Study task 4 - summarising and paragraphing

Using Study Task 03 from the previous session, were we looked at the points made by the article, we 
were then asked to use the information  and write a small summary of what our opinions were.

After reading and analysing the text "Media, Gender & Identity" by David Gauntlett I would consider 

the overall tone of the text to be very informative, conversational and sympathetic towards people how 

are being stereotyped in gender roles which is both men and women. Gauntlet equally descussed this in

the text with both genders, and expressed his opinions on the matter and mentioned facts that he had 

come across. Gauntlett discussed how females seem to be portrayed worse within advertisements and 

the media as they are idolised for unattainable beauty. A point that Gauntlett mentioned as that in Spain

2005 'the balance of male & female characters, almost, but not quite matching the actual population- 

50.6% men & 49.4% women.' This showed that there is not and sign of sexism in advertisements in 

Spain as there is in other countries. 'That’s why mums go to Iceland' is a very sexist and stereotypical 

slogan form a very famous advertisement that Gauntlett discusses. This is clearly very sexist towards

woman as it is stating that all women are stereotypical housewives and stay at home mums that do the 

family shopping, this is also sexist towards the modern dad that is now a very familiar figure in the 21st

century. T

Study task 3 - reading and understanding a text

The question i have decided to base my essay on is "To what extent does advertising construct our ideas 
of gender?" and the book that i used for this task was David Gauntlett's Media, Gender and Identity.

The tone tone of voice that Gauntlett uses in Media, Gender and identity is informal tone-of-voice

as it sounds like he is speaking to the reader directly. Gauntlet has a good strong idea of how he perceives 

sexism and gender roles in the media. Gauntlett makes a fair few points about the use of sexism in the

21st century and how they could be mistaken for the same views of those of the 50s/60s. 

key points he makes 

- 21st adverts/films are still using gender roles and same idea of sexism

- stereotypical job roles

- no longer just women idolised in the eye of the media

- how out of date the stereotype roles are

- That nowadays men and men movie stars have to be beautiful, go to the gym etc so it changed from

 pressure on women to pressure on people as a whole.

key quotes

"women are still cast as younger, supportive counterparts to men, and older women are still the most

 underrepresented group" 

"Post feminism, women can do whatever they please" 

"Certainly, the very obvious stereotypes from the past have mostly gone (although today's sexism 

may just be more subtle)"

"women are twice as likely as men to be in commercials for domestic products, and men were twice as

 likely as women to appear in ads for non-domestic products"

"Magazines for woman celebrate the thin figure and magazines for men are more curvaceous figures"

"Women who were unselfconscious and unmade-up thirty years ago', she says are now 'infected' 

with the need to conform to certain images of beauty"

Study task 2 - finding research

The focus of my research will be for the question "To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?" This is the question that i am considering to choose for my essay.

Below are the sources of information that i have found that will be useful when writing my essay :

Books -

• Advertising theory.  /  Rodgers, Shelly  &  Thorson, Esther  (2012)
• Inside the family: changing roles of men and women.  /  Rimmer, Leslie  &  Henwood, Melanie  (1987)
• Challenging gender roles.  /  Firth, Lisa (ed.)  (2012)
• Living dolls: the return of sexism  /  Walter, Natasha  (2010)
• Decoding advertisements: ideology and meaning in advertising.  /  Williamson, Judith  (1978)

Google books - 

• food is love : advertising and gender roles in modern america https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SKjHJQHXcSoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=gender+roles+in+advertising&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gender%20roles%20in%20advertising&f=false 
• Advertising and Reality: A Global Study of Representation and Content https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B4PFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA202&dq=gender+roles+in+advertising&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gender%20roles%20in%20advertising&f=false
• Marketing to Women: A Content Analysis of "Good Housekeeping" Advertisements ... https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bhzGj3oalEwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=gender+roles+in+advertising&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gender%20roles%20in%20advertising&f=false

Websites -

• http://krytyka.org/gender-stereotypes-in-mass-media-case-study-analysis-of-the-gender-stereotyping-phenomenon-in-tv-commercials/
• http://socialpsychonline.com/2015/08/culture-gender-stereotyping-advertising/
• https://contently.com/strategist/2015/10/09/5-ad-campaigns-that-shatter-gender-stereotypes/

The research sources that i have found i though that they were very useful as after briefly reading them it gave me a lot of information that i didn't already know and sparked my interest into the subject further and will really help to inform my essay. I found it very hard to find university websites providing information on my topic was in lesson we were told that these were more reliable and informative websites. Out of all the above research sources i found the google books and the library books the most useful as they are the most reliable sources.