The Role of Media in Marginalization and Alienation of Women - Essay Example

Section/# The Media and Its Role on the Marginalization and Alienation of Women within the Context of the Past 60 Years One of the largest concerns with the media of the current era, and past eras for that matter, is the fact that by very definition the media attempts to engage/sell the viewer/reader/listener on certain core values, images, and societal mores/norms that may or may not be moral and/or representative of the broader whole of a diverse mix of peoples as a means of eliciting some type of response or as a means of actually selling a particular idea or good/service. This cross sectional standardization that is represented in the media acts as a type of “one size fits all” identity destroyer that homogenises others distinct groups and individuals into a “whole” that can be easily understood, parodied, and exemplified to the remainder of the viewing audience. Moreover, stereotypes of a litany of different origins are likely to pervade the media’s representation of any given topic; and have been proven to exist for as long as the modern media has been in existence (Munoz et al., 2012, p. 385). As a means of understanding this unique dynamic, this particular analysis will consider some of the main reasons why the current, and past media, have marginalized and alienated women and how this impact has in fact worked to compound women’s issues within the context of greater degrees of freedom and societal shift that may have otherwise occurred had the pervasive agenda of the media not been in place. In order to begin to discuss such a topic, it is necessary for the reader to come to a firm and complete understanding of what defines the media and to what extent and for what reasons it remains a dynamic and powerful force in formulating the ideas of society. In order to achieve this goal, the first section of this piece will discuss the role and evolution of the media on the lives of those within Western civilization. So powerful has been the effect of the media on the way in which the world has grown and developed that key historians and social scientists in the 19th century collectively dubbed it the “Fourth Estate”; an homage to the medieval representation of the three estates of society – the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. As a means of defining the power that the media holds over society in such a way, the reader comes to the powerful understanding that such a high level of influence is given to this entity that it in and of itself can be counted as a determinant entity within the “estates” of modern society. Likewise, by limiting the analysis to Western civilization it will be possible to provide a level of focus upon the same media that affected the nations that comprised the early women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and onwards. One such factor that makes the media of the recent past as well as the present unique is the surprising level of standardization and singular ownership which defines it. Whether one considers the newsprint media, television media, radio media, or media of other forms, a few solitary players control the lion’s share of these forms of media. As such, the range of diversity and the level to which archetypes have been constructed and accepted has reached endemic proportions. For purposes of analysis, the media which will be analyzed involves print, television, radio, and various other types of less popular yet still visible forms of advertising and media that impact on the lives of individuals on a daily basis. With the growth and widespread popularity of television in the years following the Second World War, media saw a sudden shift in the means by which it could interact with the average individual within the developed world (Ferguson, 2012, p. 890). Rather than relying on selling newspapers, magazines, journals, books etc, the media now had a cheap and effective way of allowing the advertising budgets of their sponsors to defray the cost that would otherwise be passed on to the consumer and engage with him/her on a daily basis. As with any media representation, the media of the era sought to exemplify, represent, and typify the life of the “average” American family, and by extension woman, as a means to better market and sell the products, airtime that their sponsors so eagerly sought to gain access to. Naturally, anytime such a broad-based standardization and/or typification takes place, especially on a regimented scale such as what is being described, the individualness and key attributes of a large number of women, as well as others, within society fell victim. Without a pressing need to represent diversity in thought, worldview, or belief system, the media was practically unconstrained to paint an unrealistic image of the Western woman as a function of whatever image best suited the needs of the advertisers and sponsors of the given airtime or print media in question. Such a practice was of course, and to a very large part remains, detrimental to the way that women perceived themselves and the plight of equality as well as their general role within society. The effects of the media standardization that have thus far been discussed, while detrimental to aspects of the Western media, are not therein constrained. Rather, the recent trend of globalization has meant that the ways in which the world media spreads a type of homogenized image of the “others” within the world; whether these be immigrants, indigenous people, women, or a litany of other groups serves to simplify, and trivialize the broad understandings that the viewers, inclusive of other women, have with relation to how they view themselves and the plight of women’s liberation and growth on a global scale. Naturally, two results can take place from this type of exhibition that the media portrays. Either the individual can accept the norms/more that are being foisted upon them as indicative of the true nature of the way in which the world can be described or they can refuse to allow themselves to be influenced by these images and understand the fact that such a broad based stereotypification is indicative of a simplified and trite world view. Unfortunately, the former is most oftentimes the case as it is far simpler to take a tacit approach to the information that is being transmitted than to actively engage with it and seek to forge an alternate means of understanding