Collective identity and gender

1
Collective identity and gender

• How do lifestyle magazines create a collective
  identity of gender?
• (of their readers and for their readers)

2
We will be focusing on

• Collective gender identity in lifestyle
  magazines Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Nuts and men's
  health
• Using the adverts within the magazines as an
  example of the second media.
• How do the adverts themselves reinforce a gender
  identity?

3
In the exam you will have the choice of two
questions

• Question one will usually discuss to what
  extent/ how far/ have an opinion or take a view
• Question two will usually discuss explain how
  something operates/ explain/respond to a quote or
  a statement.
• Marking
• Explanation/ analysis/argument (20 marks)
• Use of examples (20 marks)
• Use of terminology (10 marks)

4
Examples of questions

• Media and Collective Identity
• Discuss the contemporary representation of a
  nation, region or social group in the media,
  using specific textual examples from at least two
  media to support your answer.
• How far does the representation of a particular
  social group change over time ? Refer to at least
  two media in your answer.

5
Key questions to ask

• How do the media form an identity for a group of
  people?
• What is the impact when that identity is
  negative?
• How do the media portray this identity as
  negative?
• Does the audience take the identity as a truth
  rather than recognise it as a stereotype?
• How does the dominant ideology/ collective
  identity spread?
• Are all the depictions in the media negative?
• Should collective identity exist in our modern
  world?

6
Prompt questions

• How do contemporary media represent nations
  regions and ethic/social/collective groups of
  people?
• How do contemporary representations compare to
  previous time periods
• What are the social implications of different
  media representations of groups of people?
• To what extent is human identity increasingly
  mediated?
• How media that are in public circulation now
  represent groups of people in different ways
• The effects in society of particular kinds of
  media representation of collective identities
• Debates around the idea that our identities are
  increasingly constructed by or through or in
  response to the media (and arguments against this
  notion)

7
So what is gender?

• Gender- It is important to understand gender as
  different from sexuality. Sexuality concerns
  physical and biological differences that
  distinguish males from females. Cultures
  construct differences in gender
• See gender handout
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vYIwWS2atEmcfeature
  related

8
Anthony Giddens

• The mainstream and mass media have historically
  played a pivotal role in shaping how girls think
  and feel about their bodies, their lives and
  their ambitions. The creation of a coherent
  self-identity is a process that is universal
  (Giddens),
• Consumerism is one of the clearest ways in which
  we develop and project a lifestyle

9
Key themes of Giddens

• Gidden allows us to consider how people form
  their sense of self identity
• Anthony Giddens focuses on how we create and
  shape our identity in modern societies and how
  the media might feed into this.
• The fusion of individual actions and grand social
  forces in one theoretical approach
  (Structuration)
• The impact of late modernity where all activity
  is the subject of social reflection, on social
  actors, relationships and institutions
• Some other interests such as globalisation, the
  state and politics are less of an interest to us

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• Suggests that we understand rules of society even
  though they may not be written down or formally
  enforced, if people go against these social
  expectations, people may be shocked
• In terms of gender, this form of social
  reproduction When a boy wears make up, the
  punishments comes through in things like teasing-
  up holding what we expect to be the rules of
  society
• Women who choose not to shave their armpits may
  also be treated as deviants for ignoring a social
  convention about feminine appearance
• Peoples everyday actions therefore reinforce and
  reproduce a set of expectations and it is this
  set of other peoples expectations which make up
  the social forces and social structures (Macro)
• Society only has form and that form only has its
  effects on people in so far as structure is
  produced and reproduced in what people do.
• He says that people have faith in the coherence
  of everyday life. We could say that this is why
  some men get angered when they see other men
  acting in an effeminate manner- This behaviour
  challenges their everyday understanding of how
  things should be in the world
• This suggests that gender is something that is
  learned and policed and which has to be
  constantly worked on and monitored

11
The theory of structuration

• Human agency (micro level activity) and social
  structure (macro level forces) continuously feed
  into each other. The social structure is
  reproduced through repetition of acts by
  individual people and can therefore change
• He notes that this theory suggests that social
  life is more random than individual acts but is
  not merely depicted by social forces. it is not
  merely a mass of micro acts but you cant
  understand it by just looking at the macro.
  Instead micro (human) and macro (social
  structure) are in a relationship with each other
  which reproduces the structure
• This means there is a social structure-
  traditions, institutions, moral codes and
  established ways of doing things, but it also
  means that these can be changed when people start
  to ignore them, replace them or reproduce them
  differently

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Modernity?

• The word tradition comes from the Latin
  traditionem, acc. of traditio which means
  "handing over, passing on", and is used in a
  number of ways in the English language
• Beliefs or customs taught by one generation to
  the next, often orally. For example, we can speak
  of the tradition of sending birth announcements.
  A set of customs or practices. For example, we
  can speak of Christmas traditions.
• Modernity typically denotes "a post-traditional,
  post-medieval historical period", in particular,
  one marked by progress from agrarianism via the
  rise of industrialism, capitalism, the
  nation-state, and its constituent forms of
  surveillance (Barker 2005, 444).
• Conceptually, modernity is related to the modern
  era and to modernism, but is a discrete concept.
  I
• n context, modernity can denote association with
  cultural and intellectual movements occurred
  between 1436 and 1789 (for some thinkers until
  1895), and extending to the 1970s, or later
  (Toulmin 1992, 35).
• Postmodernity (also spelled post-modernity or
  termed the postmodern condition) is generally
  used to describe the economic and/or cultural
  state or condition of society which is said to
  exist after modernity. This is the stage we are
  said to be in now

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• When tradition dominates individual actions do
  not have to be analysed and thought about so much
  because choices are already predescribed by
  traditions and customs
• In post traditional times (modernity) we dont
  really worry about the traditions from the past
  and options are at least as open the law and
  public opinion will allow. All questions of how
  to behave in society then becomes an issue of how
  we need have to consider and make decisions
  about.
• Modernity is post traditional. A society cant be
  fully modern if attitudes, actions or
  institutions are significantly influenced by
  traditions.
• He suggests that self identity is inescapable in
  a modern society

