Mass Media And Gender In The 1950s

In a systemically patriarchal society that encourages and enforces the gender binary, we as a public are conditioned to accept and cooperate with the heteronormative paradigm. Pop-culture and the media are large contributors in the ways in which the gender binary is perpetuated. Gender norms are constantly marketed towards

Our society seems to have a lot of very stereotypical misconceptions about boys and girls and the role they are expected to play. Media has a pivotal role to play in this front concerning the idea of defining and framing gender. Media consumers transform the messages in that and make demeanors with

This paper is a media analysis of the TV show Modern Family in relation to gender as a social institution. We constantly consume media without knowing it has repercussions. Media is a social institution that reinforces gender and racial social inequalities. For my data, I randomly picked (through a random episode generator) season 5 episode 8 and season 6 episode 18 as my two episodes to analyze. In this paper I will show how cultural stereotypes about identity and femininity intersect on Modern Family to reinforce gender and racial inequalities.

The media has a huge effect on the socialization of gender and can affect others attitudes and behaviors towards the opposite sex. Mass media also have a major role in the process of gender socialization because it bombards individuals with ideas and images of what men and women are supposed to be. For example, magazines that are targeted at women are different than those that seek a male audience. Media creates meanings about gender, and plays an important role in the way we understand it as part of our identity, our history, our social institutions, and our everyday lives. Gender is a word we here very often in conversations it is basically used to define an individual’s identity as male or female. Mass media uses stereotypical characters to make it easy for the audience to identify the good guys or gals and the bad guys or gals. It is easier to create programs around stock characters than to develop varied personalities. Stereotypes limit our views of ourselves and others and of the reality of the world. The media construct their own version of reality. The point of view of the message presented is driven by ethical, political, economic and social standards of the producers. Television also plays a major role in defining gender roles by the way commercials and to shows. Advertisements for an array of products describe men as being strong and masculine while women are portrayed as dependent. What does hooking up mean to me?  In the

Media plays a significant role in today’s society when it comes to gender roles. “Gender roles, as an example, exist solely because society as a whole chooses to accept them, but they are perpetuated by the media” (Lantagne). While watching television, many people fail to recognize the gender roles that are being illustrated throughout the show. Society shapes gender roles, and the media reinforces this ideology. In sitcoms, women are naturally the housewife, while the men determinedly enter the workforce. In reality, intimate relationships in today’s generation are fairly balanced, and it is almost expected that both individuals work diligently to provide for the household. Gender roles are also evident in a variety of other television shows. For example, in adventure and crime shows it is common to see men depicted as powerful and women as weak. With stereotypes like this, it shows women that they should keep their heads down and remain dependent on their significant other, and that men need to be influential and powerful.

In “Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender”, Wood writes: “…media insinuate their messages into our consciousness at every turn. All forms of media communicate images of the sexes, many of which perpetuate unrealistic, stereotypical, and limiting perceptions.” (1) This illustrates just how influential the media can be in American culture. Many people immediately internalize everything they hear from any source that they see as trustworthy. If the media is filled with negative gender stereotypes, then Americans are at risk of internalizing negative gender roles. In the same journal, Woods also explains the three main ways that media influences gender identity:

The media is a well-known, influential aspect on gender roles that broadcast negative messages to society through television by the images that are mainstreamed, which has an effect on people’s thinking process. Television brainwashes both men and women to believe they are not perfect, unless they have the body image of a celebrity. Though it is just a fantasy and not reality, “81% of 10 year girls are afraid of being fat, half of those girls believe they feel better about themselves when they were on a diet” (Reed 2016). The media paints a broad spectrum of ways it is stereotypical to not only just women, but men too. Women are pictured as a walking toothpick, while men are muscular. How can someone enjoy watching television when it is manipulating people’s lifestyle? We should not support the media when it is doing no good than harm. From advertisements to commercials, “it controls social life by invisibly transferring the dominant hegemonic ideology” (Wolska 2016). The media portrays many unrealistic stereotypes about gender, which often leads to not feeling acceptable in today’s world.

