1. Gender
Communication in
Media
Krysten Faulkner

2. Media in our society today are essentially all around us at
all times, in several different forms, and often are all
representing the same thing
“Media compose a complex set of production and consumption practices. Thus, the
gender representations found in one medium can respond to gender representations in
another” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 235)

3. Video Revolution
“Most of the world’s inhabitants
are now devoting about half their
leisure time to an activity that did
not exist two generations ago”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 237)
The 3rd major shift in
communication brought video
production, and give rise to
television
By the late 80’s, almost all homes
in the US had at least one
television, about 98%
“The ubiquity of mediated images from
television, movies and music videos are
perhaps the most powerful familiarizing
influences shaping our contemporary society”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 237)

4. Media as a Social Institution
“It may seem odd to approach media as an institution: How can television
signals, movie projections, or radio waves be an institution?” (DeFrancisco &
Palczewski 237)
• Media is approached as in institution so that it can be made clear that we
cannot simply focus our attention just on one form of media or medium
• Media is multilayered and share, “conventions regarding construction of content
and construction of audience” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 235)
• Media are also one of the primary agencies that reiterate gender while also
providing locations in which resistance can occur, in both construction and
reception (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 235)

5. Media Economics
TV provides a clear way to understand the
correlation between economics and content
Once the role of economics is understood, “it
becomes clear that, television
programming’s ideological role is not
incidental to its status and commodity but,
rather is thoroughly implicated in it”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 238)
Many shows are created with the intent to
market to a certain audience, often one that
is able to spend money
Therefore “mass mediated texts might be
viewed… not as giving the populace what
they want but as compromises that give the
relatively well-to-do what they want”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 238)

6. Media and Power
 “Institutions are organized in accord
with and permeated by power”
meaning, “they both constrain and
facilitate behavior by members of a
society in which the institution
exists” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski
238)
 Therefore media has the ability to
exercise its power to control “how
people do gender” (DeFrancisco &
Palczewski 238)
 Movies and advertisements are not
just movies and advertisements
 “These media forms also always
influence social norms concerning
gender, race, class, nationality”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 238)
 Also placing influence on what it
means to be feminine, masculine
and essentially tell viewers which
products to buy that will help them
become more masculine or feminine

7. Media and Hegemony
“Hegemony designates the systems of hierarchy maintained by the
predominant social group’s ideology that comes to dominate other social
groups” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 23)
“Media, as an institution of civil society, shape the cognitive structures through which
people perceive and evaluate social identity” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 239)
But this system of hegemony is not powerful unless it is “maintained, reinforced, and
modified in order to respond and overcome the forms that opposite it”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 239)
Although several instances of masculine women do appear on television and vice versa,
“the vast majority of characters tend to abide by traditional gender/sex expectations.”
And while such characters may act in a masculine fashion, “they still meet feminine
standards of attractiveness, and although the men may act feminine, they still meet
masculine standards of attractiveness” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 239)

8. Resisting the Influence
Although the influence of media
surrounds us all the time, it can be
resisted
The texts suggests 3 ways in which one can
attempt to resist such influence provided by the
media:
1) Examine how powerful or effective oppositional are,
compared to the power of hegemonic messages
2) Try to discern the roles media play in facilitating
oppositional readings
3) Explore what we, as textbook authors, and you as students,
can do to facilitate critical abilities

9. Media Polyvalence
& Oppositional Readings
 Media texts cannot be all things to all people, different interpretations are
bound to happen and are welcomed
 Polyvalence means having a multitude of valuations
 “Polyvalence occurs when audience members share understandings of the
denotations of a text but disagree when the valuation of these denotations to
such a degree that they produce notably different interpretations”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 240)
 Different people at any given time also have different resources available for
resistance and must expend more or less effort to construct resistant readings”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 240)

10. Interlocking Institutions
“Of all the institutions that intersect, media may be the most interconnected”
“Media interact with the institution of gender as they provide mechanisms
through with representations of work, family, education, and religion are
communicated”
It is important to note that these representations are not always followed
implicitly, they are merely, “resources which individuals use to think through
their sense of self and modes of expression”
“Media messages of gender both constrain and enable, modeling for people
often-unobtainable ideals of attractiveness while also expanding people’s limited
understandings of their locations in the world”
(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 240)

