gender : representation

Whether reality or fiction, content transmitted by the media forms part of the construction of reality. Information is selected, structured and embedded in interpretive framework for the news reporting (Stuart Hall). This is also true for the allocation of meaning and signification along the gender dualism of media and persons acting within, produced by coding processes in communications practice. Media therefore holds a powerful position. They may cement or abandon existing stereotyping and conditions of discrimination and marginalization of different gender groups, classes, ethnicities, etc. Media therefore can be seen as players participating in the process of doing gender.

Summing up, we can state a rather stagnant under-representation of women as subjects on the news agenda for 30 years in contrast to a rapidly changing gender order in individual and social contexts since the 1970s.The gender bias in news reporting through processes and effects of doing gender by media and media agents, by selection and interpretation along traditional patterns of gender codes remains evident.

See also my review: travelling transgender about the documentary: Pyuupiru 2001-2008, directed by Daishi Matsunaga (Japan 2009)

See also my study: gender violence & the visual