Identities



Identities

Introduction

Creating an identity in today's media drenched world is not a simple task. With a turn of a magazine page or an easy flip of the TV channel there at our disposal is a huge array of potential identity replicas. In contemporary society, identity is continuously unstable; it must be selected, constructed and created with reference to inevitable surrounding media traditions (Craig 2002). There are a variety of mediums from which people can pick and access information from such as radio, TV, Internet, or even cell phones. Consequently, the media holds a very powerful capacity to set a social issue for mass audience to assume and talk about. Often, media do not intentionally set the agenda and resolve the pros and cons of that particular matter, so it repeatedly causes terrible consequences towards public as well as establishes 'moral panics', which can sometimes direct to mob violence. This writing will argue that identity is a social construction, managed primarily by the contemporary media and created in relation to others and is it continually being changed in order to keep up with the altering society.

Gender Roles & Media

Television is the industry which most commonly guilty of perpetrating gender roles and stereotypes. Very sharp contrasting stereotyping of gender roles on television can be noticed in commercials and advertisements. Gender stereotypes can also be found in children's TV programs. Television fails to represent the world realistically to its viewers.

Daytime advertisements on television tend to portray men in stereotypical roles of authority and patriarchal dominance, while women are associated with traditional roles of the housewife. Females are shown maintaining the perfect household, with their primary goal being to take care of their husband and or family. Housewives are seen as happy to serve others and to relinquish their spare time and personal needs; all in an effort to insure that their families feel loved and cared for. (Niemi 2007).

The Commercial World

Throughout out day time commercials there are never any connotations of single families (Niemi 2007), which in reality being a single parent is a common occurrence. Some advertisements may even play on a women's guilt and insecurities, showing them that by using their product it will help them maintain the perfect household (Niemi 2007). These advertisements tend to be conservative, showing a females existence completely dependent on her family (Niemi 2007). During the day women are completely defined by the services they provide; a clean home, prompt meals and a caretaker (Niemi 2007). Females are never defined by their intellectual skills outside the home (Taflinger 2006). These commercials generally show women in a position of cooking, cleaning, child care and maintaining an attractive appearance (Craig 2002, 209).

Men are portrayed as the primary charter in less than half of these commercials. When they do appear they are shown as a celebrity spokesperson, husband or professional (Craig 2002, 209). These images may be unconscious internalized by women, giving them the mental image of the ideal housewife they should strive to be, often making them feel they ...