9 – The Gender of Media and Popular Culture

Flashcards about key vocabulary terms discussed in the lecture notes.

Institutions

Basic building blocks of society that help explain how society works as a whole.

Formal organization

A group of people who interact regularly and have a set of explicit, written rules.

Study of gender and media - gender makeup of organizations

Taking a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at various media organizations.

Study of gender and media - content-focused perspective

Focusing on the actual stuff that’s on the television, the movie screen, the magazine page, or the computer screen

Gender stereotypes in advertising and public relations

Women face a glass ceiling and a kind of segregation that confines them to work on products considered to be more feminine.

Bechdel-Wallace Test

A set of criteria to evaluate gender representation in movies.

Market segmentation

A sales approach that divides a large and diverse market into smaller segments based on characteristics like gender, social class, and race.

Commodification

Turning any object, idea, or behavior into something that can be bought and sold.

Media power theory

A culture industry produces entertainment products in order to make a profit.

False consciousness

An idea that institutions can mislead people about the true state of affairs and relations of power in a society.

Audience power theory

Popular culture is made by the people, not produced by the culture industry.

Preferred meaning

An intended meaning given for a commercial during its creation.

Overspill of meanings

Possibility of altering or adding viewer meaning/interpretation from any particular media content.

Fan fiction

Fiction written by and for fans on a not-for-profit basis, typically posted online.

Shipping

A general affinity for some fictional couple.

Slash

Fan fiction that sexualizes or romanticizes same-sex media relationships.

Queering of mainstream media

To use our power as an audience to shape narratives in ways that better reflect the diversity of our experiences

White, working-class male buffoon

A working-class male shown on television as dumb, immature, irresponsible, and lacking in common sense.

Intersectionality

Draws attention to the ways in which gender is employed to enforce other types of inequality.

Contaminated leisure

Combining leisure activities with unpaid work activities, such as housework and childcare.