Media
Gender
communications scholars have theorized that media in a variety of forms ranging
from video games, television, cinema, advertisement, online and print news
media, and art are discourses and symbols that mirror and maintain our
understanding of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, class, ability,
and so on. The textbook argues that a communication and rhetorical focus to
understand how media constructs, symbols that reinforce our understanding of
gender. DeFrancisco and Palczewski partition the discussion of Media and gender
within the following way:
1. Defining
Media and How They Function:
The
textbook provides an exhaustive, yet open-ended definition for media, which
ranges from print media, tweets, art, music, and even tweets. It is critical to
point out that DeFrancisco and Palczewski avoid using the term The Media in favor of media to demonstrate that media is not
mono-causal from one particular source, but rather exists within a complex
process.
The
media is a bi-product of the cultural
industry, which was first coined by Horkheimer and Adorno. The cultural
industry constructs messages that generate demand for particular products, and
in return, the cultural industry can provide back towards the public. This
particularly applies to the advertisement industry.
According
to scholars, the average individual spends over 2.8 hours a day watching
television. Dependence on media, more specifically, demonstrates the ways we
view ourselves refers back to television as a way of understanding ourselves. Since the digital age,
media has become more complex and offered new avenues for individuals to
express themselves and their personal identities.
A. Media
Hegemony or Polysemy
The
text book argues that the ways social groups can make its beliefs seem logical,
normal, and common sense is through appealing representations of the media,
since it’s the basis for people to understand and formulate their social
realities. However, it is argued that media messages are polysemy. In other
words, they can be interpreted in many different ways at different times.
B. Media
Polyvalence
Scholars
such as Celeste Condit disagree that media representations should view as
Polysemy. Instead, she argues that these messages should be Polyvalence, having
a multitude of valuations. This process occurs when the public shares a common
denotation with a text, but they disagree about the valuation of these to
denotations that they result in different interpretations.
2. The Gaze(s)
A. Ways of
Seeing
Scholars
have been interested in examining how visual art is constructed for a
particular audience and spectator. For example, Berger argues that European art
of nude women was created for a male gaze. This constructed women as objects,
which hurt their agency because women were seen as objects rather than agents
with the power to act. This criticism spans beyond European art criticism, the
visual images that are seen within advertising, film, and even the photos we
post on Facebook. From a gender perspective, these ways of seeing shape of
understanding of gender, such as, the European Art framed women as passive
objects.
B. The Gaze
Scholars
such as Laura Mulvey continued the discussions surrounding the ways of seeing
women in media. She agrees that these images construct a particular vision of
women and gender, but believes that these views are always of the white male,
which prevents the possibility of non-white gazes. Scholars argue that multiple
gazes can exist within film and provide us with means and methods for
resistance. Such as Brenda Cooper argues that women can mock these gender roles
and the audience can willing choose to not identify with the man, but instead
the female that resists these norms.
C. An
Oppositional Gaze
Scholars
such as bell hooks argues that the media can no longer determine the position
of the audience if they are conscious and refuse the act of positioning, which
she defines as the oppositional gaze.
She argues that we can all look through each other eyes and can refuse those
visions. The oppositional gaze is comprised of four main elements. First, we
must be conscious that we view culture from a particular perspective and as why
we identify with that perspective. Second, the individual must acknowledge
their participates in culture. Third, the oppositional gaze begins as a social
critique and then becomes a political critique, once we understand the current
and flawed representations, then we are able to move to create alternatives.
Fourth, the oppositional gaze understands how media engages in the
commodification of culture to supports its discrimination.
I provide the
following three questions:
1. Bellow is a
link to a super bowl snickers commercial. My question is, how does this text
demonstrate a Polyvalence view on culture?
2. According to
Bulter, gender is not scripted onto the body, but rather is performed. If we
agree that media creates our understanding of gender, then does that mean
gender is not performed?
3. Is there a particular time you have
viewed a text that was problematic because it was intended for the view of a
white male, heterosexual, and other hegemonic views? If so, what alternative
views did it exclude, and how could including those views remedy the text? Or
is it impossible to remedy those representations?
1. this text demonstrate a Polyvalence view on culture because every women's reaction is different and are interpreting what the construction workers are saying differently. The workers are yelling out positive things to women but are doing it in a way that they are used to men hitting on them out in the streets.
ReplyDelete2. No, Gender is still performed. I think media gives us an example of the acceptable forms of gender, which are o.k to perform. For example, sometimes it is assumed that women will be very feminine and men will be very masculine. So in media, this plays out in the way women and men act, dress, and so on. Women are supposed to be beautiful and are held to certain standards that men are not. When some people see these gender performances on television, in the news, and on the internet they may emulate them. So I believe gender is still performed but media dictates which types of gender performance is acceptable and which are not.
3. This has nothing to do with gender but in the movie the hangover 2, characters in the movie like the Asian and the Arabic man use the N word and call the group of three men(the main characters) the n word. The Asian man also calls the Arabic man the N word. I don't know why the use of the N word in movies by people who are not black is supposed to be funny, but it does rub people who are black the wrong way. The use of this word is problematic because it is used to be funny but doesn't take into account the history, and what this word was truly intended for. The alternative view this excluded is that some people will be offended, people like me who are African American that don't use that word and find it offensive when people of color as well as people who are aren't minorities use it. The text could be remedied by not putting those words that have negative historical meanings.
1. The construction workers are yelling things out to the women in a manner that typically one would assume would be harassment - but they are shouting liberating things. But is the point of the message that the men are hungry? And that they aren't themselves when they are hungry? And if they ate a Snickers, and we're full and satisfied, they would be yelling out profanities? I was a slightly confused. But perhaps this demonstrates polyvalence in society because for instance it seems that although some women did smile and say "thank you", it appeared that some other people still didn't give any attention to the workers and kept walking, associating the yelling from the construction workers with typical vulgar remarks, so just making that association rather than listening to the words that the workers are actually saying could be a demonstration.
ReplyDelete2. Not really, no. I think gender is performed but can be molded by our interpretations of particular gender roles that prevail through media sources. Actually, I think that because media helps create our understanding our gender, it is something that even more strongly performed, because different sources of media portrays all different types genders/roles/expectations and in today's age more questionable subjects are becoming ubiquitously shown on television. Therefore, newer generations have a more diverse view on gender roles, and can align with and perform their interpretation of their own gender, but are influenced by the media.
3. Hmm. The only thing that comes to mind right now is classic short novels that I've read in high school literature classes. Maybe in, The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger. The reason I suggest this book this because the sorrow for the characters you feel & take away from the book becomes rooted in one's ability to empathize with them, and as all the characters including the main one, are white, and it's from the point of view of a white male and his academy school lifestyle, that might be problematic for other cultures, or women of other cultures. But who am I to say that another human can't empathize or feel the same type of emotion from that story just because they are from a different culture, so i'm not really sure….
1. In the Video clip it seems though the men are being positive about what they are yelling out to the women. I really think that this text does relate to Polyvalence because of how the women actually react to the comments. Even though those commets could have a sign of harassment I think the women reactions actually showed their interest.
ReplyDelete2. I do agree with previous comments from speakers when they say no, because gender is still performed as you can see in society. Many people have been able to adjust to what society portrays to us and how we live our everyday lives. Gender is still performed throughout everything that involves genders; education, religion etc.
3. I have to finish this in a minute......
3. I have never really experienced in reading text that has been about view of a white male, heterosexual or hegominac. I would figure that if I was to experience I probably would have the feelings or thought of not giving a critical response about how people emphasize or talk about something as such.
ReplyDelete