14
Feature of late modernity

• Gidden argues we are not in a time of post
  modernism, we are in a time of late modernity.
  Its modernity, just with bells on pre modern
  (traditional culture) modern (post traditional)
  culture post modern (extreme cases of fully
  developed modernity)
• The self is not something we are born with, and
  it is not fixed
• Instead, the self is reflexively made-
  thoughtfully constructed by the individual
• We all choose a lifestyle
• Relationships are increasingly like the pure
  relationship of equals, where everything has to
  be negotiated and there are no external reasons
  for being together
• We accept that all knowledge is provisional and
  may be proved wrong in the future
• We need trust in everyday life and relationships
  or wed be paralysed by thoughts of unhappy
  possibilities
• We accept risks and choose possible future
  actions by anticipating outcomes. The media adds
  to our awareness of risks

15
Anthony Giddens- Modernity and self identity

• Modernity and the self
• Change at every level
• Media and the self
• The reflexive project of the self
• How would you sum up in Giddens points in terms
  of gender identity?

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Key ideas to reconsider

• Ideology
• Semiotics
• Preferred/ secondary meanings
• Representation
• Macro
• Micro

17
Uses and gratifications

• Diversion- escape from everyday life
• Personal relationships
• Personal identity
• Surveillance
• Information/learning/personal identity/integration
  and social interaction/ entertainment

18
Key terms

• Gender- It is important to understand gender as
  different from sexuality. Sexuality concerns
  physical and biological differences that
  distinguish males from females. Cultures
  construct differences in gender

19
Key terms

• Patriarchy- A male dominated order that expounds
  masculine values and excludes women from
  positions of power and authority
• it is a sociological way of saying that our
  civilization is pervasively patriarchal (men hold
  the power, women are secondary) which is based
  on bias in power based on the socially
  constructed concepts of gender rooted in
  historical premises.
• Patriarchy is a key concept in Marxist and
  socialist feminism
• from the biological (women are weaker) to the
  economic (women provide domestic support for the
  working male, and/or a cheap army of reserve
  labour) to the cultural (masculinity and
  traditional masculine skills are valued above
  femininity and traditionally female skills)
• Scopophilia- Pleasure of looking

20
Stuart Hall

• Reception theory provides a means of
  understanding media texts by understanding how
  these texts are read by audiences.
• Theorists who analyze media through reception
  studies are concerned with the experience of
  cinema and television viewing for spectators, and
  how meaning is created through that experience.
• An important concept of reception theory is that
  the media textthe individual movie or television
  programhas no inherent meaning in and of itself.
  Instead, meaning is created in the interaction
  between spectator and text in other words,
  meaning is created as the viewer watches and
  processes the film.
• Reception theory argues that contextual factors,
  more than textual ones, influence the way the
  spectator views the film or television program.

21
Stuart Hall

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vaTzMsPqssOYfeature
  player_embeddedat63
• See Staurt Hall handout

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• Contextual factors include elements of the
  viewer's identity as well as circumstances of
  exhibition, the spectator's preconceived notions
  concerning the film or television program's genre
  and production, and even broad social,
  historical, and political issues. In short,
  reception theory places the viewer in context,
  taking into account all of the various factors
  that might influence how she or he will read and
  create meaning from the text

23
Stuart Halls Encoding/decoding model (1973)

• Suggest that a media producer may encode a
  certain meaning into their text which would be
  based on a certain social context and
  understandings but noted that when another person
  comes to consume that text, their decoding of
  it, based on their own social context and
  assumptions, is likely to be somewhat different.

24
Reception theory

• Reception theory- based on the idea that no text
  has one single meaning
• We decode the texts we encounter in individual
  ways
• David Morley- he said there are three main types
  of reading for any media text
• Dominant (hegemonic)- the reader shares the
  programmes codes and accepts the preferred
  reading
• Negotiated reading- the reader partly shares the
  programmes codes but modifies it in a way which
  reflects their position and interests
• Oppositional (counter hegemonic) the reader does
  not share the programmes code and rejects the
  preferred reading bringing an alternative frame
  of interpretation e.g a feminist reading of a
  lads mag.

25
Reception theory

• Focuses entirely on what users / consumers /
  audiences do with media texts
• Argues that meaning lies in the hands of the
  readers
• Elvis Costello You can only control what the
  words look like, not what they mean
• John Fiske audiences / consumers act as
  semiotic guerillas who configure their own
  meanings from the texts produced by media
  institutions
• Consider how people can react differently to the
  same stimulus different people have different
  tastes in what is funny / disgusting , acceptable
  / unacceptable, as the recent furore about
  Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross shows
• Web 2.0 and the melting of the line between
  producers and audiences the age of YouTube and
  post-modern mash up culture and blogs and the
  anti-journalists who work outside the system
  and outside the rules audiences are the masters
  now

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Thursday 11th

• To understand the concepts of Feminism
• To look at Judith Butler and gender trouble
• To understand other key theorists
• Handouts- Judith Butler essay, Queer theory
  Chapter, Feminism chapter

27
Feminism

• Feminist media theory can be described as an
  unconditional focus on analysing gender as a
  mechanism that structures material and symbolic
  worlds and our experiences of them
• First wave feminism- refers to early feminists
  including the suffrage movement that fought to
  secure the vote for women
• Second wave feminism 1960s including the
  women's movement which campaigned for equal
  rights in employment, marital relationships and
  sexual orientation- During this period, women
  wanted to challenge the dominant ideological
  definitions of femininity
• See handouts

