Module 5: Studying Media Representations Objectives: After completing this module, you will be able to

Studying Representations of Social Types or Groups

In studying various representations of social groups or types, students are examining how people construct generalizations about categories of people—that scientists are nerds or Native Americans are alcoholics. This analysis involves more than simply noting the stereotyping of these groups. It also involves examining reasons for these representations as constructions of beliefs about people, leading to questions such as “Where do these representations come from?” “Who produces these representations,” “Why are their producing these representations,” “How is complexity limited by these representations,” and “What is missing or how is silenced in these representations?” (Hall, 1997). Representations of groups often serves to fix the meanings of perceptions of groups. For example, media representations of black men affect how the society perceives black men in the “real world.” (Hall, 1997):

http://www.mediaed.org/videos/RaceDiversityAndRepresentation/RepresentationandtheMedia
Groups are also often represented in highly essentialized ways by promoting generalizations according to gender, class, and race group categories—that “all boys always do X, and all girls always do Y,” or “all working-class people are like X and all upper-middle-class people are like Y.”
Jane Tallim, Exposing Gender Stereotypes

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/educational/lessons/secondary/gender_portrayal/exposing_gender.cfm
This essentializing fails to consider variations in identities, contexts, and cultures—the fact that, for example gender differences in one culture may be entirely different in another culture. Such essentialist categories are based on biological or behaviorist perspectives, rather than cultural perspectives. For example, essentializing males versus females as biological concepts fails to recognize that gender is a cultural construction evident in how people adopt or performs certain gendered social practices. People who are biological “males” may adopt “feminine” cultural practices, while people who are biological “females” may adopt “masculine” cultural practices. Gendered media representations are important in that they are central to adolescents defining their identities, as explored in the book, Media, Gender, and Identity

http://www.theoryhead.com/gender/
Representations of femininity. Femininity is represented in the media by the multi-billion dollar beauty industry in ways that links certain social practices associated with femininity as central to defining one’s identity as a female. All of this can have a limiting influence on adolescent females, as documented in the following factoids cited on the PBS program, Girls in America:

http://www.itvs.org/girlsinamerica/findings.html
- The average model today weighs 23% less than the average American woman.

- If the measurements of a Barbie doll were translated into human terms, a 5'9" tall Barbie would be 33-18-28 (bust-waist-hips). The average 5'6" beauty contest winner measures 36-25-35.

- More than 80% of grade school girls (6th grade and below) report having been on a diet at least once. 40% of nine and ten year-old girls report having been on a diet. Most of them were not overweight.

- 50% of white girls ages 12-16 consider themselves overweight and only 15% consider their bodies normal. This is 6 times the rate for boys.

- Girls start school testing higher in every academic subject, yet graduate from high school scoring 50 points lower than boys on the SAT.

- Prior to entering college, 23% of male valedictorians and 21% of female valedictorians felt intellectually "far above average." After four years of college, 25% of the males felt intellectually "far above" their peers; none of the women believed that about herself.

- When asked "What is the best thing about being a boy?" the most common response among middle school aged boys was "not being a girl." When asked "What is the best thing about being a girl?" the top answer was "I don't know" or "Nothing" followed by responses focusing on hair and shopping.

- 85% of girls in grades 8-11 report experiencing sexual harassment.

* Across media, between 26 and 46% of women are portrayed as "thin" or "very thin" (compared to between 4 and 16% of men.)

* Women are much more likely than men to make or receive comments about their appearance in all three media - on TV 28% of women compared to 10% of men, in movies 58% of women to 24% of men, and in commercials 26% of women compared to less than 1% of men.

* Women are seen spending their time in appearance related activities such as shopping and grooming. On TV 10% of women compared to only 3% of men can be seen "grooming" or "preening". In movies, this grows to 31% of women and 7% of men. In TV commercials, it's 17% of women to 1% of men.

* 37% of the articles in teen magazines included a focus on appearance.

http://www.childrennow.org/media/mc97/ReflectSummary.html
Such images may lead adolescent females to unhealthy eating practices and anorexia, with highly adverse health effects. One study http://www.thechiropracticvillage.com/id95.htm

found that: