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By Vera Vieira
(coordinator of Rede Mulher -Women Network -
and a master degree student from University of São Paulo) 2001

What is the woman’s image that is being made by the media ?

How could we interfere to change the stereotyped standards? 

“TV incorporates rising tendencies in estate of acceptation or already accepted, operating with the conservative code. But as it needs to advance in the relation with the market, conduces the conservative code to the limit permitted. And the maximum that is conceded is the transgression, immediately shut so the code could operate again. The systems permit the infraction, never the cancellation or the substitution of the code by what guarantees the contents of dominant ideology”

(Artur da Távola)

 

To advance in the fight for the equity of social relations between men and women, presupposes incorporate - in the methodology of feminist popular Education - the critical view of the media and the mechanisms to interfere on the standards.

This reorientation in the in methodology is made necessary considering the progression of new information technologies and the acceleration of the globalization process, which is causing changes in the way people see and fell. There is a strong influence of the media in the quotidian life and in the production of senses.

The gender social relations – marked by the subordination of woman to the man, throughout human’s history - are constructed culturally, making it possible to be changed with the educative work, seeking the elimination of the serious consequences in the society.

When developing a educative work for the equity of gender, automatically, it is necessary to incorporate the perspective of class, of race, and of generation, because people are born woman or man - respected the sexual orientation-, they are poor or rich, are white, black, yellow or red; they could belong to different ethnic groups; are children, teenagers or elderly. These oppressions will limit the autonomy, the potential and the access to the political and economic power.

The cultural construction of gender is composed starting from the many nets of relation in the life of a human being: family, church, school, popular associations, political parties, the media, etc.

It is considered that, today, more than ever, the media has a tremendous influence in the formation (or deformation) of people, in function of the revolution of new information technologies. This is provoking new notions of time and space, a new way to see, to sense and to fell.

The media- because of attractive messages and of easy penetration - could reinforce the stereotypes that contribute to perpetuate the inequality of gender, but also could go the opposite way.

We consider that the messages disseminated by the media do not cause torpid effect, knowing that the receptor is going to conduce and remake the meaning, through the influence of the own social/cultural ways.

It is important to consider the culture that people brings to the media and to comprehend the wealth of the media as a carrier of information and representation of the world to be analyzed, compared and reconstructed.

With all, the methodology of popular feminist education recognizes the incorporation of:

Instrumental dominion: Revealing the way to function the instruments of the media (TV, Internet, radio, video, newspaper, and magazines) and the formation of each one of them

Critical view: starting from the perception of cultural, social and political logic that animates the message (analysing the contents and the implications; organizational logic of the editorial lines; mechanisms of production, circulation and consume), as well as the way language is used (the new order of languages on the media which significance of the message is collected totally, and not any more in the sequential order; the synergy between different languages- words, sounds, images, animation, etc. – as a system contaminating the other and composing a new product.)

Mechanisms of intervention: Taking advantage of the media’s potential, with the occupation of spaces in the media to empower the visibility and the advance of the educative work, to the achievement of a equal and a fair society.

 

MESSAGE’S EFFECT: STUDIES TRAJECTORY 

Behavior model:

The message, with narcotized effect, has unique way - from the transmitter to the receptor. The public reaction is worked for the conditioning. Example: after a movie in the USA, with a Coca-Cola advertisement in the corner of the screen, the people left wanting to drink the refreshment. This model is centralized in the transmitter.

Functional model:

The message has double-handed way, starting from the crossing of different processes evolved in the production: who says (communicator) what (content of the message) to whom (public’s characteristics) through what channel (radio, television, newspaper, etc) with what effect (resultants). The notion of feedback (transmitter-receptor-transmitter) amplifies the knowledge about the communication process, but this model still supports the transmitter. It considers the influence of opinion makers (intermediary, as bigger diffuser subject: community agents, political leaders, priest), but in a direct way, this is, without considering the possibility of unfolding the messages by the action of a new mediator agent. 

Mediation model:                                                                 

Based in cultural studies, it centralizes in the reception of the message. The person that receives the message is not passive. In other words, the person is going to get the message with the cultural/social influences, giving another meaning. This process of re-meaning the message occurs in the field named mediations.                                                                                                  

Mechanisms of production, circulation and consume

The media must be looked not as heaven and also not as hell, but simply as a reality that is strongly present in people’s life. In countries like Brazil, that has a major number of analphabet people, or had only a little bit of school attendance, the effect is even bigger, because the TV and radio are the only way to access information and entertainment.