28
Judith Butler

• Argues that sex (Male/ female) is seen to cause
  gender (Masculine/feminine) which is seen to
  cause desire towards the other gender. Her
  approach inspired partly by Foucault is
  basically to smash the supposed links between
  these so that gender and desire are flexible,
  free floating and not caused by other factors
• Butler says there is no gender identity behind
  the expressions of gender.identity is
  performitively constructed by the very
  expressions which are said to be its result .
  Gender is a performance, its what you do, rather
  than who you are
• Argues that we all put on a gender performance,
  whether traditional or not.
• Her book gender trouble argues that gender
  identities are not fixed rather they are only
  given meaning when acted out or preformed.
• She shares Simone de Beauviours view that one is
  not born, but rather becomes a woman

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Judith Butler

• Developed Foucault's work on sexuality with her
  own original contribution.
• The acts by which gender is constituted bear
  similarities the per formative acts within
  theatrical contexts
• Gender is a performance and how it is performed
  constitutes what it means to any given society or
  culture in a particular historical moment
• Although gender is a process of acting out rather
  than being, it is nevertheless subject to social
  norms and conditions which restrict the range of
  gender performances it is feasible for
  individuals to enact.
• Gender play is not free for all
• The way we view sex and gender is fundamental to
  the conventional roles attached to gender. She
  suggests that until sex differences are
  disregarded and people cease to be classed into
  either male or female, true equality is
  impossible.
• See Judith Butler essay

30
Queer theory See handouts

• What is Queer Theory?
• Queer theory is a set of ideas based around the
  idea that identities are not fixed and do not
  determine who we are. It suggests that it is
  meaningless to talk in general about 'women' or
  any other group, as identities consist of so many
  elements that to assume that people can be seen
  collectively on the basis of one shared
  characteristic is wrong. Indeed, it proposes that
  we deliberately challenge all notions of fixed
  identity, in varied and non-predictable ways.
• Queer theory is based, in part,on the work of
  Judith Butler(in particular her bookGender
  Trouble, 1990).
• It is a mistake to think that queer theory is
  another name for lesbian and gay studies.

31
Angela McRobbie

• McRobbie has suggested that teenage magazines
  construct a conservative ideology of femininity
  (looking at magazines like Jackie)
• Suggested that these magazines didnt allow the
  readers to act against patriarchal social order.
  Instead it promoted values of gentility and
  domesticity
• She said this was due to several issues
• The code of romance pervades most articles in the
  magazine especially in the short stories which
  showed
• The girl has to fight to get and keep her man
• She can never trust another women unless she is
  old or ugly
• Despite these trials, being a girl and romance
  are fun (2000)
• She also suggests that there is a tendency to
  encourage readers to conform to the norm- what
  society expects
• The code of fashion and beauty

32
Janice Winship

• Aspirational feminism advocated by women's
  magazines such as Cosmopolitan
• Says there is the ideology of individual success
  and competiveness in the magazines I rather
  than we
• To both Winship and McRobbie, success means the
  achievement of romantic attachments rather than
  career or educational achievements

33
Laura Mulvey- The male gaze

• Argued that the pleasures of cinema is
  Scopophilia- the pleasure of looking a
  voyeuristic gaze directed at other people. She
  also suggests that pleasure is gained by seeing
  oneself as the primary character and identifying
  with them.
• In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure
  in looking is split between active/male and
  passive/female. The determining male gaze
  projects its fantasy onto the female figure
  which is styled accordingly.
• Mulvey suggested that in their typical
  traditional exhibitionist role, women are
  simultaneously looked at and displayed with their
  appearance coded for strong visual and erotic
  impact so that they can be said to connote
  to-be-looked-at-ness
• Male viewers identify with the male protagonist,
  and the females are the subject of their desiring
  gaze.
• It also means that the female viewers have to
  take on the viewpoint of the central male
  character so that women are denied a viewpoint
  and of their own and instead participate in the
  pleasure of men looking at women.

34
The male gaze

• Female characters only have importance in the
  film apart from as an erotic figure both to the
  males in the film and the spectators in the
  cinema.
• Her role is to drive the hero to act the way he
  does. Male viewers would not want the male hero
  as a sexual object according to the principles of
  the ruling ideology.
• He instead is meant to be admired as an ideal
  version of the self.
• Within her model, the audience, both female is
  positioned so that they admire the male lead for
  his actions and adopt his romantic/ erotic view
  of the women.
• This model denies the heterosexual female gaze
  altogether
• However it could be said Mulveys dark and
  suffocating anaylsis of patriarchal cinema has
  lost ground to a more confident and empowering
  approach which foregrounds the possibilities of
  subversive that is, non patriarchal modes of
  female spectatorship

35
Using the magazine covers discuss

• How Laura Mulveys male gaze theory could be
  applied?
• Discuss the impact for the male and female reader
  if the male gaze theory is applied
• Using the three types of reading in reception
  theory, discuss what they readings for these
  front covers are.

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40
Fiske and audience power

• John Fiske suggests that popular culture is made
  by the people not produced by the culture
  industry. (1989)
• It is a step further from Stuart Halls
  encoding/decoding model
• Fiske suggests the power of the audience to
  interpret media texts and determine their
  popularity, far outweighs the ability of media
  institutions to send a particular message or
  ideology to audiences within their texts
• He suggests that we cant even talk about the
  people or the audience because a singular mass of
  consumers does not exist there is only a range
  of different individuals with their own changing
  tastes.
• He suggests that people are not merely consumers
  of texts, the audience rejects this role and
  becomes a producer, a producer of meanings and
  pleasures (1989)
• This is similar to the concept that WEB 2.0 is
  turning audiences into producers of their own
  media.

