Skip to content

Gender in the Media

Assignment

  1. Count and record how many thin and non-thin women you see. Describe the clothes worn and roles played by the thin women versus the non-thin women. After you have completed this step write a reflection in your journal based on the following prompts;

    • What did you notice about the differences between how thin women were portrayed on television versus the way non-thin women were portrayed?
    • Do you think these portrayals have the power to shape how young girls and women see themselves and others? How so? How about the way that young boys and men see girls and women?
    • Eating disorder specialists cite the influence of the media as one influential factor in the development of eating disorders among young women. In what ways do you think the media supports eating-disordered attitudes and behaviors?

  2. Next Count and record examples of times when a young woman, or girl, is sexualized in an advertisement. After you have completed this step write a reflection in your journal based on the following prompts;

    • What message does this image send to young girls about sex?
    • What message does this image send to young boys about sex?
    • What do you think it says to older men?

Media Use Journal

For this week's media use journal, I disabled ad blockers and watched about 2 hours of a YouTube Channel. I recorded the entry and exit of videos with any advertisements in between. The YouTube channel I opened happened to be primarily Live music sessions, while those that weren't live sessions used ambient visualized videography. Fort his journal entry, I will be focusing on the ads since the channel was live performances.

The following is a timecoded playlist

00:00 Röyksopp & Robyn "Monument"
00:47 Christian Löffler & Ensemble
01:02 Popup Ad: Outer Sofa
01:32 Full Ad: Grammarly
02:20 Full Ad: UC Health
02:57 Fkj & Masego - Tadow
03:22 Full Ad: Amazon
03:52 Full Ad: Geico
04:17 Full Ad: Emgality
04:48 Full Ad: AXS
05:27 Agnes Obel - The Curse
06:02 Full Ad: Infinity
06:22 Full Ad: Xfinity
06:42 Kid Francescoli - Moon
07:02 KEKP Icelandic Airwaves - Gus Gus
07:12 Popup ad: Joe Bonamassa
07:37 Full Ad: UC Health
08:12 Full Ad: Visit California
09:12 n u a g e s - Dreams
09:27 Popup Ad: Collibra
10:02 Full Ad: Grammarly
10:37 Full Ad: Mini
10:57 Klangarussell - Circuits
11:27 Full Ad: Mastercard
11:52 Foals - Late Night
12:17 Full Ad: Geico
12:37 Full Ad: Jaguar
13:00 London Grammar - Wasting My Young Years

Question 1

As far I saw in the channel and ads women were portrayed as middle class (dress), in roles as students, professionals, singles, couples, parents, and grandparents. The body types for most roles I would consider healthy, with grandparents moving towards overweight. The one exception would be Infinity, selling the idea of "luxury" and moving to the upper class.

Question on reflection

In the ads, women were portrayed in a variety of roles but I would consider them targetting the middle class. I would describe the women and men in the ads as healthy weight, with grandparents being portrayed on the heavier to obese side. In a side conversation about weight in the media, I wandered into the fashion industry and had meaningful full conversations about the changing industry. However, change is slow and some fashion brands are struggling to break out of the thin model paradigm. This industry was noted by France's ministry of health as contributing to eating disorders. A friend also chimed in and shared how when they were a model 25 years ago, they weighed about 35 pounds under their healthy weight and were considered the "right" weight. This created many health conditions at the time and are still uncomfortable with healthy body weight.

We also discussed how the majority of Americans are considered obese and how fashion sizes are getting larger to accommodate this... what was a medium is now small. Maybe this has to do with fast food and advertising, showing healthy people eating unhealthy food?

Question 2

I did not see any sexualization of women in the ads that I viewed.

Question on reflection

Ads that contained women showed them in a variety of ways: single, in relationships, in families. I would consider them connecting with the emotion of happiness. In the MasterCard ad, they included LGBT relationships, the only advertiser to do this that I saw. Visit California showed an independent single woman on an adventure in California. From the ads I viewed, I see a shift in advertising from that in the past.

Back to top