Amy M. Damico - Women in Media

Women in Media

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CONTEMPORARY WORLD ISSUES

Women in Media

A REFERENCE HANDBOOK

Amy M. Damico

Copyright 2022 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Damico, Amy M., author.

Title: Women in media : a reference handbook / Amy M. Damico.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : ABC-CLIO, [2022] | Series: Contemporary world issues | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022012543 | ISBN 9781440876059 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440876066 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Women in mass media.

Classification: LCC P94.5.W65 D36 2022 | DDC

302.23/082dc23/eng/20220503

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022012543

ISBN: 978-1-4408-7605-9 (print)

978-1-4408-7606-6 (ebook)

26 25 24 23 22 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

As this book goes to press, the United States is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, a historic and tragic global event that has resulted in millions of deaths worldwide and over a half a million deaths in the United States alone, with some reports indicating that fatalities in the United States could ultimately top 900,000 (Sullivan 2021). During much of 2020, numerous businesses shut down or altered their operations, and many Americans were forced to change their work, school, and recreational routines, staying home much more than they typically would. For most Americans, pandemic life increased reliance on home screenstelevisions, computers, and portable devicesfor work, school, information, and entertainment. According to MarketWatch, for example, streaming service subscriptions increased by 32 percent in 2020 (Watson 2021).

The pandemic highlighted what we already know: in the United States, media plays a significant role in many of our lives. Given this, it is important to critically consider the representations of people, groups, and ideas in the films, television programs, advertisements, and news reports that entertain, engage, and inform us. This book looks at the participation and representation of women in American entertainment and news media, especially in the areas of movies, scripted television, advertising, news, and sports. It provides an overview of ways in which women have been historically present and absent in these media forms. Engaging with this history and reading about current issues related to this topic will help readers better understand why womens engagement in mediain such roles as performers, journalists, producers, and writersis important. It also provides a framework for understanding the positive and problematic media representations of women that influence the daily lives of girls and women across the United States.

Few readers who pick up this book will be surprised to find that women are still fighting for equitable representation in American media industries. Harmful stereotypical images of women and girls persist in the news, on television programs, in advertising, in movies, and in other sectors of the entertainment industry. At the same time, however, remarkable changes and reforms have unfolded across these same media industries. Women are anchoring newscasts, portraying complex women characters in movies and television, and defying the traditional gender status quo in advertising and other promotional messaging.

This book summarizes and synthesizes information that addresses these topic areas and offers readers a one-stop resource for gaining a better understanding of the broad and complex topic of women in media. The content found in the following chapters is informed by published research, critical perspectives, and scholarly essaysresearch initiatives that are ongoing as scholars continue to document womens participation and portrayal in media content.

, Background and History, offers a broad overview of the evolution of how women have been portrayed and how they have helped shape media industries in the United States. This chapter examines how evolving and sometimes contradictory representations of women in magazines, films, news, television programs, and advertising aligned shifting cultural ideas about women in the United States. The chapter also defines relevant concepts and terms and reviews how representations of women in media are studied. It additionally summarizes the ideas of some often referenced gender and media scholars.

, Problems, Controversies, and Solutions, presents some of the contemporary challenges and problems confronting girls and women in their relationships to media in the United States, both as subjects and as members. Focus areas in this chapter address current research about women in narrative film and scripted television; the presence and portrayal of women in news, politics, and sports; and representation trends in contemporary advertising and on social media. This chapter also summarizes some of the solutions and reforms proposed by experts to address gender inequality in these industries and sectors of American life.