41

• Fiske also says that everyday media users snatch
  aspects of the mass produced media and then
  (re)interpret them to suit their own preferred
  meanings. The text is a source from which the
  viewer activates meaning to make sense of their
  material existence
• He says that the meaning of a text is not
  complete until interpreted by an individual
  within the context of their lives
• He uses Madonna as an example in his work he
  said Madonna's image then becomes a site of
  semiotic struggle between the forces of
  patriarchal control and feminine resistance.
• He also says she contains the patriarchal
  meanings of feminine sexuality and the resisting
  ones that her sexuality is hers to use as she
  wishes
• Perhaps in terms of collective feminine identity,
  women are also shown this idea

42
Foucault

• We often talk about people as if they have
  particular attributes as 'things' inside
  themselves -- they have an identity, for example,
  and we believe that at the heart of a person
  there is a fixed and true identity or character
  (even if we're not sure that we know quite what
  that is, for a particular person). We assume that
  people have an inner essence -- qualities beneath
  the surface which determine who that person
  really 'is'. We also say that some people have
  (different levels of) power which means that they
  are more (or less) able to achieve what they want
  in their relationships with others, and society
  as a whole.

43
Foucault- constant changing ideas

• Foucault rejected this view. For Foucault, people
  do not have a 'real' identity within themselves
  that's just a way of talking about the self -- a
  discourse. An 'identity' is communicated to
  others in your interactions with them, but this
  is not a fixed thing within a person. It is a
  shifting, temporary construction.
• People do not 'have' power implicitly rather,
  power is a technique or action which individuals
  can engage in. Power is not possessed it is
  exercised. And where there is power, there is
  always also resistance.

44

• Foucault developed different approaches for his
  different studies, but his work can be
  simplistically divided into 'early' Foucault,
  where he worked on the ways in which state power
  and discourses worked to constrain people
• 'later in which that idea of power as a 'thing'
  is broken down, and it is instead seen as a more
  fluid relation, a 'technique' which can be
  deployed.

45
Althusser and Interpellation

• Althusser proposed that individuals are
  transformed into subjects through the ideological
  mechanism of interpellation (Chandler 181).
• He explained that interpellation works primarily
  through language and occurs when we are hailed by
  a message.
• To illustrate hailing in the most straight
  forward way, Althusser offered the following
  example when a policeman calls out, Hey, you
  there!, most people within hearing distance will
  immediately assume that they are the ones being
  summoned, even if they have done nothing wrong.
• This reaction positions the individual as a
  subject in relation to the general ideological
  codes of law and criminality (Brooker 122).

46

• Althusser believed that the dominant beliefs,
  values and practices that constitute ideology
  serve a political function.
• As we progress through the education system and
  enter the workforce, ideology works through state
  institutions to interpellate or construct us into
  particular subject positions in which our work
  and lifestyle benefits those who control the
  processes of production (Smith 208).
• The subject positions which are most prevalent
  configure us in terms of commercial culture - as
  consumers, taxpayers, employees, automobile
  drivers, homeowners, or parents.
• For instance, come election time, politicians
  continuously address their audience in their
  speeches as voters or taxpayers, thereby
  referring to the subject positions which most
  benefit them in their capacity as political
  leaders.

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48
How do life style magazines construct a
collective gender identity?

• Key questions to consider
• How do these magazines create a collective
  identity of gender for their readers
• What do these magazines say about the gender?
• How do they construct them?
• How do each of these magazines create gender for
  their readers and create gender of the opposite
  sex?
• Basically you will have so much information to
  help you answer the question!

49
Key prompts from the specification

• How do contemporary media represent nations
  regions and ethic/social/collective groups of
  people?
• How do contemporary representations compare to
  previous time periods
• What are the social implications of different
  media representations of groups of people?
• To what extent is human identity increasingly
  mediated?
• How media that are in public circulation now
  represent groups of people in different ways
• The effects in society of particular kinds of
  media representation of collective identities
• Debates around the idea that our identities are
  increasingly constructed by or through or in
  response to the media (and arguments against this
  notion)

50
What are the social implications of different
media representations of groups of people?

• Stereotyping? What is the impact?
• What power does the audience have to resist?
• How do we measure the representations we
  encounter? (think theories)
• How do we measure up against the re-presentations
  we encounter?

51
To what extent is human identity increasingly
mediated?

• Increasing media increasingly mediated?
• Re-presentation by others and ourselves

52
How do contemporary representations compare to
previous time periods?

• Today- Sexualisation?
• Past- Patriarchal?
• Feminism?
• Similarities and differences
• Use clear examples from the past

53
Examples of questions

• Analyse the ways in which the media represent one
  group of people you have studied
• The media do not construct identity, they merely
  reflect it. Discuss

54
Answering the question

• Know your case study
• Keep hunting out your own examples
• Adapt them to the question
• Look at both sides of the argument
• Refer to critics/theorists

55
Representations of gender in the past

• Gauntlett- Media, gender and identity
• Patriarchal ideas
• Women as the happy housewife heroine
• Women with careers as a masculinisation
• Working until marriage and children
• Fulfilling expected gender roles
• Male editors constructing the female identity
• Magazines Clearly identifying the role for women

56
Cosmo (past)

• Winship- inside women's magazine book-although
  feminist ideas, admitted that she enjoyed female
  magazines
• mixed messages to women, lack of consistent ideas
• Ideas always followed the norm- e.g hetrosexual
  relationships

57
Magazines and postmodernism

• Media theorists say that belonging to a
  collective group is a misrecognition
• Instead we should approach it in a triangular
  approach

How does a magazine represent its own gender to
another gender?
How does it represent the other gender to its
reader?
How does it represent its own gender to the
reader?
58
Postmodernism

• We are not considering the way that magazines are
  constructed is post modernism
• Instead we are considering whether a secondary
  audience might create post modern readings of
  these products
• Pick and mix our media, select how we form our
  identities in relation to the media
• Gauntlett- Need to be constructed and negotiated
  in a post traditional society/ Magazines allow
  readers to check is this ok?
• Relavatism- A realist position nothing has any
  meaning anymore, people will create their own
  meaning.
• It would mean that there was no harm in making a
  gender specific statement in magazines- readers
  are given more credit than to just accept this
  idea- Pick and mix reader
• We can not assume that people are simply
  influenced
• A feminist perspective would view the way that
  men and womens
• Mags present women/female gender as objects,
  decorative, subordinate. They might view the post
  modern ideas with concern as they may appear too
  relaxed

