How mass media impacts women

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The world is passing through an age of information explosion. Others use the words “the world has become a global village” to illustrate the changes that have occurred with achieving technological milestones. The electronic media has completely changed the scope of media. Information can easily flow one part of the world to another in a matter of seconds. The advancement in media has had huge impact on all fronts of the world. Perhaps the young generation is the most affected. The older generation was slow to adapt to the massive changes. The forms of media include radio, television, telephone, mobile phones, video conferencing, social networking, and newspapers. The society today is more complex than it was in the 19th century (Perse & Lambe, 2016). Mass media are the conceptualized agencies involved in the creation, selection, processing, and distribution of messages across the globe. The media plays a fundamental role in society as the adage goes information is power. The media informs, educates, advertises, and entertains her listens and readers. The mass media is a top asset for every liberal democracy, and the politicians recognize this hence champion its freedom. In this democracies, the media serves to champion for change and critic the national government.

The ongoing communication revolution has opened up more opportunities for women who were despised for generations. The use of the media remains uncontrolled and misguided. The women and children remain the most disadvantaged groups in society despite the massive brag of technological advancement. Women usually take to the streets to protest the inequality, disparity, and exploitation by the male-dominated media personnel. The media has been particularly active in selling misguided notions and stereotypes that impede achieving gender equality. Scholars postulate that the media continues to display the women as the weaker gender. For example, in the US, mass media outlets sell the notion that men are only sex-driven in relationships while women serve as sexual objects. Feminists argue that the films displayed in the media have contributed to the anorexic Nervosa syndrome observed in the young generations (Cortese, 2015). The new generation has been led to believe that men are only attracted to thin, young and young women.

Women have come a long way in the process of achieving gender equality. The gender protests of the 20th century increased women representation in media outlets, although the numbers are far from achieving gender equality. For instance, women only represent 10% of news stories, they only represent approximately 20% of the experts interviewed, television programs generally have less than 35% of women as actors (Patowary, 2014). Besides, women in films play supporting roles. The stereotypes towards women have been especially detrimental. Some of the stereotypes include: that role of the woman is at home where they have to do all housework duties, women cannot make crucial decisions, women must always be dependent on men, and women are sexual objects. Women have adapted to images sold by the mass media of how they should look. An ideal woman should be thin, white, fit, and with blonde hair. The effect of these is manifested in video games where creators display women with revealing clothes or even nude while the men are usually clothed appropriately.

The articles reveal that women are often disproportionately affected by information inequality in mass media. Women are vastly underrepresented in top positions in media outlets. There is no refuting the benefits of mass media on women empowerment. However, women lag behind men in terms of internet accessibility. Women who have been exposed to the internet are prone to sexual harassment (Hanson, 2016). The situation is worse when women do not conform to social norms. The researchers used various methods to assess the impact of mass media on women. Women have been the punching bags of toxic masculinity. The study incorporated various methods to conduct the research. The researchers conducted their research on both rural and urban women. They used open-ended questionnaires, interviews, and targeted discussions. Some articles analyzed the field research of other articles forming the secondary sources. One study involved sampling 400 women and conducting interviews and questionnaires with them (Patowary, 2014).

In this study, questionnaires and interviews were used to conduct the research. The researchers shall use the Fischer’s formula to determine the representative population. A total of 330 questionnaires shall be distributed equally to the two target groups based on the above formula. The study selected adult women as the only source of information. It will be a cross-sectional study utilizing a purposeful sampling technique to identify the representative population for the research. The study will also be carried out in urban settings as well as in the outskirts.

The researchers trained their personnel on how to conduct impartial interviews to source out information. The statement problem was to determine the impact of mass media on women. It is important to discuss these to identify the stereotypes and the negative influence of the media on women. The papers had several aims. First, it aimed to increase women empowerment. The study aimed to determine the influence of mass media on women in various sectors such as agriculture, occupation, and entertainment. Thirdly, to investigate the changes that have been made by mass media on women (Ibrahim, 2018). The research hypothesis includes: mass media has increased women empowerment, the media has degraded the decency of women through their stereotypic representations, and women have been denied prestigious opportunities because of their genders.

The research was limited by time. It is hard to quantify the number of women who have been empowered through this research. The sample size was small and may not be representative of the population. It was also difficult to assess the impact of mass media on women based on this methodology. A better methodology needs to be reviewed to extrapolate the impact on women. Future studies should focus on the impact of online information on women.

References

Cortese, A. J. (2015). Provocateur: Images of women and minorities in advertising. Rowman & Littlefield.

Hanson, R. E. (2016). Mass communication: Living in the media world. Sage Publications.

Ibrahim, F. (2018). Women, development, and the mass media. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 5.

Patowary, H. (2014). Portrayal of women in Indian mass media: An investigation.

Perse, E. M., & Lambe, J. (2016). Media effects and society. Routledge.