Gender and Media: Content, Uses, and Impact: January 2010

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Gender and Media: Content, Uses, and Impact
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-1467-5_27
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Joan C. Chrisler
Donald R. McCreary
Editors
Handbook of
Gender Research
in Psychology
Volume 2
Gender Research in
Social and Applied Psychology
123
Chapter 27
Gender and Media: Content, Uses, and Impact
Dara N. Greenwood and Julia R. Lippman
Although research offers compelling evidence to suggest that men and women are far more simi-
lar than they are different across a wide variety of domains, our perceptions of gender difference
can lead us to believe that men and women do inhabit distinct gendered universes and can trigger
self-fulfilling prophecies that confirm these expectations. These perceptions can even guide how aca-
demics choose to interpret the research literature. Hyde’s (2005) review of 46 meta-analyses supports
a “gender similarities hypothesis,” namely, the magnitude of gender differences across these studies
as measured by effect size is small or negligible in over three quarters of the cases assessed. Put
differently, a “small” effect size (i.e., d < 0.35; Hyde, 2005) means that 85% of the distributions for
women and men overlap. This is not to say that a 15% difference in distributions is an insignificant
percentage, but it certainly illustrates that emphasizing difference to the exclusion of similarity paints
an inaccurate picture. Further, where moderate or large gender differences did emerge, they were
often the product of social context. For example, women are more likely than men to smile when
they know they are being observed (LaFrance, Hecht, & Paluck, 2003, as cited in Hyde, 2005). The
latter finding suggests that a given social situation may be of paramount importance in the apparent
differences between men and women.
The social environment can influence the manifestation of present attitudes and behaviors, but
it is also a powerful shaping force throughout the lifespan. In their discussion of a social cognitive
approach to gender development, Bussey and Bandura (2004) suggested that the mass media, in
addition to ongoing input from parents and peers, offer a “pervasive cultural modeling of gender
roles” (p. 108). It is not just children who assimilate cultural models, however; research on the
phenomenon of “possible selves” (Markus & Nurius, 1986) suggests that over the course of our
lives, we continue to draw hoped for as well as feared selves from “the categories made salient by the
individual’s particular sociocultural and historical context and from the models, images, and symbols
provided by the media and by the individual’s immediate social experiences” (p. 954, emphasis
added).
So how does the media environment contribute to our gendered perceptions and experiences?
With a few exceptions, the basic cognitive and emotional processes by which media exert an impact
tend to be similar for both men and women. The most robust gender differences exist at the level
of media representation and content and the selective exposure patterns that are, in part, a response
to gender-typed content. In order to understand how media affect women and men, it is crucial first
to understand systematic gender differences in media content, as well as any gender differences that
emerge with respect to the quality and quantity of media use.
D.N. Greenwood (B)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
J.C. Chrisler, D.R. McCreary (eds.), Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology, 643
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-1467-5_27, ! C Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
644 D.N. Greenwood and J.R. Lippman
Media Content: Quantity and Quality of Gender Representation
At the most basic level, the mere presence – or lack thereof – of men and women in various media
tells us something about the existing gender power dynamic. Because women make up more than
one-half of the actual population, their under- or non-representation in the symbolic social landscape
of the mass media may reflect and contribute to a cultural climate in which women are less valued
than men. Indeed, as Gerbner and Gross (1976) famously articulated, “Representation in the fictional
world signifies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation” (p. 182). Although research
suggests that, in terms of sheer numbers, progress has been made toward equitable representation
(Signorielli & Bacue, 1999), we still have quite a distance to go. However, the gender disparity in
representation grows or shrinks depending upon which particular forms of media are investigated.
Research on US media content indicates that men and women are represented at a ratio of approx-
imately 3:2 in scheduled television programming (Elasmar, Hasegawa, & Brain, 1999; Glascock,
2001; Greenberg & Worrell, 2007; Harwood & Anderson, 2002; Lauzen, Dozier, & Cleveland, 2006;
Signorielli & Bacue, 1999; Signorielli & Kahlenberg, 2001) and commercials (Stern & Mastro,
2004). Similar figures have been obtained in content analyses of scheduled television programming
in Britain (Coyne & Archer, 2004) and of television commercials in Korea (Kim & Lowry, 2005) and
New Zealand (Furnham & Farragher, 2000). However, two separate content analyses of British tele-
vision commercials (Furnham & Farragher, 2000; Nassif & Gunter, 2008) and one of Saudi Arabian
television commercials (Nassif & Gunter, 2008) showed that men and women enjoyed roughly equal
representation. The latter finding, in particular, indicates that numbers represent only part of the
story. A consideration of the qualitative dimensions of representation is also needed; indeed, the
same study showed that women on Saudi Arabian television were cast in dependent or stereotypi-
cally feminine roles – and thus reflected the real-life experiences of Saudi Arabian women – far more
often than men were. Although the studies cited do not even begin to account for most countries,
they do represent studies conducted on media in countries that are geographically and politically dis-
parate. More important, they indicate both that the trend of women’s under-representation is more
than an American peculiarity and that the trend is by no means universal.
However, these general figures obscure some significant differences within particular forms of
entertainment media. For example, in the 1990s women were typically featured in greater num-
bers in comedies than in dramas (Elasmar et al., 1999; Signorielli & Bacue, 1999). Further, women
appearing in comedies had proportionally greater speaking time than women appearing in dramas
(Glascock, 2001). Why might this be? In her work on racial representation in entertainment media,
Coleman (2000) argued that dramas with Black casts have failed in part because they require (White)
audiences to take Blacks seriously – something that, at least in the USA, they might not yet have
been prepared to do. By way of imperfect analogy, the data on women’s representation presented
here are highly suggestive of the same phenomenon. Viewing audiences may be reluctant to take
women seriously in dramatic roles. Recent programming has indicated that we are, however, moving
in a progressive direction – there are currently female leads in highly rated recurring crime dramas
(Medium, The Closer) not to mention the hugely successful so-called dramedies (Sex and the City,
Desperate Housewives). Given increasing visibility, however, it becomes increasingly important to
consider and compare the quality of gendered representations, which we address below.
The general figures presented above also obscure some significant findings regarding subpopu-
lations. Although the aforementioned studies do not purport to account for heterosexual characters
specifically, in practice, given the infrequency with which queer characters appear in the media,
that is what they have, for the most part, done. A content analysis of 125 major characters in sit-
coms showed that only 3 (2%) were clearly anything other than heterosexual (Fouts & Inch, 2005).
Although reliable statistics regarding the prevalence of various sexual orientations are hard to come
27 Gender and Media: Content, Uses, and Impact 645
by, most estimates place the prevalence rate of homosexuality at considerably higher than 3%.
For example, one study showed that 11.1% of respondents self-identified as homosexual or bisex-
ual (Bagley & Tremblay, 1998). Thus, gay individuals are grossly under-represented in the mass
media.
All three of the nonheterosexual sitcom characters identified by Fouts and Inch (2005) were gay
men (there were no lesbian or bisexual characters). This means that, as with studies of presumably
heterosexual populations, among homosexuals, men are represented more frequently than women
are. This disparity may reflect the relative power gay men and lesbians are afforded. And, although
cable television shows such as the The L Word have increased the number of lesbian characters on
television of late, scholars have noted that lesbian representations frequently function to reinforce the
status quo: Same-sex sexual behavior between women is often depicted as a temporary experimental
departure from their underlying heterosexual “nature” and is often designed to be titillating to male
viewers (Diamond, 2005).
With regard to the intersection of gender and age representation in entertainment media, those
over 65 – both men and women – are among the most under-represented relative to their actual
numbers in the population as measured by US Census data (Harwood & Anderson, 2002; Signorielli,
2004). However, the “social age” (a measure that determines a character’s “age” based on what phase
of the life cycle he or she appears to be in) of women in this age group is much more likely to be
categorized as “elderly” (83% of women vs. 66% of men). By contrast, one in three men with an
apparent chronological age of over 65 was rated as “middle aged,” whereas just over one in seven
women were categorized (Signorielli & Bacue, 1999). This trend continues in the 50–64 age range:
One in four women in this age group was categorized as elderly, whereas only 1 in 10 men in this
age group was categorized (Signorielli, 2004). In other words, women are cast in roles that make
them seem older than they are more frequently and at earlier ages than men are.
