FAMILY & MEDIA

Family and Media

Family Portrayal in Media

Introduction

The portrayal of the family in the media has changed to a greater extend as influenced by the time. Representation of Nuclear family has vastly dominated the electronic media which was quite evident through the shows like 'The Brady Bunch in 1970's, 'Family Tiers' in 1980's and the '7th Heaven', in 1990's (Berger, 2011). However, as, the time grew the family bonds remained in the shows, but the real difference came when the issues, faced by the people in everyday life began to be discussed rather of ignoring them altogether. In Contrast to the earlier times, fathers changed their image of only being responsible for providing the financial assistance and support to the house hold.

There was a change in the image of mothers as well as they were not only crafted as homemakers and children discarded their respectful image, as depicted in the earlier times started to behave badly and rudely sometimes as per the situation. Such changes noticeably gained more popularity as the relativity factor rose to much higher level as opposed to the earlier times. Media helped broaden the perspective of the audience in general, by discussing the issues known as 'Taboo' by adapting the real issues in the scripts and creating the real life examples (Berg, 2011). As per the Requirement of this paper, it would be revolving around the structure of the family in media and how it has changed over time, so discussing the issues of entirely different nature.

Medium Used

However, this paper would highlight the use of television in the portrayal of the family, in the media, and would be taking the example of 'Modern Family' to be viewed as an example. Modern Family is another show based on the structure of the families in the United States of America. This show works on the format known as documentary, a format which works or presents factious events in the form of documentaries'. Mockuementary style is most used in either the dramatic settings or in the settings aimed for comedies, although the comedies style dominates the dramatic counterpart. Which ensures that main characters, enjoys equal time, and equal screen space in a production, which obviously would, be either dramatic or comedy in nature, such casting became more popular because it provided leverage to the writers to focus on a different character in each episode.

This series revolve around three families, linked to each other through characters known as Jay Pritchett, his children, Mitchell Pritchett and Claire Dunphy. Jay Pritchett played by Ed O'Neil who is operating as a patriarch. Who is in a relationship with a woman who is quite younger than him played by Sofia vergara as Gloria, a mother who raised her son with the help of the Jay Pritchett. Other characters include Manny played by Rico Rodriguez, Claire Brown played by Julie Bowmen, who is a homemaker and married 'top Phil' played by Ty Burrel. Both of them have three children played by Sarah Hyland Another ...