59
David Gauntlett Women's magazines and female
identities today

• See chapter handouts
• What has Gauntlett suggested about magazines
  today?
• Women's magazines are of course, all about the
  social construction of womanhood today
• Gauntlett- Relationships pg 190 (past or present
  idea?)
• In general, womens magazines speak the language
  of popular feminism- Assertive, seeking success
  in work and relationships and demanding the right
  to both equality and pleasure. Do you agree?
• The pick and mix reader pg 196 (as discussed in
  postmodernism and magazines slide
• Think about some research into real women and ask
  them about what they think about our key
  publications-What do they reveal about gender
  assumptions with women today.
• Womens magazines offer a confusing and
  contradictory set of ideas
• Many of the messages are positive- Assertive,
  independent
• Looking beautiful, generally inescapable
• Overemphasising the power of the text and
  underestimating the ability of the reader
• However we could still be absorbing ideas about
  society (through the magazine)
• Some examples of feminism/ however contradicting
  ideas

60
Looking at the magazines

• Using Gauntletts chapter key questions to ask
• Is the goal the same but the path different?
• Women as the ones doing the seeking?
• Are they showing that women should be in control?
  What articles reveal this?
• Does this reflect a shift in power?
• Do they make us feel bad about ourselves?-
  unachievable goals?-What articles/adverts do
  this?
• Are magazines giving us the tools for emotional
  and physical health, only to break them down
  again?
• Contradicting ideas? What are they and what
  themes?
• Are there examples of positive and empowering
  articles?
• What are we using it for? Uses and
  gratifications- What would actually learn?
• Am I using it as a measuring tool for my own
  identity?
• Is it making me feel better/worse about my life?
• Do they promote feminism?
• As a reader, what do we come away with?

61
Identity

• The pleasure and perhaps sometimes a certain
  sadness of consuming these magazines, is the gap
  between the fantasy of self indulgent luxury and
  the more complex, grittier reality of my life
• Is there a difference between the reality and the
  fantasy of magazine life?

62
The ideal women

• Independent in attitude
• Attractive in looks
• Looking for/ have a man
• Career minded
• Sexy, beautiful, Intelligent, Superwoman
• Is she being presented as someone who is secure?
  Or are the magazines playing up to these
  insecurities?

63
Oppositional readings

• Are they harmful?
• Do they make question every aspect of your life?
• Are women creating unachievable, stereotyped,
  patriarchal ideas of what it means to be a woman?
  
• Women telling women how to be, yet claiming to be
  some kind of sisterhood- Cosmo factor- Women
  against other women- Competitiveness, it is I not
  we (Winship)
• Creating contradicting ideas for ourselves
• We are led to believe men are very different from
  us, (Very stereotype)
• How does the magazine portray the male sex?
• Is it a patriarchal idea? Does it fulfil dominant
  ideologies of the male gender?
• Do they make women believe that they are better
  than men and that need looking after by us, but
  that we must not let men know this?
• Makes men look emotionally immature and
  incapable?

64
Cosmopolitan media pack

• What does the media pack reveal about the women
  who reads it
• (see media pack)

65
Cosmo

• The word cosmopolitan means worldly and
• knowing. This carefully chosen title carries
  connotations and a mode of address which
  associates its readers and brand image with a
  modern and sophisticated lifestyle and image.

66

• Sex is a popular sell line for
• targeting both genders. On
• the cover the word appears
• often.
• Examples of sensational
• language include the titles
• of feature articles displayed
• such as Sex uncensored
• and a Chick Behaviour
• that Baffles the Hell Out
• of Guys. Additionally
• there is striking use of
• alliteration the repetition
• of sounds such as the sss in
• sex and censored and the
• b sound in behaviour and
• baffles makes the words
• easier to skim read and
• remember.

• The often large central image
• is carefully constructed to target its
• market of fun, fearless
• females in a number of
• ways. The Model often has
• adopted a pose which is
• open and uninhibited,
• signifying fearlessness
• and confidence.
• Secondly the often smiling facial
• expression and direct gaze
• at the reader communicates
• a positive and fun attitude
• to life.

67
We will be focusing on
68
(No Transcript)
69

• We will be discussing
• The past
• The present
• The future
• The essay will be mainly on the present but we
  must discuss the past and present at least once
  in the essay

70

• When I was born, they looked at me and said
  'What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong
  boy!' And when you were born, they looked at you
  and said 'What a good girl, what a smart girl,
  what a pretty girl!'"

71
How the Media Define Masculinity

• Families, friends, teachers, and community
  leaders all play a role in helping boys define
  what it means to be a man. Mainstream media
  representations also play a role in reinforcing
  ideas about what it means to be a "real" man in
  our society. In most media portrayals, male
  characters are rewarded for self-control and the
  control of others, aggression and violence,
  financial independence, and physical
  desirability.
• In 1999, Children Now, a California-based
  organization that examines the impact of media on
  children and youth, released a report entitled
  Boys to Men Media Messages About Masculinity.
  The report argues that the medias portrayal of
  men tends to reinforce mens social dominance.