Is children’s media any different than media targeted to adults? Research on violence in the media
suggests that children are more susceptible than adults to media influence because they are still in the
process of developing social cognitive structures – a learning process influenced by stimuli observed
in both interpersonal and mediated contexts (Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolski, & Eron, 2003; see
also Dubow, Huesmann, & Greenwood, 2006, for a review of media socialization moderators, pro-
cesses, and effects). This suggests that the representations to which children are exposed are of
special concern. M. Larson (2001) found that girls and boys were represented with near equal fre-
quency in commercials that aired during children’s programming. However, the figures from a study
on Federal Communications Commission-mandated educational television are strikingly similar to
those from studies of television targeted to adults (Barner, 1999). And figures from a study of favorite
television programs of first and second graders show that 35.4% of minor characters and only 29.6%
of major characters were female (Aubrey & Harrison, 2004). As Aubrey and Harrison noted, chil-
dren might well interpret this imbalance as reflective of the relative importance of men and women in
society.
If the gender skew in children’s television seems like cause for alarm, the gender imbalance in
video game characters is even more problematic. In one study of video games, 72% of the charac-
ters were male, whereas only 14% were female (the remainder were of an undeterminable gender)
(Beasley & Standley, 2002); in another study, only 15% of games were found to have at least one
female hero or action character and fully 30% of the games that had human characters had no female
characters at all (Dietz, 1998). The cultural view of video games also indicates that they are “still
a man’s game” (Ivory, 2006): In recent studies there were more than three times more men than
women featured in advertisements for video games (Scharrer, 2004) and more than five times more
men than women pictured in video game magazines (Miller & Summers, 2007). Online reviews of
video games showed similar patterns: Men and boys were significantly more likely to be mentioned
at all (75 vs. 42% of reviews) or to be shown in images associated with the reviews (78 vs. 32% of
reviews; Ivory, 2006).
Statistics on the gender breakdown in various media paint an incomplete picture, however. Just as
important – if not more so – are the ways the genders are represented when they are present. When
a group is already under-represented, the characters and personae that are visible carry an increased
burden of fair representation; however, diverse and equitable representations tend to go hand in hand
with the quantity of roles available to a particular group (Mastro & Stern, 2003). Although some of
the literature on media coverage of sports suggests that progress toward equitable coverage has been
made in recent years (Cunningham, Sagas, Sartore, Amsdern, & Schellhase, 2004; King, 2007),
research on magazines headlines (Davalos, Davalos, & Layton, 2007) and prime-time television
(Signorielli & Bacue, 1999) indicates that media messages about gender roles continue to draw on
stereotypical notions of gender.
In the USA, men are more likely than women to be shown in a paid position of labor (Glascock &
Preston-Schreck, 2004; Signorielli, 2004; Signorielli & Bacue, 1999; Stern & Mastro, 2004). This is
especially true of senior adults: In a content analysis of television commercials, 40.3% of senior men
were shown as workers, whereas only 2.4% of senior women were (Stern & Mastro, 2004). However,
the findings are more mixed for studies conducted in countries other than the USA. Although studies
conducted in Germany (Döring & Pöschl, 2006), Indonesia (Furnham, Mak, & Tanidjojo, 2000),
and Korea (Kim & Lowry, 2005) indicate that men are shown as paid laborers more frequently
than women are, a pair of content analyses conducted in Britain and New Zealand showed a non-
significant gender difference on this measure (Furnham & Farragher, 2000). Women, on the other
hand, are more likely either not to work or to be in a role that does not allow their employment
status to be determined (Signorielli & Kahlenberg, 2001; Stern & Mastro, 2004). Significant gender
differences also emerge for job status: Men are more likely to be depicted as bosses (Glascock, 2001)
and professionals (Glascock & Preston-Schreck, 2004; Stern & Mastro, 2004; but see Signorielli &
Kahlenberg, 2001, for non-significant differences), although women’s representation in the latter
category showed a significant increase between the 1970s and the 1990s (Signorielli & Bacue, 1999).
In light of these findings, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that a content analysis of women’s
magazine headlines conducted in the USA showed that only 3–4% of headlines dealt with “career or
finance” (Davalos et al., 2007).
Whereas men are more likely to be shown engaged in paid labor, women are far more likely to be
shown engaged in domestic labor (Glascock & Preston-Schreck, 2004; Stern, 2005; Stern & Mastro,
2004). And it is not just women who are doing household chores: The same pattern was found for
girls in television commercials, who were far more likely than boys to be shown doing household
labor. This gender difference only increased with age, which underscores the role that socialization
processes play in the division of labor: By young adulthood, women were twice as likely as men
to be shown performing domestic chores; by middle adulthood, women were five times more likely
than men to be shown performing domestic chores (Stern & Mastro, 2004). Not only are women
far more likely to be shown doing such chores, but when men do attempt to do housework, they are
often portrayed as incapable of completing the task at hand without a woman’s assistance (Kaufman,
1999) or else the chore they performed leads to a negative consequence (Scharrer, Kim, Lin, & Liu,
2006). This not only underscores women’s obligation to take charge of domestic details but may
reinforce problematic assumptions that women are more naturally suited to domestic work. Further,
these kinds of gendered messages about the division of household labor may dissuade men from
participating, for fear of failing at the task.
Just as women’s roles in the (media-represented) home largely conform to gender-stereotypical
norms, so, too, do their roles in their families. Women are more likely than men to be portrayed as
married (Glascock, 2001; Glascock & Preston-Schreck, 2004), and married women are less likely to
be portrayed as working outside the home than are single or formerly married women (Signorielli &
Kahlenberg, 2001). What’s more, when married women do work outside the home, they are less
likely than their unmarried counterparts to be in white-collar positions (Elasmar et al., 1999). Men,
on the other hand, are significantly more likely than women to be of unknown marital and parental
status (Glascock, 2001), which is important because it suggests that, unlike women, men can be
defined in ways other than through their associations with their spouses or children. It is not surpris-
ing that women are generally portrayed as responsible for more childcare than are men (Glascock,
2001; Glascock & Preston-Schreck, 2004), although men may participate in some areas such as
teaching, reading to, eating with, and playing with children – but only with boys (Kaufman, 1999).
However, although the qualified progress media representations of men have made certainly deserves
recognition, lavishing praise on men for performing some childcare duties misses the point: It is
still the case that real-world mothers who fail to attend to every detail of childcare are regarded
as failures (and often come to see themselves as failures), and this phenomenon may be fueled
by media messages that define parenting as solely a woman’s responsibility (Douglas & Michaels,
2004).
Whereas home and family have traditionally been considered women’s domains, sports and ath-
leticism have traditionally been associated with men. However, there are some indications that there
has been significant progress toward more egalitarian coverage – progress explicitly noted in both
American (Cunningham et al., 2004) and British (King, 2007) studies that compared earlier sports
coverage to more recent coverage. Furthermore, non-significant gender differences have been found
for several indicators of quality of coverage, such as the amount of space devoted to each story
and the likelihood that photographs associated with stories will be in color (Crossman, Vincent, &
Speed, 2007; Huffman, Tuggle, & Rosengard, 2004). Despite this progress, though, men continue to
receive more overall coverage (Billings, Halone, & Denham, 2002; Crossman et al., 2007; Huffman
et al., 2004), and this coverage often expresses a gender bias that highlights male athletes’ athleti-
cism but emphasizes female athletes’ appearance, personality, and background (Billings et al., 2002).
Some of this bias may reflect internalized gender stereotypes being externalized by female journal-
ists. Although sports journalists are still overwhelmingly male (Billings et al., 2002; Huffman et al.,
2004; King, 2007), female sports broadcasters are more likely than their male colleagues to comment
on the personality or appearance of female athletes (Billings et al., 2002). African American men
are especially likely to be portrayed as athletes (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000) and to be described
as having “natural athletic ability,” whereas their European American male counterparts are more
likely to be described as having basketball “court smarts” (Eastman & Billings, 2001; Stone,
Perry, & Darley, 1997).
