Sexism in the Media and their Effects

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2006 im Fachbereich Medien / Kommunikation - Forschung und Studien, Note: 1,3, Technische Universität Dresden (Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft), Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Everybody who reads a magazine, watches television or goes to the movies realizes that sex is omnipresent across all media. The messages about sex and sexual issues transmitted to the people can have positive or negative themes and they raise questions about the effects they can have on the behaviours and attitudes of the recipients. Especially for young persons, the media are an important source of information about sexual issues, but sexual messages can also have a negative impact on their mind. In comparison to research on the impact of violence in the media, research on the impact of sexual portrayals and sexual content is little. The discussion about sex and sexism in the media, research on sexism and the effects and impact which sexual messages can have on one's mind will be the focus of this work. It is important to distinguish three main fields of research of sexism in the mass media. One great field of concern is research on gender-stereotyping and gender-bias in the media. The second great area of research is focusing on the effects that (verbal or visual) sexism in the media can have on one's mind. The third field at least focuses on more explicit media contents such as erotica or even pornography. This work in the following is structured on these three areas of research.