Gender and media monitoring
example of a gendered genre would be the range
of magazines that are targeted at either female or
male readerships.
Th e text and its narrative patterns typi-
cally refl ect such diff erences in audience and in
part, though not uncritically, assumptions about
gender roles and typical masculine and feminine
behaviour. Soap operas, for instance, concentrate
on the family and local neighbourhood and the
interplay of interpersonal relationships within
these contexts; whereas the crime series focuses
on action, heroic deeds and male bonding. Some
researchers have argued that the concept of
gendered genre over-simplifi es the potentially
complex relationship between the text, its narra-
tive form, its authors and its audience.
The term gendered viewing describes the
diff erent perspectives, ways of seeing, between
genders in relation to cultural, social and histori-
cal contexts. Th is is not simply a matter of the
ways in which men look, or perceive, compared
with those of women, for as Mary Ellen Brown
asserts in Soap Opera and Women’s Talk: Th e
Pleasure of Resistance (Sage, 1994), ‘gender role
characteristics of the one sex can be displayed
by people of either sex’. Indeed, the ‘simple
delineations of masculine and feminine are
also somewhat inappropriate because they
imply masculinity as central and femininity as
marginal’. See feminism; genre; melodrama;
sexism. See also topic guide under gender
matters.
▶Bethan Benwall, ed., Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle
Magazines (Blackwell, 2003); Anna Gough-Yates,
Understanding Women’s Magazines: Publishing,
Markets, Readerships (Routledge, 2003); Dorothy
Hobson, Soap Opera (Polity Press/Blackwell, 2003);
David Gauntlett, Media, Gender and Identity: An
Introduction (Routledge, 2008); Mary Celeste Kearney,
ed., Th e Gender and Media Reader (Routledge, 2011).
Genderlects In You Just Don’t Understand: Men
and Women in Conversation (Virago, 1992),
Deborah Tannen argues that in conversation
while men ‘speak and hear a language of status
and independence’, women ‘speak’ and hear a
language of ‘connection and intimacy’. These
fundamentally diff erent orientations and their
infl uence on perception are, she argues, impor-
tant factors in creating confusion and misun-
derstanding in conversations between men and
women.
Th ese diff erences have led Tannen to conclude
that men and women speak diff erent genderlects,
and her book examines examples of how male
and female differences in orientation, and
consequently in interpretation, can be observedsexual preferences. A current area of research
focuses upon media portrayal of sexual prefer-
ences and, in particular, its portrayal of those
preferences assumed to be minority prefer-
ences – for example those of lesbians and gay
men. Larry Gross in ‘Minorities, majorities and
the media’ in Tamar Liebes and James Curran,
eds, Media, Ritual and Identity (Routledge,
1998) argues that traditionally in much of the
US media, portrayals of lesbians and gay men
have been limited and stereotypical, with the
underlying message being that such identities
are deviant. See feminism; gendered genre;
genderlects; he/man language; male-as-
norm: news: the ‘maleness of news’; patri-
archy; performativity; pleasure: active
and reactive; report-talk, rapport-talk;
representation; self-identity; self-
presentation; semiotic power; stereotype;
queer theory.
▶Jennifer Coates, Women, Men and Language (Pear-
son Education, 2004); Janet Holmes, Gendered Talk
at Work: Constructing Social Identity Th rough Work-
place Interaction (Blackwell, 2006); Janet Holmes and
Miriam Meyerhoff , Th e Handbook of Language and
Gender (Blackwell, 2006); Gavid Gauntlett, Media,
Gender and Identity: An Introduction (Routledge,
2008); Paula Pointdexter, Sharo Meraz and Amy
Schmitz Weiss, Women, Men and News: Divided and
Disconnected in the News Media Landscape (Rout-
ledge, 2008); Mary Celeste Kearney, ed., Th e Gender
and Media Reader (Routledge, 2011).
Gender and media monitoring Especially
since 1995, when the United Nations Fourth
Conference on Women took place in Beijing,
China, women’s groups have focused intensively
on the degree to which media globally have
asserted male over female interests; at the same
time representing women in stereotypical ways.
Th e Conference affi rmed the need for systematic
and ongoing monitoring of the media, judging
that evidence was the key to infl uencing hearts,
minds and practices. The weight of research
evidence would be the driving force behind
lobbying for fairer representation.
▶Margaret Gallagher, Gender Setting: New Agendas
for Media Monitoring and Advocacy (Zed Book, with
the World Association for Christian Communication,
2001).
Gendered genre Term used in cultural analysis
to denote genres of fi lm or television which
are seen to appeal to one gender rather than
another. For example, soap operas have tradi-
tionally been seen as primarily directed at female
audiences, whilst crime series are perceived
to appeal more to male audiences. Another