Perhaps the most well-researched topic on gender differences has been in the area of physical
appearance. Female characters in US media are consistently rated as more attractive (Aubrey &
Harrison, 2004; Harwood & Anderson, 2002), thinner (Glascock & Preston-Schreck, 2004; Klein &
Shiffman, 2005), more sexualized (Plous & Neptune, 1997; Tanner-Smith, Williams, & Nichols,
2006), less muscular (Baker & Raney, 2007; Miller & Summers, 2007), and younger (Greenberg &
Worrell, 2007; Signorielli, 2004) than their male counterparts. These asymmetries in gender repre-
sentation are particularly noteworthy because they suggest that men are more powerful – physically
and psychologically – than women are, a representational bias that has been documented for decades
(e.g., Goffman, 1979). The consequences and reach of this symbolically rendered power dynamic
cannot be under-stated: In addition to increasing women’s tendency to self-objectify (Fredrickson &
Roberts, 1997), and in addition to reflecting and contributing to a cultural climate of sexual aggres-
sion and harassment (Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981; Rudman & Borgida; 1995), the tendency
for women to be portrayed with a lower face-to-body ratio than men (known as face-ism) may be
associated with lower perceptions of women’s intelligence and ambition (Archer, Iritani, Kimes, &
Barrios, 1983). Further, new research shows that female politicians who represent themselves
(in online photographs) with higher face-to-body ratios have more pro-feminist voting records
(Konrath & Schwarz, 2007). This suggests that something as subtle as small distinctions in
face-to-body ratios may reflect important social and political belief systems.
Women of color tend to incur a double penalty when it comes to media representation. For
example, Latinas, who are dramatically under-represented in comparison to their actual population
numbers, are more likely than other ethnic groups to be shown in sexualized poses or as children in
television commercials (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Mastro & Stern, 2003). Black women, on the
other hand, are less likely than White women to be shown in sexualized poses but are more likely
than White women to be shown in submissive poses (Millard & Grant, 2006). Past research has also
indicated that Black women are more likely than White women to be shown wearing animal prints
within the pages of fashion magazines (Plous & Neptune, 1997), a trend that may insinuate that
Black women are more primitive and sexually motivated than White women are.
The association between femininity and physical beauty manifests itself in entertainment media
in a number of different ways: Women’s magazine headlines disproportionately make reference to
the importance of physical attractiveness (Davalos et al., 2007), female cartoon characters are far
more likely to be physically attractive (which, in turn, has significant positive associations with
happiness, intelligence, and romantic activities and significant negative correlations with physical
problems, anger, and antisocial behavior) than male characters (Klein & Shiffman, 2006), and par-
enting magazines send the message that appearance is important for girls more often than any other
gender-stereotypical message (Spees & Zimmerman, 2002). These messages, in combination with
research evidence that suggests that women whose looks are aligned with cultural ideals of beauty
are awarded real socioeconomic benefits, such as increased likelihood of being hired (Marlowe,
Schneider, & Carnot, 1996) and higher salaries once hired (Frieze, Olson, & Russell, 1991), can lead
women and girls to internalize the message that nothing is more important than the way they look
(Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). In line with this, research shows that perceived physical attractive-
ness was the sole predictor of young girls’ wishful identification with a female television character,
but for boys, wishful identification was predicted by perceived intelligence of a favorite male char-
acter (Hoffner, 1996). Although recent Disney movies depict more adventurous, less stereotypical
female heroes (e.g., Mulan, Pocahontas), one need only note the latest “Princess” craze and its shop-
ping mall embodiment (i.e., theme stores in which young girls can spend the day putting on makeup,
having their hair done, and trying on ball gowns) or catch the eye of one of the hyper-glamorous and
sexualized “Bratz Dolls” to realize that young girls are still being taught powerful lessons about the
central role that physical appearance plays in everyday life.
The dominant feature of current media-perpetuated conceptualizations of female beauty is thin-
ness, as exemplified by the 94% of women’s magazine covers that display thin models or celebrities
(Malkin, Wornian, & Chrisler, 1999). This message is echoed in other media formats: 12% of female
characters (of all weights) on prime-time situation comedies are shown restricting their dietary intake
(Fouts & Burggraf, 1999), perhaps to elicit the positive feedback from male characters that is pos-
itively correlated with thinness (Fouts & Burggraf, 1999) or to avoid the negative feedback – 80%
of which is reinforced by audience laughter – with which thinness is negatively correlated (Fouts &
Burggraf, 2000). When male characters elicit negative comments from female characters, it is uncor-
related with their actual body size or audience laughter; it is only male characters’ self-deprecating
jokes about their own weight that is meaningfully related to their body size and audience response
(Fouts & Vaughn, 2002). This suggests that, when men deviate from an ideal body size, it is a less
serious social offense and a greater opportunity for good natured self-parody than is the case for
women.
It is important to note, however, that, although the media representations of idealized female
beauty and size are ubiquitous and powerful, the emphasis on a muscular and sexualized male body
has also been increasing in recent decades (Rohlinger, 2002). In some respects, equating masculinity
with muscularity is no different than equating femininity with thinness. Both place an emphasis on
the body, both only recognize a single body type as desirable, and both lead people to unhealthy
extremes in their efforts to obtain the “perfect” body. In both cases, these unhealthy extremes may
be driven by distortions: Just as women tend to underestimate the weight men perceive as ideal
(Fallon & Rozin, 1985), men may overestimate the degree to which high levels of muscularity are
valued by women (Frederick, Fessler, & Hasleton, 2005). Of course, one way in which the two ideals
do differ is that muscles are part and parcel of a physically powerful body, which stands in contrast
to the purely visual statement that a thin female physique makes. However, these images serve to
reinforce the conflation of masculinity with physical dominance, and men are hardly immune to
the effects of such images. The impact of exposure to idealized images on both women and men is
discussed later in the chapter.
If the cultural ideal of femininity values and rewards physical beauty above all else, the cultural
ideal of masculinity prizes physical aggressiveness. And just as defining femininity narrowly leads to
stereotypical and, ultimately, damaging representations, so, too, does defining masculinity in narrow
terms. Scharrer (2001) argued that “hypermasculinity” – that is, “macho” portrayals of masculinity –
is positively correlated with physical aggression. Put another way, the media teach us that part of
being a “real man” is being physically aggressive. In a similar vein, Dill and Thill (2007) noted that
nearly one-third of images of male video game characters are portrayed as both hypermasculine and
aggressive.
Male characters in media content that ranges from British television (Coyne & Archer, 2004) to
newspaper comics (Glascock & Preston-Schreck, 2004) to film (Stern, 2005) are typically found
to be higher in physical aggression than female characters. This finding has held for studies that
used composite or unspecified measures of aggression to examine children’s educational television
(Barner, 1999), Portugese advertisements aimed at children (Neto & Furnham, 2005), and video
game magazines (Dill & Thill, 2007). However, researchers who have separated verbal aggression
from physical aggression have usually found that female characters are higher in the former, an
effect demonstrated in British television (Coyne & Archer, 2004), American television (Glascock,
2001), advertisements aired during American children’s television programming (Larson, 2001),
and newspaper comics (Glascock & Preston-Schreck, 2004). Coyne and Archer (2004) argued
for the importance of studying indirect (or relational) aggression, which, like verbal aggression,
is exhibited more frequently by women and girls than by men and boys. These differences high-
light the importance of treating physical, verbal, and indirect aggression as separate constructs.
However, there is a conflation of media form and aggressive style. Glascock (2001) found that
women in prime-time television comedies were more likely to be both more physically and ver-
bally aggressive than men were, whereas the reverse was true in television dramas. This, once
again, alerts us to the idea that the mass media are not yet comfortable taking women’s aggression
seriously.
All of this is not meant to imply that women in the media do not sometimes exhibit physical
aggression. But images of women in video games are far more likely than those of men to embody
both aggression and sexuality (Dill & Thill, 2007), which is of particular concern given that one
indicator of hypermasculinity (and one that positively predicts aggression) is a “callused attitude
toward women or sex” (Scharrer, 2001, p. 620). This means that not only is a callused attitude
toward women and sex positively correlated with aggression in male characters but images of female
characters appear to encourage this association.
News media are similarly problematic. News coverage of women involved in crimes suggests
that as long as women “stay in their (culturally prescribed) place,” they will be portrayed positively.
Women who stray from this place, however, are demonized. For example, when women commit
crimes, they typically receive more lenient treatment from the news media than do men. However,
there is an important exception to this rule: When women commit crimes that transgress traditional
gender roles (e.g., violent crime, causing harm to a child), they receive harsher coverage than men
(Grabe, Trager, Lear, & Rauch, 2006). Similarly, coverage of rape victims invariably employs either
a “virgin” or “vamp” narrative. The former frames the victim as “innocent,” and the latter implies that
the victim in some way “asked for it” (Benedict, 1992). Benedict noted that a woman’s transgression
of – or failure to adhere to – traditional gender roles is one of the criteria that increase the likelihood
of her being framed as a “vamp.” Women are not the only ones who suffer at the hands of news
directors: There is a well-documented bias in the news against African American men, who are
over-represented as criminals. European American men, on the other hand, are under-represented as
criminals (Dixon & Maddox, 2005; Gilliam, Iyengar, Simon, & Wright, 1997).
