Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Syllabus criteria for 10
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To avoid being stigmatized by audience, pluralists argue that media industry portrays
children from an innocent and adorable outlook
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2
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4
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6
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Little angels-children who endure illnesses or disability with a smile
Without taking into account the children they write about, such stereotypes generated by the gaze
of the adult middle-class media establishment often have a negative impact on the construction
of children identities
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Representation of youth

The media industry mainly aimed at socially constructing youth by encouraging them to be
consumer of their products
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Record
companies, internet music download sites, broadcasting studios or even facebook, instagram
mainly target youth
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An analysis conducted by MORI for
Young People Now magazine showed that about 57% stories about young people were
negatively stereotyped
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White et al backup such statement with their survey which found
out those broadcasters stereotyped young people negatively to such an extent that more than 40%
young people complained that the media industry was being disrespectful + Research by Mike

Wayne who analyzed 286 stories about young people found that 82% focused on youth people as
either perpetrators or victims of violent crimes
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Yet, according to the crime statistics, most young people do not offend
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Wayne also found out that young people’s opinions were left out
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Thus this distracts people from the real problems youth face such as homelessness, mental
health, unemployment + government failure to keep tabs on the exaggeration of youth as devils
mean they are failing to save those who need help + the media here do not acts as an
agent/benefactor of democracy
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What is considered newsworthy is the sensationalism and exaggeration of the occasional deviant
behaviour of a few young people used as generalization for the whole youth population which
then acts as a form of demonization
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Since older people tend to be more home-based they are more likely to
fall for the sensational newsvalues of the media
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Particularly the African- Caribbean males in Europe, Cohen
states that young people are labeled as folk devils; they are demonized so s to unite the masses
against a common enney
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The majority of moral panics have been manufactured around concerns about young people
subcultures like teddy boys or hoodies seen as deviant groups challenging the social order of
society
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Hence, stereotyping can be combated by young people themselves through
devices of citizen journalism like YouTube or Twitter
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Media representation of old people
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Biggs agree stating that old people on TV sitcoms would be presented as
forgetful, having mental impairment and less to no sexual capacities
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Stereotypes for old men and old women vary
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By contrast White et al agrees that
older women are under-represented and even are symbolically annihilated-rendered invisiblebecause women in media imagery are expected to be forever young and beautiful
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However, there is a gorwing
number of older people in the population with money to spend- the grey pound- which
mean that there is actually an increase in positive stereotyping, especially for older women
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Age campaign figures four older women with different skin tones glowing
after the usage of the Dove , bath product/ marketing beauty products to older people is
quite common today
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Cumberbatch found that people portrayed as disabled represented just 2
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Often when they are
presented on the screen, they are negatively stereotyped
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Sancho found that the wheelchair is often used as an icon or index of disability by those
whishing to represent disability in the media
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Briant et al of the Glasgow Media Group found that the there is a reduction in the proportion of
articles describing disabled people in sympathetic terms with disability now being seen as a