or world view from it. As an example of the standardization and homogenization that the media affects on women, as well as an array of other groups, a prime example of this can be seen in the type of advertising media that is foisted upon the viewer/reader/listener or consumer of any of the aforementioned types of media. Although the Barbie doll is a feminist concern that has been studied ad nauseum, it bears analysis yet again in this brief research as type of model for the way in which the media standardizes what the ideal woman should be (Haas, 2012, p. 415). As is the case with Barbie, the doll itself represents an unrealistic expectation of beauty, an Aryan busty blonde that effortlessly balances the demands of domestic life with the necessity to be beautiful and sexualized at every turn. Expanding upon this, one can readily see how this racial interpretation of beauty and domestic servitude pervade into far more areas of public consumption than merely the toy market. If one considers the way in which products are sold, especially products appealing to men, or household cleaning supplies, it is invariably the young sexualized female that represents these products in a way that is so unbelievable that it would be comical if it were not for the sad objectification and sexism that the marketing itself portrayed. Of course this is but one solitary example of the means by which the media and the advertisers who sponsor it have typifications that they promote as a means to selling products to both males and females within our current world model of media. Although beyond the scope of this individual paper, it is worth mention that the most damaging effect of such typification in media advertising is the affect that it has on the young as they are perpetually bombarded by unrealistic expectations of womanhood that are both unreasonable and harmful to the self image and expectation that entire generations of women have grown accustomed to seeing represented to them in a litany of different ways. Naturally, such a discussion would be remiss without discussing the fact that a large degree of the sexism and misrepresentation that takes place within the current media may not in fact be an example of a well thought out and executed step of patriarchal dominance; rather, it is likely the result of the fact that like so many other areas of industry and economic realities, men dominate the field of the media to much the same extent as they dominate a litany of other fields in which entry for a woman is made more difficult and less lucrative. This of course should not be seen as a way to explain away or make allowances for the fact that the media alienates women and places unrealistic expectations on the way that women within society should behave and conduct themselves with relation to their role, level of beauty, ideal image, and domestic servilities. Instead, it merely helps to point to the all too depressing statistic that although the women’s liberation movement has been in existence within the Western world for several centuries, women continue to be painfully under-represented within sectors such as the media industry and paid on average 17 cents on the dollar that their male counterparts performing the same tasks, with the same level of education, with the same level of job experience accrue (Roessner, 2012, p. 179). This eventuality affects the manner and content which the media portrays to its base. Whether or not one agrees with such an analysis, the fact of the matter is that the way in which this, like many other, male dominated industries operates is not indicative of the needs or the representation of the remainder of society; rather, it is indicative of the needs and wants/desires of those within the industry whose tastes are best satiated with the improper representation that has been discussed within the proceeding analysis. As has been discussed at some length within this analysis, the fact of the matter concerning the way that women are portrayed within the media works to congeal a type of alienation with the mainstream feminine ideal due to the fact that the images that are represented are so disparate and unrealistic from the way in which normal life takes place that those that do not accept such an ideal feel necessarily disenfranchised from the typifications that are foisted upon them (Carpenter, 2012, p. 270). As a means of the analysis that has thus far been conducted, the reader can easily note that the mores and norms that are presented in the various forms of media that exist within our current world system are not synonymous and do not integrate to a reasonable degree with ways in which female liberation has taken place within the intervening period of time that has been discussed. Instead, rather than representing a reasonable facsimile of the ways in which society has grown, evolved and realized key mores, the media itself represents a type of antiquated norm that continues to be foisted upon the consumer as a means to represent ideals that would have long since faded into a type of obscurity. As a means to combat such an eventuality, it is the belief of this author that the best way to affect a net overall change on such a system is to seek to shun and avoid such stereotypical explications of gender identities that have thus far been exemplified within the media. Although this can of course be difficult, it is required in order for the ongoing struggle for women’s rights to be continued. References Carpenter, T.R., 2012. Construction of the Crack Mother Icon. Western Journal Of Black Studies, 36 (4), pp.264-275. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Ferguson, C.J., 2012. Positive Female Role-Models Eliminate Negative Effects of Sexually Violent Media. Journal Of Communication, 62 (5), pp.888-899. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Haas, C., Pawlow, L., Pettibone, J. ans Segrist, D., 2012. An Intervention for the Negative Influence of Media on Body Esteem. College Student Journal, 46 (2), pp.405-418. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Munoz, M. and Ferguson, C., 2012. Body Dissatisfaction Correlates with Inter-Peer Competitiveness, Not Media Exposure: A Brief Report. Journal Of Social & Clinical Psychology, 31 (4), pp.383-392, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Roessner, A., 2012. The Great Wrong. Journalism History, 38 (3), pp.178-188. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Read More