This portrait of gender representation across various forms of media content appears rather bleak
given the social, political, and economic advances that women have made in the last few decades.
And, although it is a fairly crude breakdown of the current landscape and does not provide the kind
of nuanced and often more optimistic analyses that more in-depth cultural studies analyses offer (see
Lotz, 2006), it is still important to keep these basic trends in mind as we move on to the consideration
of selective media use. A recent interview with a few Emmy-nominated actresses highlights the
qualified progress that television shows have made with regard to female roles. Although Calista
Flockhart noted that, “you see women getting more interesting roles, playing more protagonists,
more vivid characters,” and Kyra Sedgwick agreed that, “We’re no longer just the girlfriend or the
wife,” Brooke Shields commented that, “There are so many reasons they give for tossing you out as
an actress: too tall, too short, too blonde, not blonde enough, too pretty, not pretty enough, too fat,
too thin, too old. There’s always something you aren’t going to be” (Reuters, 2008). It seems that, at
the moment, while some things change, other things stay the same.
Gender and Media Use: Video Games, Internet, Sexual Material,

and Film Genres
In addition to understanding how women and men are represented in various forms of media con-
tent, it is important to understand whether male and female media consumers differ in their selective
exposure to specific media content. This gives us valuable information regarding who is exposed to
which messages about gender and provides an informed starting point for understanding how women
and men may be impacted by their media habits. Further, understanding men’s and women’s percep-
tions of media content gives us additional information about how gendered messages and images
are being received by media consumers. There are a few key forms of media that have garnered a
fair amount of academic attention regarding gender differences in selective use and exposure: video
games, new media use (internet, cell phones), pornography, and specific movie genres.
Video Games
Research on gender differences and video games centers on both quantity and quality of game play.
In general, men and boys are more likely to play video games than girls and women are (Lucas &
Sherry, 2004; Ogletree & Drake, 2007), and they are more likely to play violent video games in
particular (Anderson & Dill, 2000). This is not surprising given the data cited above that male
video game characters outnumber female characters at a 3:1 ratio or greater. However, these differ-
ences are less pronounced in younger populations (Bickham et al., 2006, Calvert, Rideout, Woolard,
Barr, & Strouse, 2005), and there are some notable exceptions. For example, Bickham et al. (2006)
found that, although boys spend more time playing electronic games than girls do overall, when
games were examined by genre, no significant differences were found for “sensorimotor” games
(e.g., racing, shooting), a form of game that made up 35% of all game play. It was educational
games, which constituted 13% of game play, that showed a gender skew; European American girls
played those games more often than other groups did.
Lucas and Sherry (2004) sampled a college population and found that 88% of men and 55%
of women reported that they play video games at least once per week. Men also played more
hours per week than women did. Even when the researchers limited their sample to men and
women with some interest/experience in game playing, men reported significantly greater inten-
sity of gratifications (e.g., challenge, arousal, diversion, social interaction) across the board than
women did, although both men and women rated the “challenge” motivation (e.g., “I find it very
rewarding to get to the next level”) highest. It is interesting that “arousal” (e.g., “I find that play-
ing video games raises my level of adrenalin”) was the second most common gratification cited
by women, whereas “social interaction” (i.e., using video games as an excuse to spend time
with friends) was the second highest rated gratification for men. This violates traditional assump-
tions, and indeed some research findings (e.g., Hartmann & Klimmt, 2006), that women prefer
activities that have a social interaction component and that men prefer media that “pumps them
up” (as in the research on gender differences in music use; Larson, 1995). However, this dif-
ference may also speak to the tendency for men to socialize via competitive play and to the
possibility that women who play video games may be less socially oriented than women who
are not interested in video games. Of course, the latter two possibilities are hard to disentangle
from the reality that many video games are designed for and marketed toward boys and men.
This brings up questions regarding gender difference in selective use of particular kinds of video
games.
Lucas and Sherry (2004) found that women rated “traditional” games (e.g., trivia, puzzles) as
more enjoyable than men did, whereas men rated “physical enactment” games (e.g., fighter games,
sports) and “imagination” games (e.g., role playing, action adventure) as more enjoyable than women
did. The researchers pointed out that women show a bias in favor of games that do not require mental
rotation, which the researchers attributed to evolved sex differences in “natural cognitive abilities,”
and they concluded that video game designers should try to engage women by capitalizing on the
“gatherer” abilities they do have (e.g., “landmark memory”). The researchers did note, however, that
by increasing game play overall girls and women would also be “reaping the benefit of increas-
ing their mental rotation skills, navigational ability and their confidence in managing a complex
and competitive virtual world” (p. 519). The latter suggestion implies, quite rightly, that even so-
called natural abilities are clearly sensitive to socialization and learning processes. (See Volume I,
Chapter 13, and also Volume I, Chapter 16 , for discussion of these issues.)
Additional support for the improvement of spatial skills from computer game play has been
reported: Feng, Spence, and Pratt (2007) showed that a 10-hour training session with action video
games reduced or eliminated any pre-existing gender differences between male and female non-game
players from pre-test to post-test. Further, although there may be some evolutionary explanations for
why men and boys routinely score higher on mental rotation tasks, the targeted marketing of toys
and games that teach spatial rotation may also serve to inhibit young girls’ interests and hence lower
their chances to hone their spatial skills. Finally, other problematic features may be confounded with
games that require mental rotation skill. Research on German women’s perceptions of single-person
action games shows that these types of games may be less appealing to women, in part, because
they contain stereotypic and sexualized representations of women as well as violence (Hartmann &
Klimmt, 2006). The creation of engaging video games with female and male characters who do
not conform to either aggressive or sexualized stereotypes would be an excellent starting point for
addressing some of these obstacles.
New Media
Initial research on gender differences in internet and computer use was informed by an apparent “dig-
ital divide” between men and women. Indeed, earlier research showed that boys scored appreciably
higher than girls did on computer use and perceived computer efficacy (Whitley, 1997). However,
recent findings from a Pew Internet and American Life project report suggest that, as of the year
2000, men and women have been utilizing the internet in relatively equal numbers (Fallows, 2005).
Beyond this, some qualitative differences emerged: Women invest more time in e-mail commu-
nication and use of e-mail to maintain intimate relationships more than men do. This is consistent
with other research that has shown that women are more likely to use the internet for communicating
(e.g., e-mail), whereas men use it more to browse content on the internet (Jackson, Ervin, Gardner, &
Schmitt, 2001). However, some researchers found no qualitative difference in the nature of men’s
and women’s internet use (Shaw & Gant, 2002; Thayer & Ray, 2006), and still other research showed
that men were more likely to use gaming sites, to have their own web pages, and to download more
online materials than women do, but women were not more likely to use e-mail than men were
(Joiner et al., 2005). Thus, the extent to which men and women are truly utilizing the internet in
different ways remains open for debate and future inquiry.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project (Fallows, 2005) also suggests that age interacts with
gender when it comes to frequency of internet use, as younger women outpace younger men in
online behaviors, and older men outpace older women in frequency of internet use. This is in line
with Selwyn, Gorard, Furlong, and Madden’s (2003) study of users in England and Wales in which
approximately three quarters of the individuals aged 61 and older who were surveyed reported no
use of computers in the last year; however, more women than men fell into the non-user category,
whereas the reverse pattern occurred in the user category. Among very young children, however,
gender differences in computer knowledge and use are not pronounced. Calvert et al. (2005) surveyed
parents about their children’s computer use and found that boys and girls start using computers in a
diverse number of ways at the same age. For example, by 5 years, over one-half of children surveyed
could turn on a computer on their own, use a mouse, and use a computer without aid from a parent.
The only gender difference of note was that boys had greater ability to load a CD-rom than girls
did. No gender differences emerged for game play on a randomly selected day, which the authors
interpreted as an optimistic sign that, at least for young children, computer games may be more
gender neutral in their target appeal. They also noted that socialized roles for game play may be less
pronounced at earlier ages.
