Status of Women 2002 Abstracts
Commission on the Status of Women
A Picture of Health: How Women’s Magazines Frame Medical News and Femininity • Barbara Barnett, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Women’s magazines have long been an important source of information for women about health concerns, including birth control, nutrition, and child care. While these publications have offered important messages about health, women’s magazines have simultaneously offered information about femininity. This qualitative analysis employed framing to explore the themes found in forty-four non-fiction health articles in ten women’s magazines published from December 2000 through February 2001. The analysis found that illness was often presented as an event that rendered women incomplete — and therefore unable to find happiness through men, marriage, and children.
Women in the Newsroom: Influences of Female Editors and Reporters on the News Agenda • Stephanie Craft and Wayne Wanta, Missouri • This study compared issue agendas and story focus at newspapers with relatively high percentages of women in editorial positions with those at newspapers with lower percentages of female editors. Results of the content analysis of 30 newspapers showed little difference in issues covered. Papers with predominately male editors contained news with a more negative focus. Newspapers with a high percentage of female editors also tend to treat their female reporters on a par with male reporters.
On Equal Footing: The Framing of Sexual Difference In Runner’s World • Marie Harden, State University of West Georgia, Julie Dodd and Jean Chance, Florida and Vicki Wuertz, Florida Southern College • Although sports media has been criticized for marginalizing and excluding female athletes, running has been touted as a “uniquely egalitarian” sport by enthusiasts and by the leading U.S. running magazine, Runner’s World. This research examines all editorial photo images in the magazine during 1992, 1996 and 2001. The magazine was found to provide adequate overall percentages of women in its photos, but to also perpetuate sexual difference in the way that it presented female runners.
Video Games are from Mars, 1.25 not Venus: Gender, Electronic Game Play and Attitudes Toward the Medium • James D. Ivory and Hillary Wilkerson, Wyoming • Despite the widespread popularity of video games, studies have consistently reported that males play more than females. This paper analyzed original survey research of college students and found a similar gender gap, though a sizable female video game-playing minority was observed. Game content and publicity was also investigated, with representations of women indicating considerable justification for the medium’s comparatively limited popularity among females, and general suggestions were made concerning changes in game content.
The Making of Dr. Laura Schlessinger • Phylis Johnson and Max V. Grubb, Southern Illinois University • Since the 1980’s Fairness Doctrine’s repeal, the American broadcasting system has shifted from a model of objectivity to advocacy, with broadcasters asserting their rights to put forth their agenda. The distinction between news, information, and entertainment has blurred – all in the name of constitutionality, but more likely in the name of ratings. This paper analyzes the events that led to the acceptance – and rejection – of the moral platitudes of Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
From The Cradle to the Grave: The Unfulfilled Bill Of Rights Reflected In the Hidden Dialogue of “Everywoman” • Beverly G. Merrick, New Mexico State University • This is a White Paper, an award-winning essay that points to the need to present viewpoints in the mass media suppressed due to gender. The essay is written in the form of Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyon. The research won second place in the nation, faculty, of the Bill of Rights “Significant Silences” competition, through the AEJMC. The arguments herein should help media professionals overcome the denial of gender dominance.
Women’s Status in Reproductive Health Decision-Making: A Communication’s Perspective • Nancy Muturi, Iowa • Reproductive health information is a basic human right. Most women are however denied this right due social-cultural and economic factors that impede their reproductive health decisions causing them to face unwanted pregnancies, and sexual and domestic violence, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. This paper examines those factors from a communications perspective, drawing its theoretical framework from Grunig’s Excellence in Communication theory. Data were gathered among rural women in Kenya.
Did Women Get Stiffed?: Reviews of Susan Faludi’s Backlash and Stiffed • Julie O’Reilly, Bowling Green State University • This semiotic analysis examined book reviews of Susan Faludi’s Backlash (1991) and Stiffed (1999) to determine if the overt or underlying content of the reviews suggested any gender bias toward the subject matter of each book or Faludi as their author. Results indicated that reviewers’ treatment of the “gendered” subject matter of the books through use of metaphorical, attitudinal, and other language types produced dominant readings that marginalized feminists and reinforced traditional conceptions of masculinity.
Magazine Coverage of Katharine Meyer Graham, 1963-1975 • Mary Rinkoski, Ohio University • From her husband’s death in 1963 through Watergate, the Pentagon Papers and a pressmen strike in 1975, Katharine Graham rose to success as the head of the Washington Post Company. The blossoming feminist movement coincided with Graham’s rise to power and American magazines molded her into a figurehead for the women’s liberation movement. Initially receiving coverage based on her gender, Graham eventually earned magazine attention for her successful management.
Mind the Gender Gap: Gender Differences in Motivation to Contribute Online Content • Cindy Royal, Texas-Austin • Recent studies indicate that women are using the Internet in the same numbers as men. But, is this statistic misleading in that it fails to highlight gender issues in terms of the quality of usage at higher levels of participation? The Internet provides inherent agency that puts the creation of Internet content into its users’ hands. This study will analyze gender differences in motivation and willingness to participate in the Internet as contributor of content.
Gender Switching-Repositioning the Distaff: A History of Women in Bahamian Media • Juliette Storr, North Carolina State University • Colonization inspired beliefs about superiority and inferiority. These beliefs are still among us. This study focuses on the transitions from colonization to independence in mass media (print, radio and television) in The Bahamas and women’s experience in mass media under both systems. It covers the period 1784 to 2001. It examines gender relationships within the context of the relationship between culture and empire and culture and nation-state.
Peering through the Glass Ceiling of the Boys’ Club: Examining How Masculinity Affects the Journalism and Mass Communication Infrastructure • Billy Wooten, Kentucky • A 1992 census of AEJMC membership found females in 28 percent of mass communication faculties. With obvious gender bias in the field, the question must be asked: Why are women denied access to journalism and mass communication education? The answer lies not only in how females are oppressed within the field but also in how men systematize the infrastructure of the field. This study explores how masculinity affects the systemic structure of journalism and mass communication education.
Relationship Content In Four Men’s And Women’s Magazines • Alexis Zachary and Bryan Denham, Clemson University • This paper discusses the portrayal of intimate relationships in men’s and women’s magazines. The authors performed content analysis on relationship articles in two women’s magazines, Cosmopolitan and Glamour, and two men’s magazines, Maxim and Playboy, from September, October and November 2001. The articles were examined for their communication content, relationship aspects, sexual content, the author’s gender and pro-man or pro-woman slant. The results indicated that the portrayal of relationships does indeed differ in men’s and women’s magazines.
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