Gender Stereotypes In The Media

The media has widely become a crucial part of our daily lives as it acts as a powerful source of information to the public. It not only serves to entertain and educate the community, but also represents them as a watchperson in conveying government related issues. With this, the media has helped shape our ways of living, beliefs as well as our cultures, in developing our own sense of identity. The system of transmitting messages and information to the world is known as representation. It constructs mainly in the form of media of the aspects of reality, despite several controversies regarding what the formulation of reality is to the world. Forms of representation may vary from speeches and writings to the more modern form of moving or still

According to communication studies, in order to adequately convey true messages to the world, there are a few elements that have to be examined in which are who the broadcasters are, what the content of the media interprets, through which form of channels, the viewers as well as the effects it has brought and will bring to the audiences (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, Pg.21). However, these elements are not precise as they only focus on what is important and favourable to them, which are the audience as well as the effects it brings, and to achieve that, the application of framing and agenda setting is enforced, and this in turn creates a perception of reality to the world. Though the content of the media focuses on incidents happening in the world, they also pose the ability to select, frame and omit certain components of the full story. This manipulates the representation of reality and thus constructs a perception of reality to the audiences. For example, Televisions would deceive people visually through the use of camera angles and other means. With that, audiences would act according to the pictures being shown, thus would influence their ideologies and norms (Lippmann, 1922, Pg.45). The idea of agenda-setting is to strongly influence the community in what they should think about from the media reporter 's’ point of view by focusing on certain areas of the complete story, while the theory of framing involves the highlight as well as selection of certain elements of real events within a particular angle in which the media thinks is important to them and to place them within a range of meaning. Despite the common relationship