The most recent statistics on high school students also suggest that boys and girls are using
the internet at similar rates (1–2 hours/day), but boys report significantly more gaming online than
girls do (Willoughby, 2008). The extent to which there are qualitative differences in web use as a
function of gender is unclear. This is consistent with another study (Gross, 2004) that showed that
male adolescents were more likely than their female peers to be “heavy gamers,” a difference that
accounted for boys’ greater time spent online. However, the latter study also showed that the most
common online activities for both girls and boys were socializing (instant messenger and e-mail)
and visiting websites to download music.
Research on gender differences in cell phone use also shows a bit of a mixed picture. For example,
results of another survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Rainie & Keeter, 2006)
showed that individuals who reported using only cell phones (vs. using both land lines and cell
phones) were most often younger (<30 years) men. The same study also showed that men were
more likely than women to endorse the statement that they “couldn’t live without their mobile phone”
(p. 8). Other research has shown that men and women may utilize cell phones for different purposes,
in line with stereotypical gender-role behavior; for example, a study of Taiwanese college students
showed that women were more likely to use their cell phones to keep up with friends and family,
whereas men were more likely to use their cell phones for information seeking, at least according to
self-report (Wei & Lo, 2006). Chesley (2006) found few basic differences between women and men,
with the exception that husbands’ use of cell phones at one time predicted the probability that their
wives would use a cell phone at a later time, whereas the reverse trend (wives influencing husbands’
use of cell phones) was not obtained. The researcher noted that this might indicate men’s perceived
role as the “technology expert” of the household (p. 606).
Finally, a large scale survey on both internet and mobile phone use showed that, although women
were more likely than men to be “non-users” of the internet, no significant gender differences arose
for mobile phone use (Rice & Katz, 2003). And, no gender differences were found in the Pew
research study (Rainie & Keeter, 2006) with regard to various uses of and attitudes about cell phones,
such as frequency of sending and receiving text messages, making calls to pass the time, feeling
pressured to answer the phone even when it is perceived as interfering with another activity, and
using cell phones to vote in an “American Idol-type television contest” (p. 9). In general, it seems
that any glaring gender differences in terms of frequency or type of new media use are on the decline.
Newer research on young adults and internet use has focused more specifically on the burgeoning
phenomenon of social networking sites (SNS). These are multi-purpose websites that enable users to
post and share various forms of personal information (e.g., favorite books and movies, photographs,
“status updates” that provide moment to moment information about what the user is doing, thinking,
or feeling) with other users to whom they have granted access. In most cases they also allow users
to communicate with one another via comments or e-mails. Recent research shows that women
are more avid users of SNS than men are overall, although when the sites are considered sepa-
rately, the difference is more pronounced for MySpace than for Friendster or Facebook (Hargittai,
2008).
When it comes to perceptions of male and female users and their motivations, research shows
that some striking double standards may be in effect. For example, in one study (Walther, Van der
Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008) researchers exposed participants to fictionalized websites
ostensibly owned by a man or a woman (a picture of pre-tested “neutral” attractiveness was used
to designate the profile owner) and manipulated the tone of the messages left on their profiles. The
positive comments indicated that the profile owner was the “life of the party last night” and had
a fun trip to Las Vegas planned with friends. The negative comments insinuated that the profile
owner had gotten too drunk and left a party with a “nasty slob” and that another friend was not
impressed by how “trashed” he/she was. Participants’ ratings of the profile owners’ perceived attrac-
tiveness showed an unanticipated interaction between gender and comment. Specifically, positive
comments were associated with increased perceptions of a female profile owner’s attractiveness, but
negative comments were associated with decreased perceptions of her attractiveness. However, the
opposite trend emerged for the male profile owner; that is, negative comments were associated with
increased perceptions of his attractiveness and positive comments were associated with decreased
attractiveness perceptions. The researchers noted that this interaction effect may be attributed to a
“sexual double standard” (p. 45), in which promiscuous drunken encounters raise men’s social sta-
tus but lower women’s. They cautioned that, in addition to simply reflecting social biases that occur
in everyday life, social networking sites like Facebook may become part of a larger observational
learning environment in which “bad boys” are rewarded and “bad girls” are denigrated.
A qualitative investigation of motivations for using social networking sites, conducted by the
Office for Communications Regulation and Research in the UK (Office of Communication, 2008),
is an instructive example of the kinds of gender biases that can influence perceptions of internet use.
Fifty-two participants who ranged in age from 11 to 35 and older completed self-report measures
of SNS use and also participated in smaller in-depth interviews regarding their perceptions of SNS
and various motivations for using them. Based on respondents’ feedback, a number of subgroups
were identified on the basis of their motivations for using SNS. No gender differences emerged for
categories of “non-users” (those who lacked technological expertise or who were concerned about
personal safety) and “intellectual rejecters” (those who thought social networking sites were a waste
of time). Men and boys were more likely to be labeled as “functional” users who went online for
instrumental purposes (such as downloading music). What is most striking, however, is the gender
distinction between “alpha socializers” and “attention seekers.” Men and boys were more likely to
be coded as “alpha socializers” (those who go online for “flirting, meeting new people”), whereas
women and girls were more likely to be coded as “attention seekers” (those who go online for “post-
ing photos to get comments from others”). The comments offered about these groups indicate that
users’ stereotyped perceptions may have affected their judgments. For example, “Attention seekers”
incurred disparaging comments from others: “She seems really vain; 20 pictures of herself but no
pictures of her friends” (boy); or “I think some [girls] feel self-conscious. . .so they’ll put explicit
pictures up and hope people say they look good and then they’ll feel better about themselves” (girl).
However, it is “alpha socializers” who explicitly proclaimed attention-seeking motivations (e.g., “I
like being the centre of attention and this is a wicked and fun way of doing it”) as well as super-
ficial requirements for friend-adding (e.g., “I’d add anyone who is fit”). So how is it that women
and girls who post photos are considered superficial and self-conscious, whereas men and boys
who are explicitly engaged in both attention-seeking and superficial use behaviors are considered
“alpha socializers”? More work is needed to probe the gender stereotypes that may be reflected
and perpetuated by social networking sites and, indeed, by the research organizations that report
on them.
Sexually Explicit Content
Gender differences in exposure to sexually explicit materials may reflect the skewed targeting of
sexual content toward men. Indeed, “Explicit sexual materials have traditionally been designed by
men and for men. . .they have a distinctly macho and hypermasculinized orientation” (Harris & Scott,
2002, p. 311). However, long-standing taboos regarding women’s involvement with erotica of any
kind may also depress both use and/or reports of use, which makes it a challenge to get an accurate
assessment of the quantity or quality of sexual material viewed by women.
The gender-typed nature of sexual content in the media may influence both selective exposure
as well as attitudes toward the content, which may then feed back into more general attitudes about
sex. For example, Peter and Valkenberg (2006) found that both gender and perceived realism of
sexually explicit internet content explain the link between exposure and attitudes. Specifically, men,
who report greater exposure to sexually explicit online content than women do, also tend to believe
that “sex on the internet is similar to sex in real life” (p. 648; one of four perceived realism items,
adapted from Busselle, 2001), which mediates the link between exposure and recreational attitudes
toward sex (e.g., “Sex is a game between males and females”; p. 648). These associations held up
after the researchers controlled for other relevant variables, such as age of pubertal onset, religiosity,
level of sexual experience, and exposure to sexual media content outside of the internet. The authors
acknowledged that the correlational nature of the research does not rule out the possibility that
recreational attitudes toward sex influence internet use or that the two variables may be influencing
each other reciprocally, but the researchers highlighted the important role that perceived realism
plays in the link between exposure and attitudes. This is consistent with the results of other research;
perceived realism has also been found to moderate the link between media violence viewing in
childhood and later aggression in adult men (Huesmann et al., 2003). Media that are perceived to be
reflective of life as it is may function as a validating echo chamber for superficial sexual attitudes
cultivated through other channels (such as peers) and may obscure the contributions that media make
to the development of these attitudes.
Gender differences in selective exposure to sexual television content may also be linked to stereo-
typed attitudes toward sex. Ward (2002) found that, for both women and men, hours spent watching
music videos as well as being motivated to view in order to learn about social life (e.g., “to help me
understand the world”; p. 5) predicted increased endorsement of sexual stereotypes (e.g., men are
sex-driven, women are sex objects, dating is a game). However, for women, but not for men, viewing
soap operas also predicted perceptions of peer sexual activity, presumably due to women’s higher
selective exposure to this genre. Further, manipulated exposure to sexual content from prime-time
television programming increased women’s but not men’s endorsement of gender-role stereotypes.