11. It’s Not About Sex Difference
Differences Among Women
 Images depicting unobtainable
expectations exist everywhere
 The degree to which they are
interpreted depend on several
demographics like race,
nationality and sexual
orientation
 These messages influence self-
perception
Similarities Between
Women & Men
 Men are also increasingly influenced
by body image aspirations
 Much like women’s, men’s body
norms have also changed over time

12. Media Content and Media Effects
 Research regarding media content and its effects essentially attempts to
quantify the effects, as well as the amounts these depictions occur:
 Of whether the relative absence of women influences perceptions of women’s
credibility, whether the violence in cartoons leads to violent acts by children, or
whether sexually explicit materials increase the proclivity of some men to rape
Media today typically do not show a large percentage of
underrepresented groups, like women and women of color. About
only 39% of women were featured on television during prime time
in the 2004-2005 season, compared to a 61% which were males
Another issue worth noting is the way in which rape is depicted on
television. Women are often portrayed as deserving of the act,
while men are often seen as perpetrators, even survivors

13. The Gaze(s)
The 2nd prominent area of
media research which focuses
on media constructions of audience
Several theories have emerged to explain how, “visual media gender the practices of
watching, create a legitimating gender ideology, influence gender identity, and
structure audience expectations” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 248)
“Men act and women appear. 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 women in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus
she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight”
As the text suggests, “the presumed sex of the viewer is male, and even when the
viewer is female, she views herself through men’s eyes. Thus, when women asses
their bodies, they do so not from the perspective of another women, but from the
perspective of a man” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 249)

14. Multiple gazes exist
 Theorist Brenda Cooper argues, “that one can find a rejection of the dominant gaze even in
mainstream Hollywood films” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 250) like in Thelma & Louise…
 Which encourages viewers to identify not with the males on the screen but with the female figures
who actively mocked and challenged patriarchal conventions
 An oppositional gaze is yet another gaze that one should consider which
encompasses focuses on the individual possessing a critical consciousness
 bellhooks suggests there are 4 ways in which one can obtain this gaze:
1) “consider the perspective from which we look, vigilantly asking ourselves who
do we identify with, whose image do we love?” 2) “one must recognize the
degree to which she or he participates in culture. People are not merely passive
audiences for the reception of media messages and images.” 3) “an oppositional
gaze necessarily moves from social critique the image but to political action” and
4) “an oppositional gaze is conscious of the way in which contemporary media
engage in commoditization – the selling of cultural, sexual, or gender difference
in a way that supports institutional discrimination”

15. Media as Always Liberatory and Constraining
There are several ways in which media today can be liberatory, as well as
constraining. This has much to do with “the polyvalence of media products and that
each audience member is actively involved in the interpretation and reception of
messages, even seemingly restrictive media forms can be used for liberatory
purposes”(DeFrancisco & Palczewski 253) Romance novels are a way in which media
can be liberatory.
• The boarders of genders are continually resecured by media representations in response to
these changes, magazines like GQ and Cosmo reflect these changes and constraint, by viewing
how they have changed in their content over time.
• Even the most progressive representations of gender can resecure traditional understandings of
gender, by reinforcing themes of homosexuality and a traditional nuclear family.
• And while the Internet has tremendous abilities to become a great equalizer when discussing
gender, factors like race, social class, income and education can have a large impact on what a
person does online, or if they can even get online

16. Conclusion
Although much media are in fact regressive,
most people actually enjoy entertainment today
such as reading novels, magazines, going to the
movies and browsing the Internet but the
problem is that individuals are not doing these
things critically…
“The more one realizes that one can talk back
to the screen, the page, or the picture, the
more one realizes that one is not merely buying
a commodity. The more one becomes an
engaged member of the cultural conversation,
the more one learns to employ and
oppositional gaze” (DeFrancisco & Palczewski
261)