ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research study is to find if media are influencing children by portraying gender stereotypes in their programming. More specifically, this study focuses on television and movies by holding a content analysis of three popular movie rentals and three popular television shows aimed at children within the ages of eight and 17. Previous research on the subject paralleled the findings of the content analysis which showed reinforcement of gender stereotyping in television and movies. Some limitations of the study include a small research sample, few programs were used, and only one episode was assessed in each television series to find specific character traits such as masculinity and leadership.
INTRODUCTION
Media today is setting the agenda for the way people live their lives. As time goes on, those media are making their way into how people make decisions or go about their everyday life. It starts with planning their day around their favorite programming to identifying with their favorite character to living their life based on the things that they see on television. When in abundance, this can be a potential way of improper misconceptions about the ways of people or how they act in the world. This leads to the idea of stereotyping and categorization. Numerous studies have been held to understand just that-does stereotyping happen in the media? This is a research study that addresses the issue of stereotyping and the way that the media today are influencing children in their daily programming and movies. As a child, one is the most influenced by what they admire. The hours of a typical child behind a television rises every year and it is important to know if what their watching is priming their ideas about stereotypes. More specifically, genders. The equality of men and women has come along ways since the 1900’s, but inequality still lies hidden in shows especially meant for children. By understanding this, anything negative can be taken away from that programming so that equality is assured with those children that are our future. This study will discover that gender stereotypes are still present in our society today and that children are being exposed to it in a surprisingly discreet manner.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
In the media today, stereotypes seem to be very prominent amongst various programming. A stereotype is defined as something agreeing with a pattern or an idea that many people think about a group or thing that is either untrue or partially true. Much research has taken place throughout the years stereotyping with media and it seems that a significant amount of that research has taken place in the last five or so years. Of the literature reviewed, a majority of those studies focus on gender, body image, and racial stereotypes. Gender stereotyping is displayed by the idea that the male is more powerful than the female. Body image stereotyping is displayed by the idea that everyone has to be thin with perfect hair and the perfect body. Racial stereotypes are displayed by showing minorities as subordinate to the majority.
The media priming theory goes hand in hand with the subject of stereotyping and categorization. This theory coincides with the effects of how the research in these studies came out. Television and movies have the effect to prime people into thinking the way they do and that is why there are stereotypes so prominent today because of the growing attention to these media.
Content Analysis
A content analysis was the choice form of research for the following sources addressed the ongoing effects of media and stereotyping. Within those four sources, three different sorts of media were analyzed which were advertisements, movies, and television programs. All of the texts were similar in that they analyze their particular media in reference to stereotypes and self-image or the images of others. Haddock and Lund (2003) compared 26 Disney feature films to identify any themes of families and couples. This is similar to the analysis by Gokee-Larose and Herbozo (2004) in which they also observed popular Disney movies and their relation to body image messages that they might portray. Those body image messages are displayed as the perfect body or the ability to attract the perfect mate. These two studies both found that the movies they viewed were representing the ideal, whether it is body or the relationship.
Parallel to the Disney observations, Shields and Heinecken (2002) compared television advertisements against the idea of gender stereotyping where the man is the tough one is the strength and the woman is the subordinate. They found that common stereotype of men being dominant over women was held with women being shown mostly in advertisements for products that are for household cleaning. Also, women were shown as less intelligent than men and shown in advertisements altogether a smaller percentage than men were.
On the contrary, Jarvis (2001) found that by following the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer that positive ideal stereotypes were not always depicted. This study created the realization that there is death and destruction in the world compared to the previously mentioned studies about perfect Disney stories. Although, Jarvis still saw a sort of stereotype, but in reverse. This program went against the passive girl stereotype. It showed a teenage girl that was able to stand on her own two feet without a dominant male to help her along.
These sources were examples of how the programming geared towards children embody stereotypes. With the exception of Jarvis (2001), a good majority of the media out there today, with an audience of young people, have ideals of the perfect body or the perfect self underlying in them. They also show that gender stereotyping is found in certain areas of the media.
Experiments
Experiments were very prominent in research pertaining to stereotypes and the media. These studies held their own actual experiments. Of the literature reviewed in the primary experiment category, there are some very different methods of experimentation, but they all have the general idea of stereotyping and the effects of them in common.
Ettema and Johnston (1982) contributed to research with an innovative idea. They created a television program in attempt to create prosocial benefits toward children. The experiment was simple enough, just exposing a classroom of children to the program. Although it was a simple experiment, they came up with some groundbreaking results. It was found that the most effective evaluator was to discuss the program after the initial viewing. This is when the most positive benefits were shown in the children that viewed the program. Those benefits were such that the content was discussed and understood in a classroom atmosphere so the children leave knowing exactly how things were. It was argued that without a discussion afterwards, the results might be obscured.
McCoy and Thompsen (2001) feel that women’s beauty and fashion magazines have a great affect on how women see themselves compared to the ideals of the perfect self portrayed in this media. In the study, the focus is on interviews with anorexic outpatients and how they see the positive correlation between reading these magazines and being pushed into their disorder.
In comparison, McGee and Nathanson (2004) also recognize that female stereotypes are being forced in our society. The female stereotype is the typical female who is dependant on the male, very feminine, or passive in nature. The experiment focused on a sample group of children between kindergarten and the sixth grade. The children were exposed to active mediation and were followed to find if the effects of stereotyping could be reversed. A conclusion was found that the strategy only rang true for children who were critically vulnerable to negative media effects.