Ward explained this difference in light of men’s initially higher endorsement of stereotypes, in com-
bination with women’s increased consumption of and receptivity to prime-time programs such as
the female-centered “dramedy” Ally McBeal and the long-running and hit situation comedy Friends.
Other researchers (Hawk, Vanwesenbeeck, de Graaf, & Bakker, 2006) found that men reported more
sexual content gleaned from television, internet, and radio, whereas women reported more sexual
content exposure from magazines. In line with this apparent selection effect, women rated books
and magazines as more informative about sex than men did, whereas men ranked television and
internet as more valuable sources of sexual information than women did.
The above research underscores the importance of carefully analyzing the content of sexual media
targeted to men and women, as well as those media’s impact. If women and men are attending to, and
therefore receiving, different (stereotyped) messages about sex and gender, this may have dramatic
and possibly problematic implications for the expectations men and women bring into heterosex-
ual relationships. Indeed, research shows that increased exposure to sexually oriented television is
associated with different sexual expectations in male and female viewers – namely, women who
watch more sexually oriented television programs anticipate engaging in sexual behavior earlier
in a relationship than do women who watch fewer sexually oriented programs, whereas men who
watch more sexually oriented television programs anticipate a broader range of sexual activities than
do their male peers who watch fewer sexually oriented programs (Aubrey, Harrison, Kramer, &
Yellin, 2003).
We know substantially less about how individuals respond to gay sexual content in the media. In
general, and as noted earlier in this chapter, gay characters have been dramatically under-represented
in mainstream media programs (Fisher, Hill, Grube, & Gruber, 2007). A recent content meta-analysis
of the last three decades of US prime-time TV programming indicated that depictions of homo-
sexual content (e.g., two men kissing) have increased to 0.38 occurrences per hour in 2002, after
being virtually invisible in 1975 and peaking once in the mid-1980s and again in 2000 (Hetsroni,
2007). Further, Fisher et al. (2007) observed that the majority of gay content occurred in comedic
or contrived contexts (e.g., Reality TV shows),which may increase the likelihood of stereotyped or
negative portrayals. The researchers concluded that “nonheterosexual individuals will continue to
receive few media messages about healthy and responsible sexual relationships” (p. 185). There is
some indication, however, that exposure to positive gay media exemplars (e.g., Ellen DeGeneres,
Will Truman) may foster more positive perceptions of gay individuals (Bonds-Raacke et al., 2007;
Schiappa, Gregg, & Hewes, 2006). Schiappa et al. (2006) proposed that increased “parasocial con-
tact” with positive gay portrayals may both reinforce and enhance real-world perceptions of gay
individuals.
Film Genres
Video games and sexually explicit media are not the only entertainment media genres that are highly
gendered in terms of consumption and marketing. Research has shown that women tend to seek
out and enjoy romantic films and so-called tearjerkers more than men do (Oliver, 1993; Oliver,
Weaver, & Sargent, 2000). Many of these movies are referred to derogatorily as “chick flicks,”
which ostensibly renders them unpalatable for men’s viewing. Gender typing of movie genres begins
early; young children can identify whether a movie is likely to be more appealing to boys or girls,
a phenomenon that is also associated with more gender-stereotyped media preferences. Oliver and
Green (2001) showed boys and girls’ previews of both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) and
Beauty and the Beast (BAB) and asked them to describe whether the film would be more appealing
to boys, girls, or both. TMNT was perceived as appealing more to boys than to girls, and the most
commonly cited reason for this was the violent content. This suggests that, at an early age, children
are using violent content as a proxy for boys’ enjoyment. Although the modal response for BAB was
that it would appeal to “both boys and girls” (perhaps due in part to the scary beast, which may have
neutralized some of the more stereotypically feminine themes in the movie), the next most common
response was that it would be most appealing to girls. The top reason cited for this appeal was the
gender of the protagonist. This suggests that children understand the pleasure of identification with
a lead character in a film, but it also suggests that boys may opt not to see a film simply because it
has a female protagonist and thus is not perceived as relevant to them.
It is interesting that, in Oliver and Green’s (2001) study, boys who stereotyped BAB as appeal-
ing mostly to girls enjoyed the movie significantly less than did girls who stereotyped the movie
as appealing mostly to girls, and girls who stereotyped TMNT as a boys’ movie enjoyed the movie
significantly less than boys who held the same perceptions. The researchers noted that it is hard
to tell whether a child’s own liking for the preview in question influenced their perceptions of
whether it was a “girls’” or “boys’” movie, or whether the stereotype influenced their enjoyment
ratings, but they cautioned film makers to avoid overtly gender-typed programming in order to elicit
more gender-neutral responses. Stereotyped perceptions, which might lead boys and girls to avoid
movie content that they might otherwise enjoy, should also be debunked whenever possible. Indeed,
research on adults’ perceptions shows that both men and women assume that “most men” would
not enjoy a romantic movie on a date, despite retrospective autobiographical reports to the contrary;
men in fact reported a relatively high mean enjoyment level (rated 5 of 7) of such films (Harris et al.,
2004).
Another commonly cited explanation for gender differences in movie preferences is that women
embrace and experience emotion more strongly and willingly than men do. Research has shown that
women score higher on a “Need for Affect” scale (Maio & Esses, 2001), which in turn predicts
involvement with sad media news themes such as Princess Diana’s death. Similarly, Oliver (1993)
found that women score higher than men on her “Sad Film scale” (e.g., “I enjoy feeling strong
emotions in response to sad movies”; “It feels good to cry when watching a sad movie”). However,
this phenomenon is at least partly socialized or learned. Indeed, Oliver also found that, even after she
controlled for gender, individuals who scored higher on a measure of stereotypically feminine-typed
personality traits (as measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory) also reported greater enjoyment of
sad films.
Specific media may even be used strategically (if not necessarily consciously) as a vehicle for the
socialization of gendered emotion. A small body of literature has focused on the gendered socializa-
tion that accompanies the viewing of horror films (see Mundorf & Mundorf, 2003, for a review). For
example, Zillmann, Weaver, Mundorf, and Aust (1986) found that men who watched a horror film
in the company of a distressed woman (confederate) were more likely to enjoy the experience than
were men who viewed the film in the company of a woman who did not display a fright reaction.
Conversely, women who watched a horror film in the company of an unfazed or bold man (confeder-
ate) enjoyed the film more than did women who viewed it in the company of a frightened man. Sparks
(1991) replicated this finding and added a physiological dimension – for men, delight was more
highly correlated with arousal (as measured by galvanic skin response) than it was for women. The
researcher suggested that this might reflect evolutionary gender differences in responses to threat –
men ostensibly needed to master their fear to be successful in hunting and combat, whereas women
ostensibly needed to avoid threat to protect their children and themselves. However, as noted above, it
is certainly possible that men and women are socialized to interpret their own and each others’ reac-
tions through stereotypical lenses. In support of this idea, Mundorf, Weaver, and Zillmann (1989)
found that men overestimated women’s fear response to a horror film clip relative to the women’s
actual response, and women who scored higher on a measure of traditional femininity significantly
underestimated men’s fright responses relative to men’s actual response.
In sum, when it comes to video games, internet sites, sexual content, and film genres, men and
women may selectively tune in to different media environments whose content may reinforce and
exacerbate gender stereotypes, as well as justify ongoing selective avoidance of media that target the
other gender. A final important question to ask is whether gender differences have been documented
in the realm of media effects.
Key Areas of Impact: Aggression, Self/Sexual Objectification, and Stereotypes
In addition to understanding systematic differences in gender representation and use of mass media,
it is crucial to understand how media representations stand to influence those who are exposed to
them. Research on media effects has been predominantly focused on the negative impact that media
may have on individuals’ perceptions of themselves and others. Specifically, the consequences of
exposure to media violence, sexist/sexual media representations, and gender stereotypes have been
central foci of empirical scrutiny.
