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Chapter 6
The Great Communicators
Language and the Media
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sexism and Language: What’s in a Word?
• Language is a medium of socialization
• Semantic derogation
• Linguistic sexism– Ways in which a language devalues members
of one sex, almost invariably women
• How can sexist language be changed?
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sexism and Language: What’s in a Word?
• Do Women and Men Speak Different Languages?– According to Tannen:
• Women and men have different communication styles and communication goals
• Women and men speak different genderlects
Sexism and Language: What’s in a Word?
• Gender inequality characterizes much everyday communication– Reflecting differences in men’s and women’s
life experiences, social status, and power
• Common stereotype that women are more talkative than men
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sexism and Language: What’s in a Word?
• Women’s conversations have traditionally been negatively stereotyped and parodied
• Women’s communications have been considered not only different from men’s: – But also typically inferior– This pattern is not normative in all societies
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Box 6.1 Sexism and Language
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Gender and the Media
• Reflection hypothesis– The media only give the public what it
expects, wants, or demands
• The media are the chief sources of information for most people– As well as the focus of their leisure activity
Gender and the Media
• Symbolic annihilation– The media traditionally have ignored,
trivialized, or condemned women
• Gender Differences in Online Communication
• The Written Word: Gender Messages in Newspapers and Magazines
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Gender and the Media
– Men are more likely than women to regularly get news online or on a cell phone
– While women are more likely to turn to social networking sites (e.g., Twitter) for news
– The gender gap in newspaper readership– Women and men certainly have different
interests in news stories– A perusal of just about any news daily gives
one the impression that it is a man’s world
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Gender and the Media
– Gender stereotypes frequently intersect with racial and ethnic stereotypes
– Women have made also progress on national network newscasts in recent years
– Minority men and women remain dramatically underrepresented on the network news
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Gender and the Media• Gender Messages in Children’s Television
Cartoons and Animated Movies
Images of Gender in the Media: What Are Their Effects?
• Gender Messages in Advertisements: Does Sexism Sell?– The sexually exploitative use of
women in advertising has increased
– Lolita syndrome
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Language and Media as Shapers of Gender
• The gender images communicated by language and the mass media– Impact on men’s and women’s behaviors and
self-concepts
• Symbolic annihilation – Symbolically ignoring, trivializing, or
demeaning a particular group