Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Gender and media representation
The impact of media on gender
Gender and media representation
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Gender and media representation
The newspaper companies determine what to cover and the one factor that influence what to cover is editorial policy of the news company. The newspaper communicate to the readers through the images they represent, because our daily lives are soaked with visual images and representations we communicate with each other and more importantly make sense of the world (Soobben, 2012).
The media show women in a way that is chauvinist, unfair, and as the public we let this slide through our fingers. While we may not recognize it, the media is very common in our everyday lives and has much power and control over us (Carey, 2016).
1 Literature Review
Studies have shown that women are shown more harmfully in the media, they are shown as joking news sources.
…show more content…
Through this form of stereotyping, it has become clear that black women are further misrepresented. Gqola (2010: 69) proposes that representations of black women is often interesting to feminist writers, also she writes about black women who have been thrown to fame. The South African media legitimizes and maintains women’s reduction (Buiten, 2007: 116).
The representation of black female celebrities in media can be examined from different viewpoint. It could be representation in terms of interpretation of women, reporting of women’s issues, empowerment in the place of work and the existence of women in important reported issues. When we talk of portrayal of women, we refer to the extent to which media describe women (Govender, 2010:11). The stereotypical perceptions are able in our society and issues of masculinity and femininity are created by our society.
According to Trans Media International- TMI (2009), representation refers to the creation in any medium, especially the mass media aspects of reality such as people, events and cultural identities etc. In a fast communicating world where people and messages continuously move at a high speed, media plays a big role in the creation of one’s identity. Some people get influenced by media portrayals of their favorite celebs
…show more content…
Representations are selective just in the logic that, out of a huge amount of material, the media truly show very little (Govender, 2010:11).
Like for instance radio news, only few stories are carefully chosen to become part of a newspapers front page headlines and stories are edited from several hours to just a few minutes. Newspapers have more space to tell news, but it also has many stories that get edited down from numerous pages to just a few lines or do not get printed. A tabloid newspaper is more likely to tell a story about a popular vocalist’s lack of clothes unlike other newspapers. Similarly, a detailed examination of politicians of a particualr party is more likely to be reported in business types of newspapers (Matsebatlela,
In “Reporting the News” by George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert L. Lineberry, the main idea is how the media determines what to air, where to get said stories that will air, how the media presents the news, and the medias effect on the general public. “Reporting The News” is a very strong and detailed article. The authors’ purpose is to inform the readers of what goes on in the news media. This can be inferred by the authors’ tone. The authors’ overall tone is critical of the topics that are covered. The tone can be determined by the authors’ strong use of transitions, specific examples, and phrases or words that indicate analysis. To summarize, first, the authors’ indicate that the media chooses its stories that will air
Miss Representation, a documentary film produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom released in 2011, presents a contemporary issue which is the misrepresentation of women’s portrayal in mass media. The media is powerful in shaping audience’s belief in how to be feminine. Women are expected to be beautiful, attractive, and even sexual on the media to attract audience’s attention. Also, the film points out the existence of social system in which men are considered more powerful and dominant than women. Finally, the film tries to increase the awareness of female real value including capability, educational achievement, and leadership. Consuming the media wisely to eliminate gendered stereotypes can help young women build their confidence and be successful.
The Black Public Relations Society hosted a general body meeting titled, “Black Women in the Media” in the Tuttleman Learning Center. The meeting was conducted by two of the black female students one of which was the president. Going into the meeting, I felt eager to get talking about the negative stereotypes on women. Now that I look back, I didn’t even think about the black women of the LGBTQIA+ community and how they are portrayed in the media.
Pieterse , J. (1992) White on Black Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture. London: Yale University Press.
The title Miss Representation emphasizes that the way we portray women in the media is a
Network news appears to convey more stereotyped impressions, a narrower range of positive roles for blacks than for whites. Representations of whites in network news are more varied and more positive than of blacks, not because of conscious bias, but because of the way conventional journalistic norms and practices interact with political and social reality. The findings raise questions about the journalist ability to represent the reality of black America while adhering to the professional practices that currently shape network news. Mainstream news portrayed African American as criminals, homeless beggars, welfare queens, ghetto-dwelling gang members, or drug addicts in American Society. Perpetuation of young black men as dangerous has been planted in the mind of American society not only by words and images projected by journalists but also in the mainstream news especially. Television particularly the news has the least positive representation of African Americans especially young males. When television became a house-hold item in the early 1950, this was a dark time in American History because there were huge racial tensions brewing in the south. The news show African American mostly young males getting abuse, hosed by police and attack by police dogs during a peaceful protest. It gives the negative images that African American was unlawful people and need to be dealt with swift action. Most of the time African Americans weren’t resisting but the news media depicted the images that they were and police were just doing their job to keep the peace.