In relation to the category of self, and any stereotyping involved, Bromnick and Swallow (2001) found that young people have values of the ideal situation where everything is perfect for themselves in the future such as a great jobs with a mate and 2.5 children. An experiment was conducted with 244 children between the ages of 11-16. Four open-ended questions were presented in regards to their philosophies of life, fears, and any underlying values. The girls sampled tended to focus mostly on relationships between their peers, family, and boys. On the contrary, boys tended to focus mainly on sports.
Analyses
Analyses in relation to stereotyping and the media are among the research that has been done on the subject over the years. Of the literature reviewed, the following sources came to their own conclusions by studying prior research pertaining to stereotypes. Pain (2001) discusses various debates on race, age, gender, and fear of the city. Gender is defined as a category where men are to be feared and women are to be fearful. Young people are supposedly shown as either directly threatening or non-threatening. People of color are either victims or criminals. Urban areas are seen as highly dangerous places. Pain examines how these ideas are categorized. Statistics of various surveys are compared to show that these ideas are stereotypes and that they are played up in today’s society so they still linger today.
McGarty (2002) has a similar take on studying how these ideas can come about and he discusses the art of stereotyping formation. Certain situations are described such as how unemployed people are seen as lazy and also how these categorizations can be further dissected into consequences. McGarty concludes after evaluation of research the definition of stereotyping formation as a process by which constraints between knowledge of a group, use of labels of group members, and equivalence perceived by group members.
Discussion
After reviewing the above literature, it is found that stereotypes and the media have been addressed in scholarly research since the 1980’s. A majority of the sources reviewed were from early 2000, with the exception of Johnston and Ettema from 1982. The results showed that stereotyping is prominent in media today, especially in television and movies. It seems that the programming is hitting people at a very young age, reinforcing stereotypes, and influencing their decisions into their early adult years. Although they do discuss the facts that stereotypes are found in certain areas the media like a series of movies or television shows, one may feel that some aspects of media are not properly represented. The studies reviewed certainly touch on gender stereotyping, but they lack in the area of targeting more than one age group. This study will center on a wide range of children’s development focusing on two mediums. By way of a content analysis, the study will analyze television and movies targeting three distinct stages in rational thinking and childhood. This way, television and movies will be looked at in relation to each other, trying not to stay in just one narrow medium like so many other studies.
METHODS
A content analysis was done on three popular movie rentals and three popular television shows amongst children and teenagers. The three movie programs analyzed were “Harry Potter 3: Prisoner of Azkaban,” “Shrek 2,” and “Sleepover.” The three television shows analyzed were “Even Stevens,” “Gilmore Girls,” and “The O.C.” The movies or programs were evaluated based on certain characteristics of four to five of their main characters. Those criteria were whether they were masculine, feminine, passive, aggressive, leaders, followers, independent, dependent, or adventure seekers. The categories for passive and aggressive also had a ‘both’ category because in some cases the characters showed both sides of the characteristic. The same went for whether they were leaders or followers because for example, in the beginning they would be a follower and at the end they would be a leader.
Characteristics were determined based upon their obvious definitions. Masculine and feminine were defined as actions pertaining to a man like power and actions pertaining to a woman like agreeability. Leaders and followers were defined as taking the initiative first and letting others take the initiative first. Independent and dependent were defined as not relying on others and relying on others. Adventure seeking was defined as having the attitude for excitement or a want to do something outrageous.
RESULTS
The results of the content analysis were that the male characters tended to have higher percentages pertaining to the typical male stereotype.Table (1) shows the overall outcome in percentage form. In the passive aggressive categories, the females showed to be more passive than the males while they were shown as more aggressive. In the both category, females tended to show a higher percentage than males as being more passive/aggressive. In the leader and follower categories, males once again showed the leadership while the females dominated in the follower category. The both category for leaders and followers held a small percentage of females who showed both characteristics throughout the program. As far as the independent and dependent categories, the males showed the most independence, although the females showed over half of the characters as being independent. The masculine and feminine categories held the most impact with males being 86% masculine and females being 80% feminine. The final category of adventure seeking held the male characters the most adventure seeking by a very close percentage. Females tended to not be the adventure seekers at 60%.
EVALUATION
Looking at the results, they follow along with the idea that males and females are still not shown in the media as equal. When contrasting the genders, the male characters had higher percentages relating to the male stereotype and the female characters had higher percentages relating to the female stereotype. Although, when looking at the results in terms of the genders alone, the numbers seem to be fairly close in the female category. The males did also have the same result, but the numbers were not as close as the female numbers were.
CONCLUSION
The results of the content analysis show that although the percentages are still in favor of the stereotypes when comparing the sexes, there seems to be almost equal distribution of the different characteristics among the females in particular. Although this study shows that media is on its way to equality, children’s television and movies are in need of adjustments. Stereotypes are present in their programming reinforcing the priming of stereotypical thinking.
Some limitations to this study are that it was a small sample size. Also, only three choices of each medium were used. With television, only one episode of each program was viewed to categorize the characteristics of the characters of the shows.
For future research, a larger sample size would be used. More programs should be looked at in order to come to more specific conclusions. For a different perspective, a content analysis of programming from years ago compared to the present would help to better understand how stereotypes have changed over time. Also, an analysis of different TV stations would be a way to measure if one TV station is more stereotypical than another.
REFERENCES
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