benefit fraud with terms like “scoundrel”, “cheat”, “skiver” suggesting they are undeserving of
the services they are provided with as disabled people
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They were seen as violent and dangerous
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Barnes showed how the vast majority of information about disability in book, films, on television
and in the press is extremely negative, consisting of disabling stereotypes which medicalise,
patronize, criminalise and dehumanize disabled people
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Ethnicity and media
Agbetu state that black people are labelled as “yardies”, only interested in entertainment or
superficial activities like dancing or singing
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Beattie et al of the GMG sustain these arguments through their study which found out that in
advertising, black people were less likely than whites to be shown in professional roles,
appearing in exotic dress as musicians or sport persons compared to white actors who were more
likely to be given important speaking parts
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Cumberbatch on the other hand found that 1 in 7 roles on TV were filled by a person from an
ethnic minority group with Black African-Carribean being over-represented and south Asians
under-represented
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Whereas Asians were under-represented in advertising
Indeed, minority ethnic groups were also often shown as having limited talents and skills; being
shown in low-paid work, depicted through their educational failures but rarely as successful as
the white
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Such binary opposition serve to increase racial
stereotypes
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In other words
they are newsworthy because they almost always constitute “bad news”
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Their representations are
ghettoized (marginalized) in the mainstream media because it fits the taste culture of the masses
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Hargrave
found that black people were more than twice as likely as white people to be portrayed on
terrestrial television as criminals
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The effect is the cultural criminalization of the entire ethnic group
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Hall refer to this as
inferential racism- black ethnicities are represented in ways that stress their pseudo-problematic
cultural, rather than biological representations
A casing social problems, conflict and trouble: This stereotype of ethnic minorities possessing
an alien culture- being the enemy within- that threaten western imperialism is also seen through
immigration
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This is also true for asylum seekers who
are often described in newspapers to TV as “bogus” and “fraudulent”, being seen as economic
migrants seeking to work illegally rather than people escaping from persecution in their
countries
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For example in 2003, the Sun
dedicated the front page to a story entitled “Swan Bake”, maintaining that asylum seekers were
killing and eating swans from ponds and lakes in London or the Daily Star which had a similar
story about Somalia refugees with its front page headline “Asylum seekers eat our donkey”
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Neo-Marxist like the GMG state that the representations of minority ethnic groups are filtered
through the gaze of a predominantly white middle-class dominated media establishment or as
Hall put it “the white eye through which they are seen”
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For instance in the
workplace, Hall/Cottle states that black people are blamed for the failures and mistakes made by
whites which divide black and white
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To
Neo-Marxists these moral panics talked by hall or Philo and Beattie are just a way of reasserting ruling-class hegemony
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For instance there is a claim by the Metropolitan
Police that mugging in London is predominantly a black crime
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According to Audience studies, developing countries such as Central African Republic, South
Sudan or Mali were perceived very negatively with the respondents describing them with words
like “poverty”, “famine”, “drought”, “wars” and “disasters” along with audience’s perception
that they possessed a corrupt government
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Dowling found that immigrants from these places were slandered as
benefit scoundrel, lone parents and were almost every time blamed for drunken driving,
women assault, high abortion
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Muslims stereotypes
Following the bombing of the Twin Tower in New York in 2011 and the London bombings in
2005 and terrorist activities of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Muslims in Britain got stereotyped as a
threat to both social values and public safety
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As Phillips pointed
out “the balance of media reporting of Muslims was such that the very word “Muslim” is
conjuring up images of terrorism rather than Mrs Ahmed down the road who might be the
mother of your son’s best friend” Moore et al concluded that news stories about Muslims in the
UK contain four ideological messages about Islam
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As a matter of fact, the very word “Muslim” has become
Goffman calls “a stigmatized identity”
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Third that there is a clash of civilisation
between the democratic west and an oppressive Islam which suppresses the rights of women by
forcing them wear hijab or marry, as well as the rights of homosexuals and others
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This, according to the first-ever Muslim cabinet Minister
Baroness Warsi leads to a “fashionable Islamophobia”
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Cottle suggests that media representations of ethnicity encourage media audiences to construct a
sense of their identity by defining who “we” are in relation to who “we” are not, in terms of “us”
and “them”
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Similarly Carrington refer to how the white
gaze represent ethnic minorities in terms of their “Otherness”- how “they” are different from
“Us”
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It can also pose physical
threats= example of Hall mugging theory

Carrignton claims that the white gaze extends to apparently positive black images constructed
around cultural spaces such as sport, fashion and music
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BAME groups – Black, Asian and (other) minority ethnic group)
Because the British, Spanish and Portuguese Empire had colonized countries in the Eastern and
Southern Asia, Africa and South America, the ideas of racial superiority have not disappeared
despite each country’s independence
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Vaseline lighting cream features a brown skin girl next to a white skin girl
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So, a
whole population is racialized to justify the exploitation as colonial subjects
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Susan Goldberg posted in the National Geography magazine “For decades our coverage was
racist
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A wide
range of social and economic problems such as alcoholism, mental health, unemployment have
resulted from years of being abused by under colonialism
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For example,
according to Michael Meadows the representations of indigenous Aborigines in Austalia “focus

