FEMALE/MALE MEDIAgender, media and stereotyping

Joke HermesOctober/November 2012, Aalto

University, Helsinki

On the agenda for today

• Brief introduction of key concepts• Some examples of women’s magazine covers: female

media• Sports images (soccer): male media• How to interpret and assess the value of these media

forms• In what ways do they contrast with our wish to

counter stereotyping in news media • Discussion: addressing how and why contemporary

media content is gendered

Concepts

• Gender• Intersectionality• Local contexts/global media• Genre– Nature of ‘genres’ (and formats): multi-level

contract– Audience expectations– Real-life daily experience of media genres

Women’s magazines

From royalty and stars, to celebrities and a ‘model’ culture

1970-1979

1995-present

Fashion and style; ‘instruction’ and advice; gossip (as means of

incidental learning)

1950-1959

1995-present

1995-present

1995-present

1995-present

1995-present

1995-present

1995-present

Men: a structuring absence = always present, hardly ever ‘in view’

1960-1969

1970-1979

Openings for social critique

Sports photography in soccer

Intersectionality in Dutch soccer images

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Male-coded humour: ‘Snow flake’

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Ronald Koeman scoort

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Hristo Stoitchkov

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Christian Eriksen

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Ruud Gullit

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Ruud Gullit en Frank Rijkaard

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Nederlands elftal 1988

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Nederlands elftal 1996: Sar, Bergkamp, Seedorf, Cocu, Stam, R. de BoerOnderste rij: Numan, F. de Boer, Jonk, Reiziger en Winter

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Guus Dubbelman voor de Volkskrant (1996): de zwarte tafel

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Kluivert en Davids

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Patrick Kluivert

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

1995 Ajax wint de Champions League: Clarence Seedorf, Finidi George en Frenk Rijkaard

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Accepting an ethnic mix as ‘normal’: changing valences in the intersectional mix

Ajax selectie 2010: oa Miralem Sulejmani (Servie), El Hamdaoui (Marokko), Kenneth Vermeer (Suriname), Vurnon Anita (Suriname), Vertonghen (Belgie), Alderweirld (Belgie), Eriksen (Denemarken)

Mulier debat 25 januari 2012 Utrecht - Joke Hermes, Inholland

Orlando Engelaar

The use of ‘female’ and ‘male’ media

• What do we assume about how these media are used? (How do you use them?)

• Is ‘stereotyping’ the right term to use when describing practices of representation in women’s magazines and in men’s sport media?

• Are there any gender-neutral spaces in the media?

• How and when is stereotyping objectionable in news reporting?

The challenge

• To enjoy the mix of politics, pleasure (as a reader and as a researcher) and professionalism

• To recognize relevant contexts for research questions and respect their inherent complexities (i.e. the ‘situatedness’ of all knowledge, from everyday experience to academic theory)

• To understand how and why contemporary media content is gendered