Gender and Media

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course introduces students to the critical analysis of gender in media culture. Focusing primarily on U.S. film, television, popular music, and social media, we will examine how gender is constructed, challenged, and reimagined in the three primary sites of media culture: texts, production, and reception. We will explore both qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of gender and media, and the relationship of identity, media, and power will be central to our discussions. In addition to exploring how gender is portrayed in a variety of media texts, we will examine the strategies used by media producers when representing gender, while also considering who is creating such texts. Both the mainstream/commercial and alternative/independent spheres of media production will be explored. In turn, we will consider the broader impact of gendered media representations on consumers as well as the various ways audiences engage with and respond to such texts. We will enrich our studies of gender through attention to its intersections with race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and ability, paying close attention to how such identity categories differently impact the representation of people in media, the labor of people in media production, and the practices in which people engage while consuming media.