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Gendered Bodies in the Media

Gendered Bodies in the Media. Week 5. Class essays. Answer the question Make an argument (“In this essay, I will argue that….because….”) Clear structure (layout in introduction) Avoid: feel / believe / think / in my opinion Support your argument with evidence Treat literature critically

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Gendered Bodies in the Media

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  1. Gendered Bodies in the Media Week 5

  2. Class essays • Answer the question • Make an argument (“In this essay, I will argue that….because….”) • Clear structure (layout in introduction) • Avoid: feel / believe / think / in my opinion • Support your argument with evidence • Treat literature critically • Read widely; reference thoroughly • Proof-read (for clarity; for typos; for grammar / punc)

  3. Gender and the media • Range of aspects have been addressed in the literature • Textual analysis • Production • Reception • Variety of types of media • Magazines / newpapers • Fiction • TV and film • Digital media • Advertising

  4. Why do people read magazines?

  5. Why have feminists been interested in magazines?

  6. Concerns…. • Ideological concerns • Narrow representations • Offensive; objectification of women • Teaching women to please men • Low culture; trivial • Body image • Sexually explicit (but only re: women’s mags)

  7. Theory / methods • Content analysis • Quantitative • Presumption that media should mirror society • Focus on “bad” stereotypes (leaves rest of media intact) • No distinction between levels of meaning

  8. Theory / methods • Semiotics • Unpacking meanings we create in texts • Sign / signifier (Saussure) • iconic / indexical / symbolic signs • Denotation / connotation

  9. Theory / methods • Ideological critiques • Looking for connections between cultural representations and power relations • Based on the idea that social relations come to be seen as natural and inevitable • Those who control material means of production also control production and distribution of ideas • Move beyond study of single images to see patterns and themes

  10. Theory / methods • Discourse analysis • Takes discourse itself as its topic • Language is constructive • Discourse as oriented towards action • Organised rhetorically (to persuade)

  11. Reception research (an example) • “the fallacy of meaningfulness” (Hermes 1995: 16) • Investment in texts is not necessarily connected to those texts • Content has “in some sense, to be relevant to the fantasies, anxieties and preoccupations of readers (Hermes 1995: 64)

  12. Media production (an example) • Changes in modes of production • Changes in gender relations • New methodologies in publishing (market research) • New technologies (bar codes) • Mags have to appeal to advertisers and consumers

  13. Men’s magazines • 1990’s – the rise of lads’ mags (Loaded, FHM, Zoo, Nuts) • Response to the “new man”? • Response to feminism / changing gender relations? • Use of irony to deflect criticism; post-feminist sensibility • Essentialised sex differences • Not a direct parallel to women’s mags

  14. Working with the media –a cautionary tale

  15. Working with the media – a cautionary tale

  16. Summary of key points • We live in a world saturated by media / ICT • The media is a technology of gender - it both reflects and (re)produces gender relations • There are a number of aspects to media analysis; different perspectives produce different knowledges • Beware “hypodermic” models of media reception • The meanings of specific media products are always contingent; individual images / articles need to be put in context • People use the media in different ways / to different ends (it cannot be taken at face value)

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