72

• The report observes that
• the majority of male characters in media are
  heterosexual
• male characters are more often associated with
  the public sphere of work, rather than the
  private sphere of the home, and issues and
  problems related to work are more significant
  than personal issues
• non-white male characters are more likely to
  experience personal problems and are more likely
  to use physical aggression or violence to solve
  those problems
• Children Now conclude that these dominant trends
  in the medias portrayal of men reinforce and
  support social attitudes that link masculinity to
  power, dominance and control.
• In Tough Guise Violence, Media and the Crisis in
  Masculinity, Jackson Katz and Jeremy Earp argue
  that the media provide an important perspective
  on social attitudesand that while the media are
  not the cause of violent behaviour in men and
  boys, they do portray male violence as a normal
  expression of masculinity

73
Men's Magazines and the Construction of
Masculinity

• Although most contemporary research on the
  portrayal of masculinity in the media has focused
  on violence, research has also begun to examine
  the portrayal of masculinity in mens magazines
  such as Playboy, Maxim, GQ, and Esquire. These
  magazines, which focus on matters such as health,
  fashion, sex, relationships, and lifestyle, play
  a part in defining what it means to be a modern
  man.
• Some critics argue that these magazines represent
  an improvement in media portrayals of gender
  since they focus on topics previously thought to
  be solely the concern of women. But others argue
  that such magazines still rely on stereotypical
  portrayals of men and masculinity, featuring
  handsome, white, well-built and well-dressed men,
  interested only in acquiring the finer things in
  life.
• Media commentators argue that these magazines
  continue to relegate women to the background and,
  in doing so, are examples of social backlash
  directed against specific gains made by women in
  the paid labour force, mass media industries and
  other professions. They say that it is no
  coincidence that as women are achieving greater
  social, political and professional equality,
  these magazines symbolically relegate them to
  subordinate positions as sex objects.

74

• While magazines such as Playboy and Maxim are
  criticized for objectifying womens bodies,
  recent discussions about mens magazines are
  focusing on what these magazines say about men
  and masculinity. Academics argue that the recent
  popularity of these magazines is a reflection of
  mens uncertainty over the roles they are
  expected to assume in society, at work, and in
  their relationships.
• In her 1983 discussion of Playboy, Barbara
  Ehrenreich notes when the magazine emerged in
  1953, American men were beginning to feel
  constrained by the demands of marriage, work and
  fatherhoodand Playboy unapologetically
  celebrated the bachelors lifestyle.
• She argues that Playboy painted an idealistic
  picture of the well-educated, confirmed bachelor
  who appreciates the finer things in life wine,
  jazz, scotch, art, and women. Playboys success
  was built on its celebration of male independence
  from the domestic responsibilities of marriage
  and fatherhood.

75
David gauntlett Male magazines and modern male
identities

• See chapter handouts

76
Mens Magazines

• There is a need to investigate whether these
  new publications are in fact a progressive force
  in society.
• The term 'progressive' asks the question of
  whether these magazines have a positive influence
  over the readership -- such as by helping men
  come to terms with their personal idea of what it
  means to be male in a world that is becoming
  increasingly feminized, or by providing advice on
  masculinity and introducing a desperately needed
  'men only' orientated form of entertainment.
• On the other hand, these magazines may be a
  negative force in society as they are seen as
  being sexist, objectifying women.

77

• Unlike women's magazines, which also feature
  women on the front cover, lads magazines usually
  have scantily clad or even naked women as their
  come on and many people believe, that despite
  being very successful, they are far from being a
  progressive force in society and are little more
  than an anti-feminist backlash.
• "While women become 'friends' with their
  magazines there is an inbuilt male resistance to
  the idea of a magazine that makes public and
  shares ideas about being a man. To men it is an
  unacceptable contradiction. Self-consciousness is
  permissible, even attractive, in a woman it is
  perceived as weak and unmanly in a
  man."(Campaign, 26/7/85 37)

78
Men's health

• "giving readers the thing they seem to crave but
  dare not admit advice."
• This is certainly true in part. Increasingly
  these magazines seem designed not simply to
  celebrate masculinity, but also to shore it up.
  The endless 'how - to' articles on sexuality
  actually offer precious little advice, instead
  providing men with a great deal of hand -
  holding. In the pages of a recent Men's Health,
  for example, one finds an article promising to
  explain the "Mysteries of the Breast.
• The piece is filled with extravagantly
  simpleminded -- even apologetic -- recitations of
  the obvious, gently nudging manly men into a
  vague recognition of their partner's needs, all
  the while reassuring them that simple
  consideration isn't a sign of incipient
  sissiness.
• It may sound like a page straight out of a
  sensitive training manual, but the bottom line on
  the breast is simple "Find out what your partner
  enjoys - and do it," writes Curt Presman, the
  author. Then to assure his readers that real
  women actually appreciate this novel technique,
  he quotes several. "Girls like guys who ask them
  what to do during sex," says Debbie a 21-year-old
  estate agent. Several paragraphs down, Presman
  finds another appreciative young woman who
  assures him that, "the more a man pays attention
  to my breasts, the better I feel about my body."

79
Women as Sexual Objects

• Provocative images of women's partly clothed or
  naked bodies are especially prevalent in
  advertising. Shari Graydon, former president of
  Canadas MediaWatch, argues that womens bodies
  are sexualized in ads in order to grab the
  viewers attention. Women become sexual objects
  when their bodies and their sexuality are linked
  to products that are bought and sold.
• Media activist Jean Kilbourne agrees. She notes
  that womens bodies are often dismembered into
  legs, breasts or thighs, reinforcing the message
  that women are objects rather than whole human
  beings.
• Although womens sexuality is no longer a taboo
  subject, many researchers question whether or not
  the blatant sexualization of womens bodies in
  the media is liberating. Laurie Abraham,
  executive editor of Elle magazine, warns that the
  biggest problem with womens magazines is "how
  much we lie about sex." Those "lies" continue to
  perpetuate the idea that womens sexuality is
  subservient to mens pleasure. In her study of
  Cosmopolitan and Playboy magazines, for example,
  Nicole Krassas found that both men and womens
  magazines contain a single vision of female
  sexualitythat "women should primarily concern
  themselves with attracting and sexually
  satisfying men."
• The presence of misinformation and media
  stereotypes is disturbing, given research that
  indicates young people often turn to media for
  information about sex and sexuality. In 2003,
  David Buckingham and Sara Bragg reported that
  two-thirds of young people turn to media when
  they want to learn about sex - the same
  percentage of kids who ask their mothers for
  information and advice.