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represented as exotic
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According to
David Hollinsworth, their behaviour if often represented as irrational
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They are classified as the “untouchables” under the Indian caste system which saw them as
religiously “impure”
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However, media stereotype of Black and other minority ethnic group do appear to be
changing
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There have been greater
policy commitments in television to recruit more people from ethnic minorities as
presenters versus Beattie et al which found that this was the case for children’s television,
education and news
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Abercombie
shows these changes are most apparent in soaps like EastEnders and Coronation Street
where-7 minority ethnic group are now appearing as having the same lifestyles, views as
white rather than roles focusing solely on their ethnic identity
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Gender and media
Women are under-represented in the media industry
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As a matter of fact women face the glass
ceiling to such an extent that it was reported by Women in Journalism that 74% of news
journalists on national newspapers were men with twice as many male editors as women
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Women are also under-represented in media content
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So, news stories reinforce gender
stereotypes of the dominant male and submissive, less important female
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Martinson furthers this analysis emphasizing that this was mostly applicable for older men; out
of all the 50 years old on BBC TV, 82% are older men with older women being screen-out most
of the time
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Grant et al term this the “double jeopardy of age and gender discrimination”
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Connell and Hegemony
Connell argues that through media reproduction, society mentally construct a toxic version of
hegemonic masculinity [culturally dominant stereotypes] as they set a sexist value system for
men and women
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Not only are “men interests” and “women interests” separated at the magazine shelves of
newsagents, the genre are segregated with romantic fiction being female-oriented and
adventure/action being male-oriented
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Male voices are more likely to be used in voice-overs in TV and radio programmes
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Female versus male stereotypes
Female Stereotypes include the WAG-the wives and girlfriends who are obsessed with being
sexually attractive to keep their men; The Sex Object- the sexually attractive women found in the
red-top daily press like the Sun and Daily Star; The Supermum- happy, nurturing mother who
works often part-time to care for their children; The Angel- the domesticated, supportive female;
The Ball Breaker-sexually active, career-minded and no dependent on men; The Victimwomen as victim needing men rescue
v/s
Children Now identified six male stereotype: The Joker-uses laughter to avoid displaying
emotion; The Jock- shows aggression to demonstrate power; The Strong Silent type-voids
talking about their feelings to prevent being seen as weak, successful with women; The Big Shot
– economically and socially successful; The Action Hero- strong , aggressive, always win type;
The Buffoon- light-hearted but hopeless with domestic matters
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The ‘Just the Women’ report supports this observation that newspapers are often
critical of women celebrities who put on weight
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Basically
Guy Cumberbatch concluded that “women occupy a passive decorative role in television
advertising”
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Children Now and video games
Children Now found that females were both severely under-represented in video games and
behaviors were often very stereotypical with males engaging in physical aggression whereas

