Gender in Television Term Paper

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Gender Portrayals in Media

Since the advent of the television during the latter part of 1920s, men and women have been portrayed differently in movies, television, radio, music videos, news, and social media. Stereotyping men and women aided in developing sustainability strategies for marketing and advertising efforts. Essentially, it is about appeal and influencing the consumer. Unfortunately, the various mediums are fraught with sexism and racial disparities, which are difficult to overcome since the mediums are controlled by those in power. This level of control may be disguised as marketing techniques for certain target groups. By devising an appealing image for a consumer in which he or she may identify, advertisers establish a connection, thus building loyalty and developing a following. Hence, gender portrayals are fundamental practices to reach a large group of consumers by creating categorical images.

Gender Socializer: Television

Several of the popular radio soap operas made the transition to television, with many new ones created for the medium which would eventually eclipse radio in audience numbers. As with their radio predecessors, these shows were programmed for the daytime hours, and they featured commercials aimed at the housewives who were described as the stereotype of the post-war American culture.
Daytime hours on television also included game and talk/advice shows, whose rhetorical strategies assumed women's capacity as caretaker of the family's economic and emotional resources. The make-up of daytime programming on the broadcast networks has stayed remarkably the same over the years, although soap opera plots seem to take into account the presence of male viewers (not only making male characters more important, but mixing action genre ingredients into the narratives). Perhaps even more significantly as programming strategy, game shows have given way on the schedule to talk shows.

Ironically, primetime television, once considered more "serious" than daytime programming, has continued to cause controversy in the 1980s and 1990s when dealing with issues (abortion, homosexuality) now regularly discussed on daytime talk shows. Primetime television has been considered by the networks and media critics and historians as more serious because of the "adult" dramas, mostly with male characters as central figures, scheduled during the late, 9:00-11:00 P.M. time slots. Of course, the unspoken here is that these shows are serious because they appeal to male viewers, who are stereotyped as more interested in violence, the law,….....

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