Text Analysis 1

'Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender'

Julia T. Wood (1994)

https://www.udel.edu/comm245/readings/GenderedMedia.pdf

Key Points:

• Men are the cultural standard, women are subordinate 
• Women and men are stereotyped and these have become socially accepted
• Media communicates these ideas through TV, advertisements etc. 

Key Quotes:

• 'All forms of media communicate images of the sexes, many of which perpetuate unrealistic, stereotypical, and limiting perceptions.' 
• 'women are dramatically underrepresented.'
• 'A second recurrent theme in media representations of relationships is that men are the competent authorities who save women from their incompetence.'
• 'using male voice-overs reinforces the cultural v&w that men are authorities and women depend on men to tell them what to do.'
• 'magazines aimed at women stress looking good and doing things to please others.'
• 'They want to sponsor shows that create or expand markets for their products.' - referring to best interest of advertisers.
• 'Advertising is very effective in convincing us that we need products to solve problems we are unaware of until some clever public relations campaign persuades us that something natural about us is really unnatural and unacceptable.'

Characteristics: 

Stereotypes of Women gathered from text- 

• Passive 
• Dependent 
• Incompetent 
• Dumb 
• Pretty
• Focused on home, family 
• Caring 
• Helpless
• Housewives 

Stereotypes of Men gathered from text-

• Active 
• Adventurous 
• Powerful 
• Sexually aggressive
• Uninvolved in human relationships 
• Confident 
• Heroic 
• Providers
• Cultural standard 
• Superior