Social Institutions Presentation

Chapter 11 – Media

By, Matt Egan

How is Media a Social Institution?

● Media is thought of as an institution to make clear that to focus on a specific broadcast or single medium is inadequate.

● This notion draws upon the importance of the economics of media production and programming.

Commercials and TV Programming

● Commercials are what first come to mind when thinking of the economics of media, but the television program themselves serve the same purpose.

● Television shows give the viewer a sense style. The programs often work together with the commercials to give the viewer an idea of what they need.

U.S. = Consumer CultureSo our Media = POWER

● Movies and television shows serve a much bigger purpose than just entertainment. They influence social norms. They

provide examples of how to be feminine or masculine.

Another Dynamic for Media Power

● Not all consumers just blindly follow what the media has to offer. People can actively and creatively engage with them. Making their own choices.

● Different people have different interpretations of media.

Body Image Overestimation’s

● Women often overestimate the degree of thinness men find attractive. An explanation why is that the extreme thinness stems from magazines targeting women and not men.

● Women are doing this to themselves, setting the bar to high (or thin) for this matter.

Body Image Overestimation’s con't..

● Men are doing the same thing to themselves that women are.

● Men tend to overestimate the level of muscularity attractive to women.

● Men's magazines portraying such muscular men are targeted for men, not women.

● Again, setting the bar to high (or buff).

Media Depictions of Rape

● To help understand the subtle and most often hard to trace effects of media constructions of gender/sex, here are some examples of how rape has been represented through the media.

Jerry Sandusky being escorted to court. Lisbeth from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo confronting her rapist.

Comparing News to Cinema

● Lise Cuklanz (1996) found that news media coverage tends to only offer a fragmented understanding of rape law reform.

● Movies on the other hand did a better job presenting rape victims and survivors sympathetically.

News gives warnings and information Cinema focuses more on the victim and theabout the crime. violent revenge that satisfies the audience.

The Gaze

● What is meant by “the gaze” is the idea that women are passive and just used to be look at in regards to the audience.

● Men are the ones who act. They are active while women are passive.

The Gaze con't...

● Mulvey (1975) published that “cinema not only highlights womans to-be-looked-at-ness but actually builds the way woman is to be looked at into the film itself” (250).

● Male gaze is dominant

Gender is Constructed and Thus is Always in Flux

● You may think that Maxim and GQ are magazines that are bastions of he-man-ness, but they could also really just show men to be insecure and confused in today’s world.

● The discourses of masculinity can be both enabling and constraining.

● These magazines are trying to figure out issues of masculine identity.

Discussion Questions

● Do you buy into media being a social institution?

● Do you agree with the notion that body image is overestimated in the media?

● Can you think of movies where “the gaze” takes place? What are the implications of such scenes?