80

• Many researchers argue that the
  over-representation of thin women in mass media
  reinforces the conclusion that "physically
  attractive" and "sexually desirable" mean "thin."
  Amy Malkins study of magazine covers reveals
  that messages about weight loss are often placed
  next to messages about men and relationships.
  Some of her examples "Get the Body You Really
  Want" beside "How to Get Your Husband to Really
  Listen," and "Stay Skinny" paired with "What Men
  Really Want."
• The fascination with finding out what men really
  want also tends to keep female characters in film
  and television busy. Professor Nancy Signorielli
  reports that men are more likely than women to be
  shown "on the job" in movies and television
  shows. Female characters, on the other hand, are
  more likely to be seen dating, or talking about
  romance.

81

• Advertising
• The second media

82
ADVERTISING THE SECOND MEDIA Gender identity in
magazine advertising

• It is important to note the significance of
  gender in advertising.
• According to Sut Jhally, gender is probably the
  social resource that is used most by advertisers
  they seem to be obsessed with gender and
  sexuality.' The reason for this is that 'gender
  is one of our deepest and most important traits
  as human beings.
• Our understanding of ourselves as either male or
  female is the most important aspect of our
  definition of ourselves as individuals What
  better place to draw upon than an area of social
  behaviour that can be communicated almost
  instantly and which reaches into the very core of
  our definition as human beings?' (Jhally,
  1987135).
• Thus, advertising has become a central
  socialising agent for cultural values connected
  to gender.

83
Masculinity and Advertising

• In its study of masculinity and sports media, the
  research group Children Now found that most
  commercials directed to male viewers tend to air
  during sports programming. Women rarely appear in
  these commercials, and when they do, theyre
  generally portrayed in stereotypical ways.
• In fact, in his analysis of gender in
  advertising, author and University of North Texas
  professor Steve Craig argues that women tend to
  be presented as "rewards" for men who choose the
  right product. He describes such commercials as
  "narratives of playful escapades away from home
  and family." They operate, he says, at the level
  of fantasypresenting idealized portrayals of men
  and women. When he focused specifically on beer
  commercials, Craig found that the men were
  invariably "virile, slim and white"and the women
  always "eager for male companionship."
• Author and academic Susan Bordo (University of
  Kentucky) has also analyzed gender in
  advertising, and agrees that men are usually
  portrayed as virile, muscular and powerful. Their
  powerful bodies dominate space in the ads. For
  women, the focus is on slenderness, dieting, and
  attaining a feminine ideal women are always
  presented as not just thin, but also weak and
  vulnerable.
• These critics and others suggest that just as
  traditional advertising has for decades sexually
  objectified women and their bodies, todays
  marketing campaigns are objectifying men in the
  same way. A 2002 study by the University of
  Wisconsin suggests that this new focus on fit and
  muscled male bodies is causing men the same
  anxiety and personal insecurity that women have
  felt for decades.

84
Determining the potential for 'genderfuck' in
gender-ambivalent advertising imagery

• Genderfuck refers to the self-conscious effort to
  "fuck with" or play with traditional notions of
  gender identity, gender roles, and gender
  presentation.It falls under the umbrella of the
  transgender spectrum

85

• The effect of unstable signifying practices in a
  libidinal (The psychic and emotional energy
  associated with instinctual biological drives
• Sexual desire and manifestation of the sexual
  drive)
• Economy of multiple sexualities the
  destabilisation of gender as an analytical
  category, though it is not, necessarily, the
  signal of the end of gender the play of
  masculine and feminine on the body subverts the
  possibility of possessing a unified subject
  position.-- June L. Reich on Genderfuck'.

86

• Since the mid-1990s, advertising has increasingly
  employed images in which the gender and sexual
  orientation of the subject(s) are markedly (and
  purposefully) ambiguous.
• As an ancillary to this, there are also a growing
  number of distinctly homosexual images - and
  these are far removed from depictions of the camp
  gay employed as the comic relief elsewhere in
  mainstream media.
• We need to consider how these depictions
  undermine conventional gender role stereotypes
  and the norm of heterosexuality that dominate
  advertising and the media at large.

87
Gender ambiguity
88
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89

• The revival of the Women's Movement in the 1970s
  directed an onslaught of criticism towards
  post-war images in which women were 'usually
  shown as being subordinate, passive, submissive
  and marginal, performing a limited number of
  secondary and uninteresting tasks confined to
  their sexuality, their emotions and their
  domesticity' (Strinati, 1995184). Subsequent to
  pressure placed by liberal feminists on the media
  and advertising industries, the more 'positive'
  image of the independent 'New Woman' emerged,
  followed by the 'New Man' in the 1980s

90

• By way of semiology, and a consideration of the
  motives of advertising and consumer industries,
  feminist analysis of these representations in the
  early nineties, however, warned of their latent
  sexist meanings.
• We need to images that are now becoming prevalent
  in advertising.
• analysis of the progressive depictions of men and
  women (and androgyny) by advertisers.
• Androgyny is a term, which refers to the mixing
  of masculine and feminine characteristics,
• And consider the role of the New Woman and New
  Man, and then from New Woman/Man to
  gender-ambivalent queer images.

91

• . In Images of Woman (1975), Millum analysed
  adverts in women's magazines by looking at the
  characteristics of three central elements in the
  images props, setting and actors (1975114). In
  his classic study Gender Advertisements (1976),
  Goffman analysed adverts that he had selected 'at
  will' from current popular magazines that were
  chosen on the basis that they appeared to
  delineate 'a discrete theme bearing on gender'.
  Goffman justifies his seemingly haphazard
  approach by discussing 'how pictures can and
  can't be used in social analysis' claiming that
  'themes that can be delineated through pictures
  have a very mixed ontological status and that any
  attempt to legislate as to the order of fact
  represented in these themes is likely to be
  optimistic.' Significantly for our purposes, he
  asserts that his study takes issue with two of
  three methodological questions discovery and
  presentation, but not proof (197624).

