SAJAS

 

 

 

Group members:

• Simon
• Andreja
• Janja
• Anita
• Sara

 

 

Distribution of roles:

• leader:  Simon 
• secretary:  Andreja
• reporter:  Janja
• time-keeper:  Anita
• reserve person:  Sara

 

 

 

Title: Representation of identity of women in mass media

 

 

 

Definition:

 

With development and rise of mass media production in the last century media has become one of the key players in our everyday life. We can even state that media has penetrated to the core of our society and presents one of the reflections through which we construct our identity and society. We claim that media representation of gender and gender norms contributes to inequality between men and women.

 

The representation of women in mainstream media is still stereotypical and supports patriarchal systems of society and inequality between genders. What’s even more worrying is that if we look more closely at women’s magazines, we see that we can find women and their bodies presented as objects even here. Adds for cosmetics, which are the common denominator of all women's magazines are offering the definition and development of culturally exalted images of "real" femininity. They are sending the message to women this is how you should look like and this is who you should be. Women’s magazines are on the declarative level emancipatory and they tackle educational issues in a spirit of popular feminism, but on the actual level, the so-called beauty myth pervades. Women presented in women’s magazines are too often uniformed and presented through magnificent three – Sex, Beauty and Fashion.

 

Research questions:

 

1. How are women portrayed in media?
2. How are women portrayed in women’s magazines (Cosmopolitan, Anja, Smrklja, etc.)?
3. Do women identify with images of women presented in media?
4. Do women identify with images of women presented in women’s magazines?
5. Does the representation of women in women’s magazines differ from representation of women in general media?
6. How does media representation of women and gender norms effects on emancipation of women?
7. How does media representation and media construction of gender effect on forming women identity?
8. Is the representation of women in media a reflection of everyday life of women in reality?
9. Why is the female body in media presented as "goods" and women as objects?
10. Why do most women subconsciously succumb to the representation of women in media and see it as how they should look and act?

 

 

List of literature:

 

1. Butler, J. (2001): Težave s spolom: feminizem in subverzija identitete. Založba ŠKUC,

Ljubljana.

2. Hrženjak, M., Vidmar, K.H., Drglin, Z., Vendramin, V., Legan, J., Skumavc, U. 2002.

Njena (re)kreacija. Ženske revije v Sloveniji. Ljubljana: Mirovni Inštitut.

3. Jogan, Manca 2001. Seksizem v vsakdanjem življenju. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede.

4. Macdonald, Myra. 1995. Representing Women. Myths of femininity in the popular media. London: Hodder Headline PLC.

5. Machin, David and Joanna Thornborrow. 2003. Branding and discourse: the case of

Cosmopolitan. Discourse & Society, 14, 4, p. 453-471. 

6. Tomori, Martina. 1990. Psihologija telesa. Ljubljana:DZS.

7. Verša, Dorotea. 1996. Medijska podoba spolov. Ljubljana:, Government of the Republic of Slovenia, Office for Women's Policy

 

 

GLOSSARY 

 

1. portrayed – prikazan, predstavljen

2. identified - identificiran

3. advertisement - oglas

4. the ambivalence - razdvojenost

5. commodity – potrošna dobrina

6. purchased - kupljen

7. personality - osebnost

8. self-esteem - samospoštovanje

9. internalising - ponotranjene

10. participants – udeleženci ankete

 

 

 

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Minutes

 

 

 

MINUTES OF THE 1st MEETING

(held on 16th of March, 2010 at FDV library )

 

Present: Simon, Anita, Sara, Andreja, Janja

 

Agenda:

1. Approval of the agenda
2. Appointment of chair and minute taker of the meeting
3. Distribution of roles
4. Selection of the topic for PBL
5. Defining the problem and discussing the possible problem questions
6. AOB

Item 1:

 

Discussion: Janja presented the agenda points. All present agreed with the agenda.

 

Item 2:

 

Discussion 1: We had a short discussion on who will chair the first meeting and who will be in charge of taking the minutes of our first meeting. Janja proposed to take minutes and suggested that Simon chairs the session.

 

Decision 1: All present agreed for Janja to be a minute taker and Simon to chair the session.

 

Discussion 2: Anita suggested that we have the next meeting on the 23rd of March and that we should meet in FDV library.

Decision 2: All present agreed with Anita's suggestion. The next meeting will be held on the 23rd of March in FDV library at 14.30.

 

Item 3:

 

Discussion: We had a discussion on distribution of roles amongst the members of the group.

 

Decision: We unanimously agreed and decided that our leader is Simon, secretary is Andreja, reporter is Janja, time-keeper is Anita and reserve person is Sara.

 

Item 4:

 

Discussion:

We started the discussion on selection of the topic for PBL with group brainstorming of possible topics that we would want to cover. All members of the team proposed a topic and we all liked the idea of focusing on women identity and gender norms. Sara pointed out that we need to be careful not to leave our topic too open and that we need to narrow it down. Anita and Andreja suggested that we could focus on the effects of mass media on identity of women, their gender roles and how women are portrayed in mass media production.

 

Decision: All present agreed that in our PBL work we should focus on the topic of representation of identity of women in mess media and effects of mass media on their identity.

 

Item 5:

 

Discussion: After we decided on the topic that we will tackle we had a discussion about the definition of the problem. We brainstormed on how to define our problem. Simon suggested that he can write a draft of the definition and circulate it to group members over email and that we can finalize the definition of a problem through discussion over emails.

