Gender Roles In Media

3.2. Media representation

“Subjectivity is not an identity that is independent of actions but is produced through our embodied performances” (Craig, 2004, p.116) A ‘rational’ and ‘normal’ self is produced and exhibited through appropriate actions in particular cultural contexts, which involve a disciplining of the body (Craig, 2004). Political subjectivity is also manifested in performance, including factors such as dress, physical appearance and manner of speech. “Performance is central to contemporary public life” (Craig, 2004, p.117). Political communication, more so than other forms of media communication, emphasises its rational character, but the body remains central to the meanings of any political communication. “Of course, we do not

She does an analysis of gender in the media in which she finds that women are under-represented across a range of media and settings and when women are portrayed, it is often in a circumscribed and negative manner. Women are often sexualized, typically by showing them in scanty or provocative clothing. Women are also subordinated in various ways, as indicated by their facial expressions, body positions, and other factors. Finally, they are shown in traditionally feminine (i.e., stereotyped) roles. Women are portrayed as non-professionals, homemakers, wives or parents, and sexual gatekeepers (Collins, 2011). This understanding of the way women are often portrayed in the media is important for understanding how someone with great social and political power such as Michelle Obama is portrayed. It is also interesting to see how she is portrayed in relation to the authors and readers of such media

It was also employed in studying media representations of men, for instance, the interplay of sports and war imagery (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Because the concept of hegemony helped to make sense of both the diversity and the selectiveness of images in mass media, media researchers began mapping the relations between representations of different masculinities. Commercial sports are a focus of media representations of masculinity, and the developing field of sports sociology also found significant use for the concept of hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). In social theories of gender, there has often been a tendency toward functionalism, seeing gender relations as a self-contained, self-reproducing system and explaining every element in terms of its function in reproducing the whole (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Connell & Messerschmidt (2005) detect this tendency in most modern theories of gender. The dominance of men and the subordination of women constitute a historical process, not a self-reproducing system. “Masculine domination” is open to challenge and requires considerable effort to maintain (Connell & Messerschmidt,