92

• In as much as behaviour is the process of living
  life, the development of behaviour sets, which
  can be thought of as roles, may be employed for
  the purpose of simplifying the task the idea was
  first proposed by William James (1890). 'Some
  roles, James believed, we choose for ourselves
  ... Other roles are prescribed for us by virtue
  of our position in life'.
• The ideas of James have been further developed by
  a number of sociologists notably Merton (1957),
  Mead (1934), Parsons (1951) and Goffman (1959).

93
Goffman

• In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,
  Goffman's main contribution to the discussion
  concerns the analysis of characterisation. His
  suggestion that the performer attempts to present
  an idealised version of the character (page 45)
  which reflects the values of society - since the
  notion of the ideal is one which is derived from
  society - is somewhat reminiscent of the Freudian
  concept of super-ego.

94

• Goffman suggests that belief in a particular role
  by an individual performer, is related to
  perceived reality. (page 28) Hence there is
  considerable importance attached to the clothing
  worn by the performer whilst in character, which
  primarily serves to increase belief in the role.
  The wearing of an appropriate costume enables the
  character to be donned more readily which, in
  turn, contributes to the definition of the
  situation 'the more the individual is concerned
  with the reality which is not available to
  perception, the more must he concentrate his
  attention on appearances.' (page 241)

95

• This aspect of 'appearance' is part of what
  Goffman identifies as 'front' and, in
  performance terms, it is closely related to
  'manner'. The appearance and manner of the
  performer serve to enrich the quality of
  performance, and they will normally operate in
  harmony. 'We often expect, of course, a
  confirming consistency between appearance and
  manner'. (page 35) Front distinguishes between
  the public part of the performance and backstage,
  or off-stage, action which is still carried out
  within the scope of the role it is 'that part of
  the performance which regularly functions in a
  general and fixed fashion to define the
  situation'. (page 32) It also encompasses
  'setting' the furniture and props that make up
  the set for a particular act.

96

• Non-verbal communication in the form of gestures
  which are made by the performer 'during the
  interaction' (page 40) serve to add a
  confirmatory emphasis Goffman uses the example
  of a baseball umpire who's body language is
  actually communicating his decision whilst he is
  in the act of processing the information upon
  which it is to be based. Related to this, there
  is a possibility of accidentally misleading an
  audience with unintended body language. For this
  reason, it is suggested, the performer keeps
  non-relevant gestures to a bare minimum. (page 59)

97
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98

• Erving Goffmans perspective on advertisements is
  that they do not necessarily depict how men and
  women actually behave, but that they are a good
  representation of the way we think they behave.
  Print advertisements, therefore, do not offer an
  exact snapshot of real life but instead offer a
  perspective on a certain aspect or aspects of
  life they conventionalise our conventions, and
  stylise what is already a stylisation (Goffman,
  1979 84).

99

• Advertisements can be offensive, and not just in
  the most palpable way by being openly crude and
  distasteful. They can also cause offence in more
  subtle ways by portraying men and women in
  stereotypical roles that suggest certain
  implications about their capabilities. Every
  culture has accepted routine forms which indicate
  how men and women are supposed to look, act, and
  relate to each other in a wide variety of social
  situations (Leiss, Kline Jhally, 1986 166).
  These norms, when represented in advertising
  reinforce certain stereotypes. The concept of
  stereotyping was coined by Walter Lippman, who
  refers to it as the guarantee of our self
  respect, value, position and rights he goes on
  to state that stereotypes are highly charged with
  the feelings attached to them (in Dyer, 2002
  11).

100

• Betty Friedan studied the way in which women were
  portrayed in the forties and fifties in womens
  magazines. She had previously found, in the late
  thirties, that women were portrayed (in
  advertisements) as autonomous heroines, but this
  representation had made way for the glorified
  housewife image by the forties. Friedan
  concluded that manufacturers had decided to make
  women better consumers of home products by
  reinforcing the concept of total fulfilment
  through the wholesome role of housewife and
  mother

101

• The advertisement has the tagline She has the
  recipe for good citizenship, which puts forward
  the message that women should be accomplished in
  the kitchen in order to be successful, good
  citizens.
• The notion that, in advertising, manufacturers
  try to create an image that will maximise the
  sale of their product brings up the question of
  causality. This looks at whether advertising
  merely reflects reality, or directly influences
  and shapes reality by providing role models.
  Goffman states that self-definition is guided and
  externally dominated that advertisements try to
  convince us that this is how men and women are,
  want to be, or should be, in relation to
  themselves, and in relation to others in the
  arena of life (Goffman, 1979 vii).

102
(Historical examples)

• Courtney and Lockeretzs report A Womans Place
  An Analysis of the Roles Portrayed by Women in
  Print Advertising sampled various advertisements
  from 1970, with specific regard to the number and
  sexes of the people appearing, their occupations
  and activities, and the types of products they
  were shown associated with (Courtney Whipple,
  1983 10).
• Some of the most significant figures obtained
  from the research are 45 of males were depicted
  as working outside of the home, compared with
  only 9 of women of the 9 of women, 58 were
  entertainers, and the remainder were depicted in
  low-status jobs no women were depicted as a
  high-level professional or executive.
• Courtney and Lockeretz found that women were
  portrayed as buyers of articles like cleaning
  aids and cosmetics, whereas men were shown to be
  buying important, expensive items such as cars,
  industrial goods and bank services. Some of the
  general stereotypes encountered, therefore, were
  a womans place is in the home, women do not make
  important decisions, and women are dependant on
  men for protection.

103
Goffmans study