 

Decision: Simon will write a draft definition of a problem and circulate it to other group members over email. We also decided that we should all look for literature and familiarize ourselves more with the topic until the next meeting.

 

Item 6:

 

Discussion:There was no discussion under this item.

 

 

Minute taker: Janja

Chair: Simon

 

MINUTES OF THE 2nd MEETING

(Held on 23rd of March, 2010 at FDV library) 

 

Present: Simon, Anita, Sara, Andreja, and Janja 

Agenda:

1. Approval of the agenda
2. Appointment of chair and minute taker of the meeting
3. Discussing the possible problem questions
4. Literature
5. AOB

Item 1: 

 

Discussion: Sara presented the agenda points. All present agreed with the agenda.  

 

Item 2: 

 

Discussion 1: We had a short discussion on who will chair the first meeting and who will be in charge of taking the minutes of our first meeting. Sara proposed to take minutes and suggested that Andreja chairs the session.

 

Decision 1: All present agreed for Sara to be a minute taker and Andreja to chair the session.  

Discussion 2: Simon suggested that we have the next meeting on the 31st of March and that we should meet in FDV library. 

 

Decision 2: All present agreed with Simon's suggestion. The next meeting will be held on the 31st of March in FDV library at 14.30. 

 

Item 3: 

 

Discussion: We had a discussion about research questions that we want to work on during our PBL work. We brainstormed about the topics that we need to touch during our PBL work in order to solve the problem we defined in the definition.  

Anita pointed out that it would be good if we look more closely also how women’s media, especially women’s magazines represent women through their articles and ads. Thus we decided that we should look more closely at that.  

Janja said that we should look how women are represented in media and if and how women identify with this representation. Thus we decided that our research questions should be: 

1. How are women portrayed in media?
2. Do women identify with images of women presented in media?

 

Based on what Anita said that we should look more closely at the representation of women in women’s media Simon suggested that our research questions should also be: 

 

1. How are women portrayed in women’s magazines (Cosmopolitan, Anja, Smrklja, etc.)?
2. Do women identify with images of women presented in women’s magazines?

 

We also decided that we should compare the representation of women in general media and representation of women in women’s media and see if there is any difference.  Thus we decided that one of our research questions should also be: 

1. Does the representation of women in women’s magazines differ from representation of women in general media?

Simon said that he is also interested to look more closely at the effects of representation of women in media on gender norms. Sara agreed that this would be interesting and added that it would be also good to look at how this effects on women’s identity. Thus we decided to take on board the following research questions: 

1. How does media representation of women and gender norms effects on emancipation of women?
2. How does media representation and media construction of gender effect on forming women identity?

 

Andreja pointed out that she thinks that how women are presented in media has no connection on how women live everyday.  She suggested that we should also ask ourselves: 

1. Is the representation of women in media a reflection of everyday life of women in reality?

After a short debate about our outlook on how women are presented in media we also decided that we should try to answer the following research questions:  

1. Why is the female body in media presented as "goods" and women as objects?
2. Why do most women subconsciously succumb to the representation of women in media and see it as how they should look and act?

 

Decision: At the end of a long debate we unanimously decided that our research questions should be: 

1. How are women portrayed in media?
2. How are women portrayed in women’s magazines (Cosmopolitan, Anja, Smrklja, etc.)?
3. Do women identify with images of women presented in media?
4. Do women identify with images of women presented in women’s magazines?
5. Does the representation of women in women’s magazines differ from representation of women in general media?
6. How does media representation of women and gender norms effects on emancipation of women?
7. How does media representation and media construction of gender effect on forming women identity?
8. Is the representation of women in media a reflection of everyday life of women in reality?
9. Why is the female body in media presented as "goods" and women as objects?
10. Why do most women subconsciously succumb to the representation of women in media and see it as how they should look and act?

Item 4: 

 

Discussion: We started the discussion about how to approach to finding literature that we are going to use to answer our questions and agreed that the best way is to try to find it separately and keep each other informed over email. 

 

Decision: We are all going to search for literature and send info about it to other group members over email.  

Item 6: 

 

Discussion: There was no discussion under this item. 

 

 

Minute taker: Sara

Chair: Andreja

 

 

MINUTES OF THE 3RD MEETING 

 (Held on 31rd of March, 2010 at FDV library)

 

 

Present: Simon, Anita, Sara, Andreja, and Janja 

Agenda:

1. Approval of the agenda

2. Appointment of chair and minute taker of the meeting

3. Correction of definition

4. Distribution of tasks regarding research questions

5. AOB 

 

Item 1:

 

Discussion: Anita presented the agenda points. All present agreed with the agenda.

 

Item 2:

Discussion: We had a short discussion on who will chair the third meeting and who will be in charge of taking the minutes of our third meeting. Andreja proposed to take minutes and suggested that Sara chairs the session.

 

Decision: All present agreed for Andreja to be a minute taker and Sara to chair the session.   

 

Item 3:

 

Discussion: We had a discussion about the definition of the problem. Janja told the team that we have to corecct the difinition.

 

Decision: All present agreed that Simon will write the correction of definition.

 

Item 4:

 

 

Discusion:  We had a discussion on distribution of tasks regarding research questions. All members of the team proposed that everyone takes two questions of their choise.

 

Decision: All present agreed and picked the questions they wanted. Sara took the first and eight, Andreja took the second and fourth, Anita fifth and tenth, Simon third and sixth and Janja seventh and ninht.

 

Item 5:

 

Discussion: There was no discussion under this item.

 

Minute taker: Andreja

Chair: Sara