There is no doubt that the media follows the market logic and is dominant by the economic power. The minority power uses the media as an instrument of domination (to perpetuate the capitalist system).

So, if publicity sustains the media, it needs to maintain indices of audience at any cost and also promote the consume. But also without the publicity it would not be possible the development of the media.

In the same time that the media tries to satisfy the advertisers, it also look to balance with the expectations of the public. This worry grows with the growth of the public citizen conscience and of the mechanism of interference.

It is the communication revolution (new information technologies) that permits, in the beginning of the 80´s, the acceleration of the globalization process - beginning the intensification of fusion (concentration of capitals and decentralization of markets). The financial market works with simple touch of a button, in a against velocity to the rhythm of the social action in the third. At distance, the rich countries do not want to see to the dramatic consequences provoked.

The Brazilian scenery is characterized by a intense process of denationalization, with a inefficacy of communication public politic, lacuna of pertinent legislation and State omission on its role to regulate and supervise. It is needed to be aware on this process, because it is directly turned to things that will be achieved in the fight for a democratic society.

It is happening a union of international investors with regional multi media groups (Internet, datum’s transmission, and phone). The media industry has similarity with their competitors: family property, productive diversity and patrimonial, convergence with telecommunication and the Internet, long term and topic partnerships and search of external markets.

Examples:

It is occurring diversification and the increasing of the media: the traditional ones-, such as the radio, the TV and written press-, and such as the digital/computer.

It is called the third revolution: with Internet, followed by the integration with TV, through the digital system. It is open a wide space of possibilities for the public to discuss (dialog) with the media. In the other side, this revolution is provoking new notions of time and space, a new way to see and fell. This brings a big distance between generations (the people from other generation are analogic- with thoughts in sequential order-, what does not occurs with young people, which is digital). This reinforces the importance to include the inter-relation between communication and educative work.

The telegraph, invented by Marconi, represents the beginning of information technology. It is a bi-directional system: a person sends and the other receives. The history of TV transmission started with the wave system, after satellite, satellite’s net, analogic system (sequential) and now, to break all of this, comes the digital system: faster and high quality, dialog with many different information sources (by the remote control), union between TV and Internet.

The principle of interactivity (dialog between the parts) appears with the television, despite the fact that it is characterized much more by react TV, offering the illusion of participation through the telephone (0800). To the public at home were given the restrict liberty to telephone and to decide, for example, about the end of a program. The Brazilian TV soup operas, with the help of research groups, take directions softly defined by the public, however the major control is with the sender. The interactivity is growing little by little, such as, for example, the TV Cultura program named Roda Viva, in which the public send question to the celebrity that is being interviewed, by phone, fax or e-mail. The Multishow channel offers to the public the possibility to decide the hour that the programs will be showed on Sunday. Now, with the digital system, is going to occur a big revolution.

If the new technologies comes to reinforce the individualism (a person speaks to another person in Norway without leaving the house, but does not do the same with a someone that is just beside) also exists a side much positive: the new information technologies could provoke big discussions, with the evolvement of new subjects, resulting in the quotidian exercise of direct democracy.

The research “The woman retreated by TV”, realized by CPM- Market Research, for the non-governmental organization Grupo Tver, in March of 1999, revealed, between many aspects, the following:

Positive aspects:

 

Negative aspects:

Another research, with 174 soup operas that went on air between in the period of 1964 and 1997 (TV Globo and TV Tupi), made by Joel Zito Araújo titled the “ The Brazilian deny - the black in Brazilian TV soup opera”, revealed dramatic datum of secondary roles occupied by blacks:

 

PERSONAGES PLAYED BY BLACKS IN SOUP OPERAS

Maids 71
Slaves 66
Criminal/scoundrel 11
Cook chiefs 09
Drivers 06
Hired assassin 06
Professor 06
Politic 03
Engineer 02
Doctor 01

“The well-succeeded manifestations are not necessarily the ones that mobilizes the major group of people, but the ones that attracts more interest between the journalists. Exaggerating just a little bit, we could say that 50 intelligent subjects that could get 5 minutes on TV of a well-succeeded happening could produce a political effect compared to a half a million of manifestants”.

(Pierre Bordieu)

Note:

This text integrates the contents of the workshop “Gender and Media Education”, done by Rede Mulher (Women Network), which took place in the period of 02-03 of August/2001, with 21 participants, leaders from urban and rural areas, from different Brazilian States. It was sponsored by WACC (England) and NOVIB (Netherlands).