Research

'Media, Gender & Identity' written by David Gauntlett

• 'The traditional view of a woman as a housewife or low-status worker has been kick-boxed out of the picture by the feisty, successful 'girl power' icons.' - The mass media is a force for change and the whole idea of traditions are considered to be quite strange. Women are represented as more independent by the day while men are beginning to be represented as more emotional, seeking advice. 

• 'Magazines...promote self-confidence (even if they partly undermine it, for some readers, at the same time) and provide information about sex, relationships and lifestyles which can be put to a variety of uses.' - These topics are all part of the social construction of identity. 

• '...role models serve as navigation points as individuals steer their own personal routes through life.' - An audience, for example, can aspire to look like a celebrity they see on the front of a magazine or they might wish to achieve what they've achieved. They have an impact on individuals. 

• 'Magazines for young women are emphatic in their determination that women must do their own thing, be themselves, and/or be as outrageously sassy and sexy as possible.' - Magazines essentially aim to defeat social ideologies about women and emphasise the important of certain aspects, eg. independence. 

• '...the magazines are often centred on helping men to be considerate lovers, useful around the home, healthy, fashionable, and funny - in particular, being able to laugh at themselves.' Magazines are not always too serious when offering audiences advice. 

• 'It is impossible to say that women's magazines always carry a particular message, because the enormous range of titles target an equally diverse set of female audiences.' - Magazines can be contradictory in what they say however this range of messages can appeal to a wider range of people. 

• 'In contrast with the past...we no longer get singular, straightforward messages about ideal types of male and female identities...Instead, popular culture offers a range of stars, icons and characters whom we can acceptably borrow bits and pieces of their public persona for use in our own.' - Traditional ideologies about gender are no longer prevalent and the media offers a more diverse variety of messages to present to us. 

• 'Media messages are diverse, diffuse and contradictory.'