Media Bias on Women’s Issues Detecting bias in news media is a challenge that every person who watches, reads, or listens to the news should accept. Subtle changes in the details of a story can change the entire focus of an event and affect all members of the audience. Applying the gender-based critique analysis process to the media coverage of the 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C. provides an excellent exercise in identifying news bias. The article, “Muting the Women’s March: Media Lose Focus When Women Protest in Washington” by Julie Hollar provides the background for the following information. Source of the Bias The source of the bias that has been identified in the news reporting at the time is sexism based on …show more content…
This reporting discrepancy downplays the importance of the event, causing discouragement for supporter and detractors disregarding the issues. The coverage by media outlets was limited, a comparison of the 2004 march and the coverage of the Promise Keepers march in 1997 show that Promise Keepers, an evangelical, anti-feminist, anti-gay men’s organization had roughly three times the media coverage (Hollar, 2004). By limiting coverage, news media effectively controlled how the march was viewed and remembered by not only the United States audience but the world media audience. Because of this bias the official points of the march were overlooked almost entirely (Hollar, 2004). This is a tactic that is used over and over to control women and the supporters of women’s rights. Bias on the Production Side The identified concept that might be used to identify bias on the production side of this issue is gender-based critique. According to Denis McQuail (2010) gender-based critique was originally about the stereotyping and marginalization of women, however in the more current environment this critique is more about challenging the continuing sexism of the media. The bias can be displayed as the misogynistic content of many media stories that portray women as somehow faulted for supporting rights of women like abortion, health care, education as well as the concerns of women of color (Hollar, 2004).
Have you ever engaged in watching a news program and as you’re watching, you suddenly realize a certain news story isn’t providing all the information containing to the story? Or the news story just doesn’t seem to make sense? Ashley Dugger, an attorney, describes media bias quite accurate. Dugger says, “media bias is the perception that media is reporting the news in a partial or prejudice manner.” (Dugger. Media bias and criticism:
According to Newman, sexism refers to “a system of beliefs that asserts the inferiority of one sex and that justifies discrimination based on gender.” This sexism has a large impact on the daily life of a women through things like social interactions, power differentials, and violence against women. Institutional sexism refers to the “subordination of “women that is part of the everyday workings of economics, law, politics, and other social institutions.” The media is one institution that communicates gender norms both directly and indirectly. Understanding gender role expectations and how they are reinforced through social institutions like the media is necessary in order to explain things such as the wage gap, segregation in the workplace, and how women are devalued on a global scale.
discouraging because they have no account of what really happened and only have what can be read
“Miss Representation” is a documentary film that is made by Jennifer Seibel Newsom. This film talks about many issues from the roles of females in politics, and the ways in which media negatively impacts women. The film examines how the media have contributed to the underrepresentation of women. Therefore, eventually, the film is persuading people to be open-minded, and study how media affects our perception, judgment, and behaviors. The targeted audience of this film is all people who live in America. People should be convinced to change their mind about stereotypes on women. Jennier effectively convinces the audience that the mainstream media has mainly contributed to the under-representation of women through the use of statements claimed
The topic I’ll be discussing will be the biasedness in media about a particular topic, the US Supreme Court’s decision on the case of Alexander vs. Holmes County Board of Education. The case involved a previous Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education, where they gave schools to desegregate public schools “with all deliberate speed.” 15 years passed and school districts were still segregated, so the courts gave them till the beginning of the next year, 1970. This gave some schools a very abrupt shock as they had to conform to the decision. As something that opinionated, it allows news media to explore and write about such a topic.
The Miss Representation documentary film by Jennifer Newsom explores how media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions. This message is portrayed by delivering content through media and technology as well as advertising partial and/or often degrading interpretations of women. The consequences are becoming more and more dreadful. In today’s world, composed of a million stations, people will tend to do more and more shocking things to break through the crowds. They resort to violent, sexually offensive, or demeaning images. Jean Kilbourne, EdD, filmmaker, Killing Us Softly Author and Senior Scholar Wellesley Center’s for Women states, that “it creates a climate in which
Bias is defined as a preference to or against something or someone. Brooke Gladstone is a media analyst and a managing editor of NPRs program, which covers journalism and other social issues. Gladstone's book"The Great Refusal" uses a comic format in attempt to answer the question "can reporters be objective?" She examines different types of bias in media and explains the reason behind them.
Sexism in media against female candidates has a huge impact on their political success. For one, sexist remarks against female candidates influence their voters. Sexist remarks made by the media influences almost every potential voter less likely to cast a ballot in favor for the female candidate. A hypothetical congressional race between women candidate "Jane Smith" and male candidate "Dan Jones" was introduced to a group of survey participants. Half of the
Personal frames written by journalists in the 1992 campaign were analyzed by John Devit and supported the claim that the coverage of female candidates was biased. The sources in his analysis were more likely to use personal frames in describing female candidates than in describing male candidates (Appendix 1).
This article will be very helpful in my research project because it helps me understand the media bias argument from a different perspective. Now, my research will have both the liberal and conservative view on media bias. Both authors have very extensive backgrounds as professors which demonstrate their credibility. Although their personal bias could possibly skew their writing, they have numerous statistics to demonstrate the credibility of the research.
“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.
Our world is surrounded by media. Media plays an enormous role in affecting the way we perceive gender and gender roles. Media as well as communications are known to be the key elements of how people live their life in the modern age. The media can be a very inviting place, since it has so many things inside of it that appeals to people worldwide. At the same time, the media can be a cruel, judging and corrupt area that can be scary to involve yourself with. That being said, the mass media has had its history with harsh stereotyping, particularly when dealing with women. Many people within the media view women as a gender that is only allowed to be at home, whether it is cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, or being a slave to their male counterpart. Even with women who work inside of the media are usually overlooked, bashed by their appearance and do not get an equal opportunity as men do in order to succeed in life. This has been the case for hundreds of years, but there are still a myriad of problems that women face today, whether in the media or life in general.
First thing to remember is that the purpose of the article, “Controversial Hillary Cover of Time Illuminates Sexism in the
Some might ask what effect do misogyny and sexism have on American media? Misogyny and mass media have made numerous examples where studies have concluded correlations between misogynous messages, both obvious and subliminal. Messages containing misogynous views have become incorporated into our society, affecting many parts of our lives. Misogyny can be found in many types of media, especially music videos that show Women being shown as just objects that are only good for abuse, sex and for the most part are just trouble for men. Also, another main form of media where misogyny is found is video games. Despite the achievements of the women 's movement over the past decades, misogyny remains a persistent force in American culture.
Today, many of the gender critics have a lot of attention and control in the media. In several cases, especially with vary prominent figures, they do not interact with people on the other side of the debate, but instead with individuals who share the same/similar beliefs. This has helped maintain the bias in the media, since several news media organizations focus solely on the perspective of this one side. It has gone to the point where proponents of GamerGate are condemned by the media and journalist if their support is well known. While some are doxxed and receive threats, others are censored (on sites such as 4chan, Steam, YouTube) should they have an opinion different from the narrative presented. Social control, to a degree, is present