The document summarizes key points about how media constructs and influences understandings of gender. It discusses how media reflects and shapes societal norms of masculinity and femininity through its representations. While media messages can be interpreted differently, they generally promote dominant ideals of gender that constrain views of identity. The document also examines how media institutions intersect with power and how media depictions of gender, violence, and sexuality can impact audiences and social realities.

1. Communicating
Gender Diversity:
A Critical approach

2. Chapter 11:
MEDIA
Paige Rentel
7/23/13

3. Media:
Modern forms of media include:
Prints, paintings, television, movies, radio,
newspapers, comics, novels, magazines,
internet, CD’s, and podcasts
Media is discussed in the plural

4. All media communicates understandings of
gender
gender influences all forms of mediated
communication
Media can contain contrasting views
Culture industries- pop cultures mirrors
industrial factory process creating goods for
standardized consumption (p.236)

5. Mitchell Stephens- Rise of the image, fall of the word
Examines recent shift from words to visuals
Prime example: Television
By the late 1880’s 98% of U.S homes has at least one TV
“Video revolution”: is third major communications revolution (first two: writing and
print)
Westerfelhaus & Brookey note that our society is being shaped by powerful
familiarizing influences on TV, movies, magazines, and music videos
Media scholars argue that just as religion and science once outlined behavior, mass
entertainment has taken the position and now shows people how to behave and act

6. Media Economics:
there are economics to production and programing
economical process and institutional patterns govern media
messages
Commercial TV is an economic medium (Budd et al., 1990, P.
172)
“Television programming’s ideological role is not incidental to its
status as a commodity but, rather, is thoroughly implicated in
it” (Dow, 1996, p. xix)
Class matters- popular shows depict rich families and modern
couture
Media as a Social Institution

7. Media & Power
“US is a consumer culture, so understnading media is one way to understand how
power (element of media as institution) manifests itself “(p.238)
Media experts power over how people do gender
Media forms infuence social norms concerning gender,race, nationality, class and
more
They provide visuals and examples for what is feminine and what is masculine
Media power over gender:
Ex: female beauty
beauty norms change over time -driving force of cahnge is media
representation of beauty
one must remain aware, develop consciousness, and be able to criticize what
messages they are watching

8. Media & Hegemony
Media, as an institution of civil society, shape the cognitive structures through which people perceive and evaluate social reality
(Dow, 1996)
Media hegemony is not all-powerful. It needs to be maintained, repeated, reinforced and modified in order to respond to, and
overcome, forms that oppose it. Thus, “hegemony, rather than assuming an all powerful, closed text, presumes the possibility of
resistance and opposition” (Dow, 1996, p.14).
Media abides by tradition gender/sex norms and expectations with few exceptions
Most shows follow an unwritten rule of standards of attractiveness
rule is usually only broken to signify a “bad” character
Media gives people the impression they have control over what they view and how they view it (what their options are of what they
are watching) in actuality, they are more or less being controlled
John Fiske (1987) argues the other end of the spectrum which is that each individual creates their own meaning rather than by
media providers
Best explanation: power lies between both extremes because although media messages are persuasive, people can resists these
messages
People’s level of thoughtfulness and creativity is influenced by their educatio, one should:
examine how powerful or effective oppositional responses are compared to the power of hegemonic messages,
try to discern what role media play in facilitating oppositional readings
explore what we as textbooks authors, and you as students, can do to facilitate critical abilities.

9. Media Polyvalence & Oppositional Readings
Media texts cannot be all things to all people because some things are open for interpretation
Celeste Condit (1989) argues that instead of polysemy (multitude of meanings) researchers
should use polyvalence (or multitude of valuations): “Polyvalence occurs when audience
members share understandings of the denotations of a text but disagree about the valuation
of these denotations to such a degree that they produce notably different interpretations” (p.
106).
Mediated messages do not occur in vacuum but in a particular place, at a particular time, to
particular audiences (P.241)
Rhetorical approach reminds us that “audiences are not free to make meanings at will from
mass mediated texts” because “the ability of audiences to shape their own readings . . . is
constrained by a variety of factors in any given rhetorical situation” including “access to
oppositional codes . . . the repertoire of available texts” and the historical context (Condit,
1989, pp. 103-104)
Audiences must develop a gendered lens if they are to create oppositional readings
Even though people are able to view media in different ways, they tend to produce similar
thoughts about identity and gender identity

10. Interlocking Institutions
Media is not only an institution but it effects the way other institutions are
“represented and constructed”
Television participates in “interpreting social change and managing cultural
beliefs” (Dow, 1996, p. xv)
EX: Media shapes and informs peoples understanding of family, family values, and
family behavior
Media interacts with gender as they provide mechanisms through which
representations of work, family, education, and religion are communicated (P.241)
representation is not necessarily straightforward because “media messages are
diverse, diffuse, and contradictory” (P.241)

11. Media messages create an
unrealistic view of beauty
and attractiveness

12. One of the worlds most successful models, Andrej
Pejic, is a man. However, despite his success and
wealth not many people have heard of him. He
doesn’t get anywhere near the media attention that
less successful female models get

13. It’s not about sex difference
Men are also being
targeted and pushed to
achieve unachievable
perfection
Media doesn’t solely
affect the perception
that females should
strive to reach an
idealistic beauty.....