Aggression
All things being equal, the processes (e.g., temporary activation of aggressive schemas, long-term
observational learning) that link exposure to violent media and aggressive thoughts and behavior tend
to affect men and women in similar ways. However, the intermediary variables that moderate such a
link – selective exposure to aggressive media content, identification with physically aggressive char-
acters, and existing tendencies toward aggression – tend to be more common in men than in women
and hence make men’s aggression in response to violent media a more widespread phenomenon than
is women’s aggression. As described in the previous section, men are more likely than women to play
violent video games (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Bickham et al., 2006; Lucas & Sherry, 2004) and to
prefer violent films (Bushman, 1995). In addition, because the vast majority of physically violent film
and video game characters tend to be male, there are many more opportunities for boys and men than
for girls and women to identify with glorified violent characters. An instructive example comes from
Eyal and Rubin’s (2003) study in which men reported greater identification with violent media char-
acters than women did; however, men were also significantly more likely to choose a same-sex media
character than were women (who were about equally likely to choose a male as a female aggressive
character).
Identification may also interact with qualitative distinctions between aggressive male and female
characters as well as existing aggressive schemas and social norms that locate men’s aggres-
sion within an idealized “hypermasculine” template. A psychologically compelling case study
by Coleman (2002) shows how a particular representation of African American men’s violence
both resonated with and glamorized the life experiences of a young black boy (Caryon) and ulti-
mately resulted in a heinous copycat murder spree following repeated exposure to the film Menace
II Society. Coleman noted that his experiences with entertainment media provided Caryon with
“A Black manhood, framed by and (re)produced through media spectacle (e.g., celebrities and
Hollywood films) that affirmed an identity position marked by power – sexual conquest, aggres-
sion/violence, and wealth” (p. 269). Longitudinal work by Huesmann et al. (2003) also showed that
identification with same-sex aggressive characters may have a more powerful exacerbating effect
on adult aggression for men than for women. Although same-sex character identification predicted
adult aggression for both men and women 15 years later, the interaction between identification and
exposure increased aggression for men only. This difference may reflect qualitative differences in
male and female aggressive characters in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as social norms that inhibit
women’s but encourage men’s aggressive behaviors.
When media characters do offer women appealing opportunities for identification and idealiza-
tion, some expected associations tend to emerge. For example, Greenwood (2007) found greater
aggressive tendencies among women who reported greater idealization of (i.e., wishful identifica-
tion with) female action heroes. It is interesting that women who felt more similar to favorite female
action heroes did not report greater aggressive tendencies. This may be due to the multi-dimensional
appeal that characters such as Sydney Bristow (of Alias) or Buffy the Vampire Slayer offer young
women. Indeed, participants were just as, if not more, likely to describe a female action hero as
smart, confident, witty, and attractive as they were to describe her as one who “kicks ass.” More
research is needed to track both the development of aggressive female characterizations as well as
the dispositional motivations that attract viewers to them.
Self/Sexual Objectification
The processes that link exposure to idealized media images and body image concerns tend to affect
men and women in similar ways. In addition to the vast literature that documents the deleterious
effects of exposure to idealized media images on women’s mood and body image (Botta, 1999;
Groesz, Levine, & Murnen, 2002; Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994), there are now
numerous studies that show that exposure to idealized media images is associated with decreases
in men’s body satisfaction and/or increases in their drive to attain an idealized physique (Agliata &
Tantleff-Dunn, 2004; Barlett, Vowels, & Saucier, 2008; Giles & Close, 2008; Hatoum & Belle,
2004). In both cases, media images are theorized to activate an unrealistically high standard of
physical appearance that primes unfavorable actual-ideal comparisons among viewers, and, for
both women and men, the effects of media exposure tend to be more pronounced for those with
pre-existing body image concerns (Hamilton & Waller, 1993; Harrison, Taylor, & Marske, 2006;
Heinberg & Thompson, 1995). Further, some researchers have found that exposure to idealized
female bodies is associated with increased anxiety and body image concerns among men (Johnson,
McCreary, & Mills, 2007; Lavine, Sweeney, & Wagner, 1999), which suggests that unrealistically
high standards of female beauty have negative repercussions for men as well as for women.
What is different for men and women, however, are the quantity and quality of body image
messages in the media that target men and women, in conjunction with existing social norms and
schemas that dictate how important it is to obtain an idealized physical appearance. Fredrickson
and Roberts (1997) described the phenomenon of self-objectification, which they argued is unique
to women because they are much more likely to be sexually objectified both in everyday life and
in the myriad media images that feature women as sex objects for visual consumption. The theory
proposes that women are socialized to view themselves from an outsider’s perspective, which leads
to ongoing monitoring of their physical appearance, a task that depletes both cognitive and psycho-
logical resources. In support of this idea, the now famous “swimsuit study” (Fredrickson, Roberts,
Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998) shows that women who were made to wear swimsuits while tak-
ing a math test did significantly worse on the test than did women made to wear sweaters while
they worked, whereas men showed no difference in math performance as a function of their out-
fit. Further, women in the swimsuit condition scored higher on emotions such as revulsion and
disgust than men did, whereas men in swimsuit condition scored higher on emotions such as sheep-
ishness and shyness than women did. This illustrates important gender differences in the nature
and intensity of self-conscious emotions elicited by wearing revealing clothing, such as bathing
suits.
Research conducted since this original study, however, has shown that self-objectification is not
solely a women’s experience. When men were made to wear Speedos (form-fitting bathing suits)
instead of the swim shorts they wore in the original study, only a main effect of condition and gender
were obtained – that is, although men still outperformed women, participants in the sweater condi-
tion outperformed those in the swimsuit condition regardless of gender or ethnicity (Hebl, King, &
Lin, 2004). The researchers found that, although White “women are generally more susceptible to
negative experiences related to body image, men and members of other ethnic groups more typi-
cally resilient to these experiences can be negatively affected by situations that induce a state of
self-objectification” (Hebl et al., p. 1328). A more recent study shows that for European American
boys, exposure to muscular ideals in video game magazines predicts an increase in the drive for mus-
cularity at a later time, after initial drive for muscularity was controlled (Harrison & Bond, 2007).
The results of this study invite the speculation that aggressive and muscular models in the mass
media might not only activate aggressive tendencies in young men but concerns about body size and
strength as well.
So, once more, the processes and effects of self-objectification may be similar for women
and men, but the extent to which each gender encounters social environments that trigger self-
objectification and the kind of images that inspire such tendencies are different. Research has also
shown differences in objectification tendencies and triggers within gender, on the basis of sexual
orientation. Martins, Tiggemann, and Kirkbride (2007) proposed that, because of multiple converg-
ing factors – the general increase in sexualized images of men in the media, the increasing if subtle
targeting of the gay male population by advertisers, and the emphasis on physical appearance in
gay social life – gay men may be more susceptible to chronic self-objectification than straight men
are. Indeed, they found that gay men reported greater self-objectification tendencies (e.g., empha-
sizing how one’s body looks over what one’s body can do), body shame, and body dissatisfaction
than straight men did, and experimental manipulation of self-objectification showed that gay men’s
body shame increased in the swimsuit (vs. sweater) condition, whereas straight men’s body shame
was unaffected by what they were wearing. This research highlights both the universality and the
complex nuances associated with gender differences, media, and body image concerns.
Research on African American women and body image is complex: Some research shows that
African American viewers, despite the fact that they watched more television overall than other
groups do, appear to be less influenced by mainstream standards of thinness (Schooler, Ward,
Merriwether, & Caruthers, 2004), perhaps because of the greater diversity of body types afforded
the few powerful women of color in the mass media (e.g., Queen Latifah, Oprah Winfrey), in-group
norms that espouse inner beauty and self-acceptance, and different sites of body anxiety (e.g., hair,
clothes; see Rubin, Fitts, & Becker, 2000) than are typically discussed and measured. However, other
research shows that African American women who idealize media models may be more vulnerable
than their European American counterparts to body image concerns (Botta, 2000). It is too early to
tell what effect Tyra Banks’ hit series America’s Next Top Model will have on African American
women’s self and body image. Visibility is certainly preferable to invisibility, but at what cost? It is
refreshing to see African American women being incorporated into mainstream standards of beauty,
but given that mainstream beauty norms remain unrealistically tall and thin, and given that the show
itself is an explicit endorsement of an industry that deifies women who adhere to these standards, it
may be premature to celebrate.