In Jacqueline Bobo's article, The Color Purple : Black Women as Cultural Readers, she discusses the way in which black women create meaning out of the mainstream text of the film The Color Purple. In Leslie B. Innis and Joe R. Feagin's article, The Cosby Show: The View From the Black Middle Class, they are examining black middle-class responses to the portrayal of black family life on The Cosby Show. In their respective articles, Bobo, and Innis and Feagin are investigating the representation of race, particularly African American race, in the mass media. The chief concerns of their investigations lie in how African Americans deal with the way these representations portray them individually and their social group as a whole. In this paper I will compare the issues in each study, analyze the larger sociopolitical implications of the media representations and apply a similar framework of concerns to my own reception analysis project.
... model for how the entertainment and media industries depict black people must change. Despite the progress that blacks have worked toward since the days of slavery, society continues to give in to the monetary benefits of producing self-disparaging entertainment and media. It is not only up to the directors, editors, producers and writers to establish this change, but it should also be the demand of the people, or the consumer. If the images of black people in the media are improved the outlook within the community will improve as well. Not only will positive goals and achievements become more realistic for black people if the media outlets discontinue their practice of equating blacks with aggression, lawlessness and violence, but a greater good will also result for whites, which would be represented by a true autonomy and equality in American society.
The media is mostly governed by white men. “Women own only 5.8% of all television stations and 6% of radio stations” (Newsom, 2011). “The limited employment of women in decision-making roles is the key element in understanding how gender inequality is woven into the media industry” (Watkins & Emerson, 2000, p. 155). Collins (1999) points out that elite groups manipulate controlling images that marginalize specific groups. As a result, girls and women are encouraged to achieve men’s ideals, impossible beauty standards; young men who are used to such models are judgmental toward real women (Newsom, 2011).
The lack of diversity inclusion in the media and entertainment has become a major discussion in popular culture over recent years, specifically with the rise of trends such as #OscarsSoWhite. Although Hollywood has come a long way from the days of minstrel shows and having white actors use blackface to portray characters of color, it still has far to go before present-day media becomes truly representative of the diversity of America and the rest of the world we live in. For many years, actors of colors have struggled to find roles in Hollywood that were multidimensional, challenging, and impactful in the overall piece that they are performing in. Black women specifically are often confined to stereotypes such as the hypersexual jezebel,
For example, In 2011, the Commission of the image of women in the media(Commission sur l’image des femmes dans les medias) in France, published an annual report. The commission was organized in 2009, in the social context that the women are not well represented in the media. The report tried to figure out the percentage of female ‘experts’ in the media including radio and TV. According to the report, 80% of the experts who appeared in the media were male. Considering the fact that the casting process is totally dependent on the decision of the production and their idea of ‘who is more likely to appear as serious and trustful person’, the result is quite shocking. It shows that the image of female in the media is rather a testifier or a victim, than an expert. The social position of women has been significantly improved in last hundred years, but how media treat them has not been pulled out from the traditional-patriarchal view point. This could be very dangerous because mass-media is accessible for people of all social classes and age groups, and for the most of t...
The media and television broadcasting of women is not all negative. But current culture is constantly taking the easy way out. It refuses to explore different ways in which women can be represented. That is why for years to come women will still be seen as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked or seen as unimportant entities. Whether it’s motherly birds on kids TV shows or scantily clad dancers on Monday Night Football, the portrayal of women has yet to catch up with what real life women are like. There are single women, obese women, and smart women. Women who are single mom’s, lesbians, or don’t have any children at all. Women are able to do the same type of work as men without being manly. The day that women are treated as equals on television will whole new level of success for feminism.
Her research was very effective; however, she did not suggest ways to change the way women are portrayed in our media. On top of that, she only used a few black magazines such as Essence, Honey and King to compare the advertisements. Arguments the author makes that contributes to the construction of the Single Black Female experience Baker analysis contributes to the sociological discussion of intersectionality and the ways in which race and gender role interconnect in the lives of African American women in the media. Baker argued that a lot of Black women are underrepresented in our media, even when displayed in our own black-oriented advertisement, it is slightly a chance for us to be portrayed in a positive way. A black woman is known as strong and independent, which is a positive trait in the African American media, to the rest of the world those traits are negative.
When people imagine women in the media we often imagine women playing a negative role. As our media sources grow women continue to establish a negative stigma to them. Research shows that women in the media should either have bodies that may not be attainable and play a role where they have to find a man to obtain success and happiness. Although, women have extensively roles in every characteristic of life, the extended list of in human behavior given seems to never end. Sources such as the government and social action groups are taking helpful actions to supply women true pride in economic, social and personal areas. In attempt the mass media have a critical role reporting misleading actions, using public opinions, bringing social change and emphasizing positive improvement.
Despite some opposing ideas, the stereotypes in the media have negative impacts for both men and women and also children. I personally think that the media should not place a huge barrier in between the genders because it only creates extreme confinements and hinders people from their full potential. Overall, it is evident that the media has had an important role in representing gender and stereotypes in our