised or condemned.
what did the stone wall 2010 study find
lgbtq+ people appeared in less than 5% of tv shows popular with young people. 50% of portrayals used stereotypes and 36% were negative.
cowan and valentine 2005
on the bbc gay people were 5x more likely to be shown negatively than positively.
what were the stereotypes in 1980/90s that remain today
campness, association with hiv/ aids, temporary
AO3 of representations of sexuality
There is evidence of some change in traditional representations of masculine and feminine and gay sexuality. Soap operas and reality TV shows give us insights into lesbian and gay relationships, and other images of sexual identities with which we may not be very familiar.
Media companies have woken up to the fact that the gay and lesbian consumer market-the ‘pink
pound’ is large and affluent.
Pluralist A03 of representations of sexuality
As the Pluralist approach would suggest, they are now slowly beginning to respond to what the gay and lesbian audience wants, by actively courting it through advertising campaigns and the provision of media products, particularly in the new digital media
and the plethora of gay and lesbian websites.
what did shakespeare suggest about disability
that it should be seen as a social construct, a problem created by the attitudes of society not by the state of our bodies.
what is disability?
refers to a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term effect on a persons ability to carry out normal day to day activities
what did the broadcasting standards commission, ofcom and cumberbatch et al find
over three quarters (80%) of the impairments portrayed were related to mobility, sensory impairments, disfigurements and physical or mental illness/ impairments
how many adults were covered by the disability discrimination act in 2011?
around a quarter
what stereotypes did cumberbatch and negrine find were prominent with disabilities?
objects of pity
sinister or evil
super- cripples
their own worst enemy
non-sexual
what did philo et al find?
that negative stereotypes were also applied to people with disabling mental health conditions.
AO3 evaluation of disability stereotypes
In the latest follow-up to this research, the GMG and Time to
Change (2014) found, from a content analysis carried out in the
first three months of 2014, encouraging signs that TV soaps,
dramas and sitcoms were beginning to move assay from the ‘mad
and had’ stereotypes of mental illness that Philo et al. found in
2010. There were more positive authentic and sympathetic
portrayals, and fewer overly simplistic stereotypes which
stigmatized mental illness. However, the mad/bad/violent ‘psycho’ stereotypes were still quite common