From an early age, all children understand that girls and boys wear different clothes and use different bathrooms; they often play with different toys and associate with different colors. This serves to reinforce the idea of there being a difference between the genders, and as such we learn to follow certain rules that are aimed toward preserving the dignity and welfare of the opposing sexes. Specific family dynamics may dictate that the father in a household is the provider and the mother is the care giver, or the staunch disciplinarian and the sympathetic redeemer. This is also reinforced through entertainment and media. Often characters in commercials, movies and television are depicted as waggish portrayals of these perceived gender identities. (Powell, 2010). I think entertainment and media have solidified our perception of gender roles and continue to perpetuate them. There are archetypical characters that embody the commonly accepted portrayal of masculinity and femininity and continue to be emphasized as such.

Although, they all may seem harmless and perhaps even entertaining, there are aspects of them that consumers do not always notice. She points out the obvious gap between men and women who work in TV shows. The imbalance shapes the idea of what adult women and men’s job are which often feeds to stereotypical ideologies. Instead of promoting young girls to have ambition, the media is teaching them that men are the ones who work and have successful occupations while women are unemployed or struggling. Of course, all these commercials, films, and TV shows who could be potentially harming children by subconsciously advocating sexist views are made by men. The author then gives five suggestions of how the media could potentially deal with the “imbalance in the portrayal of

Again the limitations of this study should be mentioned. Because of the small sample size of the content analysis, it would not be recommended to generalize the findings to the entire seasons. However, this has started to point out potential gender shifts in long-lasting television series. If these shifts continue to be supported by continuous research, then further building blocks to understand the gendering effects of staple characters in our culture and

The media, as an institution, plays a significant role in shaping the attitudes, values and perceptions of people, situations, places and events all over the world. This the media does through the way groups of people are presented to audience at various levels. The media have a crucial role in the shaping of our society since they are one of the most significant actors in the way culture is created, learned, disseminated and applied. One area of interest to media scholars over the years is how gender portrayals have come to provide a standard for cultural differentiation and segregation among the sexes. One medium which serves as a vehicle for such gender portrayals and its concomitant effect of gender differentiation is television. The

“Television is one of the most influential forms of media because it is so pervasive…” (Lee, Shaw 258). Media plays a major part in our lives. Society is said to watch an upward of five hours of television a day. Based on the cultivation theory, “heavy viewers of media are more likely to believe that what they see on TV is considered reality” (Martins). So it is no surprise that what we see in the media we also believe is considered “normal” for gender and when somebody tries to step outside the box we consider that different and not right. The media is constantly reinforcing gender norms by the overuse of sexualizing women in the media and presenting men as a dominant, powerful figure. This is common not only among adults but also children. Like we observed in class even children’s commercials are gendered and products are presented in totally different ways for boys and girls. An example of this is in a Lego commercial. The boy’s commercials are presented with dark colors and sounds and they

Children today are exposed to large amounts of television. Television is an easy way to entertain kids for long periods of time without much effort. It is not surprising that they are watching more TV than past generations have, but this has become a large issue because of how the media portrays women. In addition to women only filling 28% of the roles on television when they make up 51% of the population, women are heavily stereotyped on TV. All of the “good” females on television shows do not have many speaking parts, are seen as sex objects for men, are willing to serve men, and cause trouble for themselves that only someone strong and masculine can fix. (media reiterate the cultural image of women as dependent, ornamental objects whose primary functions are to look good, please men, and stay quietly on the periphery of life.)-gendered media: wood

Americans watch an alarming amount of television starting from a young age. The average American watches five hours of television a day (Koblin 2016). This enormous amount of media input influences perceptions and is connected to cementing many things in people, such as gender roles. Gender roles are thoughts, actions, and feelings learned by a person fitting their gender due to cultural norms (Santrock 2016). Additionally, stereotypes appeal to people’s emotions and television shows are infamous for relying on them due to lack of time for character development (Signorielli 2001). Different television show categories reflect roles and representations of males and females in both

They present viewers with assumptions about the way men and women are supposed to act. By repeatedly showing viewers how men and women are supposed to act, they manipulate society’s way of thinking about gender stereotype. Each of the three media I examined I believe are excellent examples of how gender stereotypes are being