14. Differences Among Women
Differences in reception to media messages exist across races and
within sexes, even though images my be understood as unattainable
(making them less powerful) they still have an influence on the way
people perceive each other
Photoshopped images give women an unattainable example of a
beautiful body
Women held to beauty standards, but the standard is different among
women
Sexualizing women's body is a common ad theme

15. Similarities between men and women
Both men and women have issues with their body
Women tend to overestimate the degree of thinness found attractive to men because
magazines target thinness towards women
Men tend to overestimate the degree of muscularity attractive to women
“the ideal male body marketed to men is more muscular than the ideal male body marketed to
women” (Frederick, Fessler, & Haselton, 2005, p. 81).
Five characteristics of a U.S. hegemonic masculinity (a masculinity we would argue is actually
a U.S. White hegemonic masculinity)
1) it defines power in terms of physical force and control,
2) it is defined through occupational achievement,
3) it is represented in terms of familial patriarchy where the man is the breadwinner,
4) it is symbolized with the frontiersman and outdoorsman, and
5) it is heterosexually defined.

16. Media Construct (& constrain) Gender
Media content & media Effects:
Bulk of research of media has focused on
centent of media
“media content analysis attempts to quantify
what is in mediated products” (P.243)
some examples of content analysis count ratio
of men to women on tv, violent shows, and
more

17. Men, Women, and Violence in the Media
“women and minorities (especially women of color) are underrepresented in U.S
media”
Women are shown as sex objects
An increasing concern is being placed on children’s television as an average of 7.86
violence incidents occur per hour (there are 4.71 instances per hour found in adult-
targeted prime time programming)
Health communication researcher Alexandra Hendriks (2002) has called for a
broadening of media effects research to study the effects of media on body image.
Media effects and content studies share similarities:
They believe that media is best understood through a study of its
representations, and hence tend to ignore (to varying degrees) the process of
production and the role of the audience.
They tend to treat the audience as passive and universal.
They believe that one can distinguish between good and bad representations.

18. Media do influence people’s beliefs and behaviors.
Media representations of violence are one of the ways
in which gendered violence is normalized in U.S.
culture; media images of hegemonic masculinity
present violence as the answer to problems, if
someone kills a mans family, his solution is to kill
them even more violently (P.245)

19. Media Depictions of Rape
Rape representations not only provide insight into how women are
gendered and raced as deserving or undeserving victims, but also into
how men are gendered and raced as perpetrators or savior
When deciding whether to reproduce vivid narratives of rape, one
should consider how those whose stories are told would want their
stories told. Particularly when discussing sexual violence occurring
abroad, “we need to be mindful of how rhetorical acts of witnessing
may function as new forms of international tourism and appropriation”
and not world traveling (Hesford, 2004, p. 121).

20. Media as Always Liberatory and
Constraining
Studies were done on women that read romance novels:
findings: many women read romance novels to liberate
themselves and seek a sensitive partner but all they read was a
women being saved by a male (Mitchell, 1996, P.54)
Madonna provides a classic example. Madonna is best
understood “as a site of contradiction” where her “gender play
simultaneously challenges and reinforces gender
roles” (Hallstein, 1996, p. 123).
examples in this section were mainly masculine to remind
readers that its not just about females and femininity but males
and masculinity as well

21. Gender is constructed and thus
always a flux
“Today’s magazines for men are all about the social
construction of masculinity” (Gauntlett, 2002, p. 170)
Cosmo was playing Playboy at its own game, seeing
sexual pleasure as important, and suggesting that
women were entitled to it. Cosmo’s assertion of
women’s rights to enjoy sex, and to talk about it, was
quite radical, and this new discourse brought other
changes – men, for example, were no longer treated
with reverence, but could be seen as inadequate, or the
butt of jokes” (Gauntlett, 2002, p. 53)

22. Conclusions:
Hollywood is condemned for failing to live up to traditional family
values, most dominant media images reinforce the gender binary of
heteronormatitvity
Danger lies within people watching movies uncritically
Although creative uses of media are important, an institutional
approach to media also makes clear they may be insufficient.
1st: media are ephemeral, making them a “fragile basis for
lasting social change” (Dow, 2001, p. 137)
2nd: changes in representation do not necessarily translate
into changes in policy (Budd, et al., 1990)