Five Interrelated Concepts

In today’s society, there are intricate and subtle racial patterns in the mass media that show how powerful images play a significant role in shaping the attitudes of Whites toward Blacks. White Americans, they show, learn about African Americans not through personal relationships, but through the images shown by the media. . In short, they conclude that although there are more images of African-Americans on television now than ever, these images are often harmful to the prospect of unity between the races. With the advancement of technology such as advertisement, there has always been a stereotypical view of how women are portrayed in the media. For hundreds of years, women have been viewed as sexual objects in the eyesight of many

Both Jean Kilbourne, in her article “Two Ways Women Can Get Hurt”, and Taylor M. Chapman, in her article “Women in American Media: A Culture of Misperception” discuss the negatives of women being portrayed in negative manners by the media. The media’s main goal is to make money, with little regard to how they do it or who is affected by their actions. The media only

“People learn more from media than any other single source of information” (Missrepresentation). This quote exemplifies how society learns and creates their standards about people, places, and things. All sources and mediums of media impact billions of lives every day. The media holds this power over society and it’s time to change that; especially when it comes to the media’s view of women. Women are constantly being misrepresented. This misrepresentation of women in the media is negatively impacting America by corrupting both the youth and adults. This is occurring because of the hyper-sexualization of women, wrongly portraying women in leadership positions, and creating stereotypes of women in movies and television.

Megan Garber Professor Keltner Composition 1 3 November 2013 The Ways Media Portrays Women Throughout today’s society, media contributes to almost everyone’s daily life. From informative news channels to comical television shows, media proves to be effective in advertisement, releasing messages and informing the audience. Although media proves to be wildly effective in advertising, releasing messages and informing the audience, periodically destructive and misleading messages are provided to the audience and directly influencing women. Cultural critics widely agree that media tends to negatively influence women and all the critics point to research which supports the belief that women are portrayed as subordinate to men, having no

Women are largely represented in the media through blogging, which can be one form of media that can be used specifically to target women by reinforcing patriarchal gender roles. Many blogs enforce the idea that only one kind of lifestyle - that of exercising and cleaning house - can make you happy, and that women should always be happy (Source C). This type of forced stereotypes can be damaging to women, insisting that women need to fall in line with oppression. As far as movie and show portrayals, women are often simplistic, one-sided characters cast as the potential love interest, and black male characters tend to be depicted as frightening and wild (Source D). Both of these ideas reinforce stigmas that can and do affect how people think about

Images in media, television especially, are a direct projection of the people who control and project them, which often tends to be white people. “‘We face the problems of images projected by people not of us,’ she said. ‘The media is the most powerful mind-manipulating tool on the earth.’”(Ruby, 18) The perception of black women in the media today can be damaging to the self-image of the young black women of today. During the Black Arts Movement, many artists and poets spoke of how white influence in our lives has created skewed beauty ideals in the African-American community. This white influence tends to harm black women’s images of themselves. Most female images seen in mainstream media are white, thin, tall and just plain gorgeous,

This paper is going to look in to the role mass media plays in how women of color and adolescents see themselves. My sources will give insight to how black women are directly and indirectly affected by the media. Stereotypes of black women shape how they see themselves but also

The range of “acceptable” images was narrow and the depictions of women were particularly debased: a maid or housekeeper. If in print, she represented the woman selling feminine hygiene products. Not until later in history did the Eurocentric vision of Black beauty infiltrate America media. During the late 60’s Diane Carroll an African American model and actress was portrayed as a middle-class widowed single mother with one child. The Diane Carroll Show portrayed a slim fair skinned, docile nurse typifying the American ‘ideal’ of African American ‘family’, that of the single mother, beautiful which equaled lighter skin and assimilated. During the 60s and 70s there were very few African American leading males or females. The 80s and 90s saw a few more leading men come along. After Bill Cosby’s The Cosby Show – more Black women were seen in commercials – yet, for Black women, the roles were as predictable--the housewife, the overweight cleaning expert, sweet grandma, and soda-drinking teenagers-as they were few. This visual disparagement is not an oversight. What we see or don’t see affects how we think and feel about others and ourselves. Stroman (1984) investigated the role of television representations of African Americans and how these representations affect attitudes and social habits. America’s lack of investment in minority consumerism only reinforces the view that minorities are seen as second-rate citizens. As a matter of practice, African Americans were

Looking back throughout the history of media, the portrayal of minorities – particularly that of Women of Color – has been formed, shaped, taken apart, and reformed. The audience need only look at commercials, television programs, and movies to realize that the exemplification of women of color (WOC) in the media is either scarce, stereotypical, or unrealistic. As time advances, individuals and organizations, such as The Representation Project, work towards establishing a new kind of WOC in the media – a WOC who is not portrayed with a stereotypical role, but is instead a strong, capable, intelligent woman with a real story. This paper will detail how a WOC’s lack of presence, negative portrayal, and subsequent skewed perception, halts the

Where Should We Go?." Sex Roles, vol. 64, no. 3-4, Feb. 2011, pp. 290-298. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9929-5. This source is about the gender roles in America. It discusses the different ways that the media influences gender stereotypes in women. It compares the present to the future. According to this paper, women are often sexualized and put in proactive clothing. Women are portrayed as nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives, and parents. This benefits my paper because this shows how the media has a negative effect on the stereotypes of women. It supports the theory that the media is one of the main causes of the negative stereotype and traditional gender roles.

Visual portrayals of females in mass media have been a focal point of discussion for many scholarly articles and debates for more than 5 decades (Mager & Helgeson 2010). Earlier females were portrayed to play the roles that were more stereotypical representing a domestic field with weak and dependent traits (Easton

Media plays a huge role in people’s perceptions of image, gender roles, and overall self worth. The media is constantly reinforcing limiting stereotypes through television, advertisements, films, and more. These stereotypes are especially geared towards women, suggesting that they have to look and act in an overtly feminine manner in order to be accepted by society. Though there are stereotypical qualities of men illustrated in media as well, they are mostly suggesting that men are dominant and hold more power than women. Therefore, women are more negatively affected by the media than men through stereotypes and gender roles implying they aren’t capable of doing what men can. Women in the media are underrepresented, hypersexualized, and shown in very traditional roles that undermine their abilities.

Women have been fighting for the right to be equal members of society for centuries. In the past women were treated as second class citizens and didn’t have the same rights as men did. Women later lead a movement to change these ways. Although some drastic changes did come about from these movements, equality wasn’t fully attained. In this day and age, equality between men and women still hasn’t been achieved and the media is to blame for that. For decades, the media has dominated society’s views and perspectives of others. Due to recent media, it has been difficult to regulate how women are being influenced and treated by other people in society. The media influences society tremendously and subconsciously steers the way

As a Communication major, I spend a lot of time studying the human communication process, which is the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between a receiver and sender. This communication process does not only apply to face-to-face interactions but also includes mass media, rhetorical, and technological communication. Through these various forms of communication, the sender not only expresses his/her message but also expresses power hierarchies about race, gender, and sexuality that are present in society. Mass media has a significant impact on socializing gender roles and perpetuating gender stereotypes, and to prove that, I am analyzing mass media messages, such as television shows, movies, and advertisements.

Another impact media tends to have is providing stereotypical views of one’s image. We 've seen ads, and television depict women as they glorify their beauty and thinness. This often gives the impression that a women and her