Gender and the Media
BTAN 37014BA
Instructor: Gabriella Varró
Email: gabriella.varro@gmail.com
Office Hours: M. 13.00-14.00, Tu. 1.00-12.00
Class: Tu. 14.00-16.00, Venue: II.
Course Description:
This course is meant to be a survey introduction to a variety of issues related to gender and
the mass media. The goal of the course is to familiarize students with the breadth of these
issues while at the same time providing tools to critically analyze and engage modern media
and mediums. The course will focus largely on mass mediated forms such as television, film,
music, sports, news, advertising and new media. The main purpose of the course is to point
out and explore with the students the ways in which differences in identity produce different
mediated representations and experiences of media.
The course will be comprised largely of class discussions based on readings, class
presentations, and viewing and interpreting various mediated texts. The course readings are
both practical and theoretical, and while many of them focus on specific case studies, they are
intended to provoke thoughtfulness in each student such that it can be applied to a variety of
media. Students will also get an opportunity to produce their own media presentation and
project. My hope is that by the end of the course, students will be more media literate, which
means that students will:
1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of how people use media personally and
publicly
2. Understand the complex relationships among audiences and media content
3. Understand that media content is produced within particular social, political, and cultural
contexts
4. Understand the commercial nature of media, and
5. Possess the ability to use media to communicate to specific audiences. (adapted from
Rebecca Ann Lind’s Race/Gender/Media)
Course Schedule:
1. Febr. 12. Orientation and introduction to class. Sign-up for group projects
2. Febr. 19. Background discussion to views of gender in the media:
Reading: Wood, Julia T. “Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender”
www.udel.edu/comm245/readings/GenderedMedia.pdf
Assignment for next week: think about the process of othering and the various contexts it might appear in. What are some of
the strategies we employ in marking Others as different or deviant? What are the consequences? What does othering have to
do with gender?
3. Febr. 26. Focus on “Othering” and representation. Cultural representation and signifying
practices:
Reading: Hall, Stuart. The Spectacle of the ‘Other.’
Assignment for next week: students have to select an advertisement that depicts a woman, write a one-page paper
(brainstorming) on it (analysing the colours, the setting, the caption, etc.) and be prepared to talk about it in class
4.March 05. Images of women in American advertising: Killing Us Softly (Jean Kilbourne)
In-class viewing and discussion of sections of the documentary
Assignment for next week: Students are to choose a category represented in the Gender Ads Project, and critically present the
chosen topic; read the background to the class of ads of your choice, look at the ads gathered to illustrate the theme, and try to
collect at least three more ads from contemporary media that represent the same problematic area/theme. You should be able
to present the topic chosen, as well as the additional examples collected in our class.
5. March 12. The Gender
http://www.genderads.com/
Ads
Project—representation
of
gender
in
ads
Assignment for next week: Disney cartoons are especially packed with stereotypical images of gender. Watch a Disney
movie/cartoon prior to class, and write a one-page journal on how Disney misrepresents gender, and or elaborate the possible
consequences of such misrepresentation.
6. March 19. Gender and American cartoons (Mickey Mouse Monopoly)
7. March 26. Gender and Genre: The soap opera. Gledhill, Christine. „Genres for Women:
The Case of Soap Operas.” In Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and
Signifying Practices.
8. April 02. CONSULTATION WEEK
9. April 09. Midterm test
10. April 16. Celebrity Gossip and the Gendered Body (The Handbook of Gender, Sex and
the Media) Christine Geraghty: “Re-examining Stardom: Questions of Texts, Bodies and
Performance” Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader.
Assignment for next week: choose a magazine for women and bring it to our next class, look at the sections of the magazine
and be ready to talk about the kinds of expectations generated by the columns towards teenage women.
11. April 23. Gender and Women’s Magazines.
“Inventing the Cosmo Girl: Class, Identity and Girl-Style American Dream.”by Laurie
Ouellette
12. April 30. CLOSING
Course requirements
1.
2.
3.
4.
Reading the assigned material for the classes (if any)
Taking part in classroom discussions
Attending classes (grade cannot be given after 3 missed classes)
Writing short assignments
5. Take-home essay
6. Group project
Group Project:
Students will divide into groups of 3-4 people. Each group will consider what they think to
be one of the most pressing problems posed by dominant representations of gender, race,
class, sexuality in the media. In response to this problem, the group will create and produce
their own form of mediation to counter and/or re-present these representations. Students are
encouraged to be creative in this process. For example, you may choose to make a
commercial, newspaper advertisement campaign, put up an internet site, create a short play or
skit, or take a variety of other approaches to producing your own media. The group will then
present their project to the class, including an explanation of the process of production,
interpreting the project in terms of the group’s goals and purposes in relation to the problem
they are trying to address, and facilitating a class discussion about the project. Project
presentations would start from Week 4. Additional details and guidelines for the project will
be provided by the instructor.
Take-home essay:
Students are requested to write an 8-page word processed essay for this course, in which they
look at a specific media segment/genre and critically analyze the representation of gender
therein. The project should address questions of a) power and gender, b) iconology of
gendered signification, c) strategies of objectification, d) means of objectification, e) the
gendering of cultural spaces. The paper should also explore possibilities of correcting
standardized practices of gender bias. Take-home papers are due class 11 the latest.
Grading
The final grade for the course will consist in the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Group project : 20%
Journals: 20%
Take-home essay 40 %
Participation : 20%
Students have to reach 50% in order to get a grade for the course.
IMPORTANT:
Students are kindly requested to download and print the syllabi, and turn
up at the first class of the courses with the hard copy of their syllabi. To
download them, please click on the hyperlinks.
Vg.