Media Representations of gender and Media literacy

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Media Representations of gender and Media
literacy
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This is not a cow.
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These are not cows.
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This is not male.
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This is not female.
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This is not happiness.
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these are representations

• Representations support and disseminate certain
  narratives and cultural ideals
  
• Like the stories (cultural narratives) we grow up
  with, representations (a photograph, ad, cartoon,
  song, etc.) shape our identities and form our
  desires by giving us images to identify with (and
  imitate).
• Representations are made of signs and symbols

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Semiotics

• Semiotics is the science of signs.
• It is concerned primarily with how meaning is
  generated in film, television, ads and other
  works of art, or in any language system, and how
  information is encoded in them.

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• Semiotics analyzes the language systems in which
  images circulate
  
• The categories of woman and man in TV, film,
  and ads are always part of a system of
  signification that doesnt necessarily correspond
  to the real but can have real effects on how
  women and men are treated in the every day
  world.

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What is Media Literacy?

• the ability to bring critical thinking skills to
  bear on all media
  
• It's about asking pertinent questions about
  what's there, and noticing what's not there. And
  it's the instinct to question what lies behind
  media productions the motives, the money, the
  values and the ownership and to be aware of how
  these factors influence content.

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Five Core Concepts

• Media Images/ messages they do not reflect
  reality but construct reality.
  
• Media messages are constructed using a creative
  language with its own rules.
  
• Different people experience the same messages
  differently.
  
• 4. Media messages are constructed to gain profit
  and/or power.
  
• 5. Media have embedded values and points of
  view.
  

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Five Key Questions

• 1. Who created this message?
• 2. What techniques are used to attract my
  attention?
  
• 3. How might different people understand this
  message differently from me?
  
• 4. What lifestyles, values, and points of view
  are represented in or omitted from this message?
  
• 5. Why was this message sent?

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Understanding imagery The Male Gaze

• Men look at women. Women watch themselves being
  looked at.
  
• This determines not only most relations between
  men and women but also the relation of women to
  themselves.
  
• The surveyor of woman in herself is male the
  surveyed female.
  
• --John Berger

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Cultural Narratives

• Stories inscribed in a broader discourse that is
  continually repeated, remade, updated, and
  reaffirmed in various ways, gaining in legitimacy
  and acceptance, often through representations.
• Ex. of cultural narratives true love and
  happily ever after, the nuclear family,
  narratives of discovery (Lewis and Clark), the
  American dream
• Cultural narratives shape our identities and
  form our desires.
  

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Racial/gender Stereotypes

• Exotic
• Animalistic
• Dangerous
• Sexually Available

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How do you feel looking at these ads?
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Tools for resistance?

• Knowing the tricks of media fabrication

http//homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/blonde/in
dex.htm
l
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Counter ads
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Alternative images
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Positive ads
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Representation of traditionally ignored subjects
(this can be problematic!)
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Mock ads
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Making your own images
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Telling your own stories alternative media
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Making news, films
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Producing magazines that promote other views of
women
http//www.msmagazine.com
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Denouncing the Celluloid Ceiling
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