females wear revealing clothes, nurture and “just scream” throughout for a “male to help”
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Statistics
The Beijing Declaration has called upon the media to urgently contribute to third wave feminism
so as to improve women’s rights
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According to the Global Media Monitoring Project, only 24% of people worldwide, hear, read or
see women in newspapers, television and radio news
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Jane Martinson in a report entitled Seen but Not Heard wrote that very few news stories mention
women’s careers or professional abilities and most press coverage continues to mainly mention
men as experts in the fields of business, politics and economics
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Patriarchy
Ahmed Rameez Ul Huda and Roshan Ali states that despite the fact that women are increasingly
playing an active role in the media in Pakistan, they are still objectified such as in advertisements
where females are sensually dressed up to allure customers even when they have nothing to do
with the product
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They are also subjected to domestic violence and
sexism
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Pluralists
They suggest that stereotyping occurs because this is what media audiences want so media
industry satisfies their wishes by presenting bias representations
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Where advertising
revenue drive the media industry, such force is likely to reduce gender stereotyping since
patriarchy is becoming outdated, if not, highly fought against too
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Marxist Feminist
Advertisers primarily promote stereotypes of women to have higher sales since this is what
attracts audiences
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Knight- contrary to McRobbie and Inness
Knight states that although some representations of women have changed through female action
heroes allowing new constructive feminine identities, this apparent reversal of women’s
traditional roles is accompanied by an underlying conventional femininity
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He disagree that women are becoming
more masculine with the male gaze and beauty myth still symbols of apparent, actual patriarchy
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In Hollywood movies we see the “badass heroine” fighting the villain male and
winning
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However, according to David Gauntlett, magazines aimed at young women have changed
dramatically
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So women can
also be independent and powerful while as she says “maintaining perfect make-up and
wearing impossible shoes”
Though what is sure is that there have been changes over the years leading to gender
equality
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In 2011, two football pundits on Sky Sports were sacked for
making derogatory comments about female football official
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Particularly his study of the FHM magazine which transmits the
importance of being generous, caring, good-humored, this helps men be considerate lovers,
useful round the home and funny rather than violent and toxic
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There is no longer only the toxic hegemonic masculinity
available for male to construct their identities with neo-identities like Emo boy, the
Metrosexual, New Man all of whom possess the suppose “feminine qualities”
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Cosmetic surgery or cosmetic itself are nw uni-sex, no longer
separated from men and women sections
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His analysis of newspaper, television and magazines found that not only
80% of media profiles of men were about violence and aggression, they were predominantly
portrayed in mass media as villains, perverts and philanderers
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Representations are changing because social realities are also changing
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McRobbie insists that there is a new form of
popular feminism shaped through assertive femininity embedded in this contemporary
media “girly culture”, with “girl power” expressed through their freedom of expression,
action and speech on the media
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Men’s bodies have become much more sexualized in advertising; naked men’s bodies
appear n the media
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As she puts it: “the beauty stakes
have gone up for men and women have taken up the position of active viewers” + also the
emergence of metrosexual men whereby they embrace their feminine side by engaging in
makeup, fancy dressing, gay lifestyles
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Both McRobbie and Inness agree that there
cultural stereotypes are blurring- hence hegemonic mascunility to is blurring- with women
seen as stronger, more rational, resourceful and ambitious
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Lesbians and Gays
The media which usually view homosexuality through a heterosexual media gaze meant
according to Gross that lesbians and gays were symbolically annihilated, being stereotyped
as butch lesbians or effeminate men
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In fact, Cowan study of representations of homosexuality on BBC found that gay people
were 5 times more likely to be portrayed negatively to such an extent that Stonewall calls
the limited number of time they appear positively the “gay, lesbian and bisexual charity”
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However, toxic hegemony also exists for lesbians
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However, there is growing acceptance and tolerance of a diversity of sexual orientation
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As the pluralist approach would suggest, the media is
responding to what its homosexual audience wants
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However, despite the fact that new media technology offers men and women new opportunities to
challenge the representations of the media, exploitation of women online as se objects and
victims of sexual violence remains prominent
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As a result working-class problem which Marxist would argue to be a direct consequence of
capitalist’s exploitation causes working-class problems to be idealized, if not even ignored
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Journalists
and editors rarely included sections concerning impoverishment because audiences preferred
knowing about the elitists problems
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He stated that this generalization
normalizes the interests of the well-off which consequently serves to socially stigmatize
working-class lifestyles as abnormal
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Lawler even suggested that the choices
individual make when consuming products create a specific taste culture that acts as symbol of
class identity
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This means that those mediatised individual choices have replaced the
orthodox categorization of social class
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ADDITIONAL FOR EXAM QUESTIONS- MARKING SCHEME CRITERIA
Curran
Curran’s (2003) detailed systematic examination of the social history of the British press does
suggest that the evidence for owner interference in and manipulation of British newspaper
content is strong
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Curran points out that even when engaged in investigative reporting, the majority of newspapers
in Britain have supported the Conservative Party
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He argues Murdoch’s motives are
economic rather than ideological in that Murdoch believes that right wing economic policies are
the key to vast profits
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He argues the
pluralist view that media owners do not intervene in media content is evidentially false
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However, Curran disagrees with Marxists about the motive for this
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The Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) suggests that media content does support the
interests of those who run the capitalist system
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The GUMG points out that most journalists working for national newspapers,
television and radio tend to be overwhelmingly male, White, and middle class, e
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54% are
privately educated
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Journalists believe that
these appeal to the majority of their viewers, listeners and readers
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People who hold these opinions are rarely invited to
contribute their views in newspapers or on television, or if they are, they are ridiculed by
journalists
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Media companies are profit-making businesses
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Losing several thousand readers, or viewers,
because they were offended by ‘extreme’ views and potentially losing millions of pounds in
revenue and profit is too much of a risk
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They compared
television schedules in 1978, 1988 and 1998 and argued that the evidence suggests that television
in Britain has been significantly dumbed down, e
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the number of one-off dramas and
documentaries has halved, while soap operas and cheap reality shows have increased fivefold
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Time allocated to news
programming has fallen dramatically, and more time on serious news programmes is devoted to
celebrity news and human interest stories
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Furthermore, they conclude that despite having
hundreds of television channels, we do not have more choice, just more of the same thing

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