The ubiquity of sexually objectified media images of women not only impacts women’s views
of their own bodies but also has negative effects on men’s perceptions of women. A fair amount
of research attention has been paid to the potentially problematic effects of men’s exposure to sex-
ualized images of women (for overviews of this literature, see Brown, 2003, and Harris & Scott,
2002). Of particular concern are media depictions of women who initially refuse or fight aggressive
sexual advances and then ultimately seem to be aroused and excited by the encounter. These types
of scenes may perpetuate the idea that when women say no, they really mean yes (one among many
rape myths; Kahlor & Morrison, 2007). The scenes have at least two very serious implications: (1)
Sexual violence becomes associated with sexual arousal, even men without sexually aggressive ten-
dencies may find these types of scenes arousing (Malamuth & Check, 1983), and (2) such exposure
may desensitize men to the consequences of real-life rape scenarios and motivate more “blame the
victim” attributions in the context of a criminal trial (Linz, Donnerstein, & Penrod, 1984). However,
even sexual media content that is less egregious in its portrayal of women can have attitudinal and
behavioral consequences.
A complex and thought-provoking study by Rudman and Borgida (1995) indicates that men
exposed to sexually objectifying advertisements of women (e.g., car and beer ads) not only showed
specific activation of sexual stereotypes in a lexical decision task (faster responses to words such as
“babe” and “bimbo”) but behaved in a more sexualized manner toward a female confederate who
was ostensibly interviewing for an actual or hypothetical job. Existing individual differences in the
likelihood to engage in sexual harassment (as measured by the Likelihood to Sexually Harass Scale,
Pryor, 1987) also predicted increased sexualized behavior but did not overpower the main effect for
media exposure. Further, the men primed with sexist advertisements perceived the female job appli-
cants as less qualified but more hirable, a finding that Rudman and Borgida (1995) noted “suggest[s]
(at best) that inappropriate criteria were used a basis for hiring the confederate and (at worst) that
some subjects’ motivations for hiring were suspect” (p. 510). The study demonstrates that even brief
exposure to sexist or sexualized media content can activate inappropriate scripts for social behavior.
Stereotyping: Media Threats and Solutions

Gender stereotypes that pervade the mass media may have direct consequences for women’s intellec-
tual performance and career aspirations. Davies, Spencer, Quinn, and Gerhardstein (2002) theorized
that sexist media depictions might activate stereotype threat (Steele, 1997) conditions, under which
women may fear being negatively evaluated on the basis of a prevalent stereotype (e.g., women are
not good with numbers) and may consequently dis-identify with or underperform in domains (e.g.,
math) in which they are not expected to do well. To test this idea, Davies et al. (2002) exposed
men and women to television commercials that portrayed women in either a gender-stereotypical
(e.g., showing heightened excitement over brownie mixes or acne medication), a gender counter-
stereotypical (e.g., an attractive woman who displayed expertise in automotive engineering), or a
non-human control condition and then measured the extent to which these images facilitated access
to gender-role stereotypes (via a lexical decision task) and the extent to which the activation of
gender-role stereotypes mediated the link between exposure and math test performance. Results
showed that gender-stereotypical commercials activated gender-role stereotypes for both men and
women. Further, it was only women for whom the activated stereotype was self-relevant and, thus,
only women for whom the stereotype mediated the link between exposure and math performance.
Two subsequent studies conducted by Davies et al. (2002) showed that exposure to sexist (vs.
neutral) advertisements reduced the number of math items women attempted and reduced the likeli-
hood of women reporting that they would attempt quantitatively based (and lucrative) careers such
as engineering or computer science. The researchers concluded that the media may perpetuate this
myth, which may in turn perpetuate the troubling consequences associated with gender stereotypes.
Researchers have also examined the career implications of other media-perpetuated myths about
gender that abound in traditional fairy tales. Rudman and Heppen (2003) found that women who
implicitly linked their romantic partner to traditional, fairy tale notions of paternalistic chivalry were
also less likely to report wanting high status and high-paying careers. For men, no consistent asso-
ciations between implicit romantic associations and career ambitions emerged. The authors coined
the term “glass slipper effect” to explain that idealized notions of femininity are incongruent with
power and ambition and may contribute to and reflect obstacles to economic and social equality.
Stereotypical representations of gender in the mass media also interact with racial stereotypes to
affect individuals’ perceptions and behavior. For example, the earlier described media bias in which
African American male athletes are considered successful due to innate physical prowess rather
than to intellectual performance, whereas European American male athletes are credited for utiliz-
ing more cognitive skills, also has consequences for sports performance. Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling,
and Darley (1999) found that, when a sports task was framed as indicative of “sports intelligence,”
African American men performed worse than when the task was framed as indicate of “natural
ability”; the reverse effect occurred for European American men. The researchers explained these
findings in terms of a stereotype threat effect. Namely, evaluation apprehension may be most pro-
nounced and disruptive when a stereotype that favors an out-group is primed. Other research has
shown that certain genres of music can activate double stereotypes of race and gender and influence
perceptions of African American targets (Gan, Zillmann, & Mitrook, 1997; Johnson, Trawalter, &
Dovidio, 2000). For example, Johnson et al. (2000) found that priming individuals with violent
rap music (vs. non-violent rap music) increased the likelihood of judging a subsequent African
American male target (vs. European American male target) in accordance with negative racial stereo-
types. Similarly, Gan et al. (1997) found that exposing European American participants to sexually
themed music videos of African American women (vs. romantic-themed videos or control) nega-
tively influenced European Americans’ perceptions of a subsequent African American female target.
All is not entirely bleak when it comes to racial stereotypes and the media, however. Dasgupta
and Greenwald (2001) found that when exposed not only to positive Black male exemplars (e.g.,
Denzel Washington) but also to negative White exemplars (e.g., Jeffrey Dahmer), individuals showed
a reduced implicit racial bias, and the effect of the priming manipulation was still in evidence
a day later. The researchers concluded that, “if media representations were to become more bal-
anced, reminding people of both admired members of outgroups and less-than-stellar members of
ingroups with emphasis on their group membership, the combined effect may be able to shift implicit
prejudices and stereotypes” (p. 808).
Conclusion and Future Directions
Though our review is by no means exhaustive, we have summarized some of the more well-studied
areas with regard to gender and media content, use, and impact. It seems that the allegedly dif-
ferent planets from which women and men are sometimes assumed to hail may be an artifact of
the gender-stereotyped landscape of the mass media, the selective attention it elicits from men and
women, and the resultant effects it has on our perceptions of ourselves and each other. Not given
its proper due in this chapter is the positive impact that media can have on consumers’ gender per-
ceptions. This is partly reflective of the bias in the research (people have an ostensibly adaptive and
natural tendency to be more attuned to negative than positive stimuli; e.g., Pratto & John, 1991)
and partly reflective of the sexist world in which we continue to live. Focusing on the potentially
destructive impact of entertainment media is, in many ways, a useful awakening; it is not uncommon
to hear female undergraduates at the beginning of a course on gender and media say that they believe
women and men are now on equal footing and that the obstacles that stood in their grandmothers’
and mothers’ way are no longer relevant to their lives. However, as Mares and Woodard (2001)
pointed out in their meta-analytic review of prosocial media effects on children’s social behavior,
the mechanisms that drive negative media effects should also be relevant to positive media effects.
In fact, plenty of research energy and money are being spent on investigating the positive effects
that media have, particularly on public health. One recent innovation in development is the idea of
using video games to teach urban young adults about safe sex behaviors by relying on the psycho-
logical mechanisms that make video games both appealing and influential (Farrar, Snyder, Barta, &
Lin, 2007). Other research has underscored the powerful role that the internet (a medium for which
few consistent gender differences in use emerge) plays in giving voice to previously marginalized
social groups, such as south Asian women (Mitra, 2004) or gay individuals (McKenna & Bargh,
1998).
By the end of the term if our students still find themselves feeling a bit discouraged in response to
the gender biases that continue to pervade the mass media, it is useful to remind them that stereotypic
attitudes and behaviors exist at the individual level as well as the group level, and so can be changed
at the individual level. We can arm ourselves with information and education, and we can start
early. We can choose not to default to the color-coded path of least resistance in toy stores. We
can encourage “and” rather than “or” approaches to creative play, even if we cannot immediately
supplant traditional gendered icons: Barbie can, after all, drive a dump truck, and the Incredible Hulk
can bake cupcakes. We can try to inhibit our impulse to praise new parents by telling them their baby
boy looks strong and their baby girl looks beautiful. We can become role models of gender equality
within our own relationships, families, and careers. These types of shifts can happen at the industry
level as well. As Glascock (2001) found, more women behind the scenes of prime-time television
translated into more women in front of the camera.
Researchers can continue to take systematic stock of the evolution of media content, use, and
effects – filling gaps, reconciling inconsistencies, and developing and testing new ways to promote
positive and counter-stereotypic images and messages. Counter-stereotypic gender content should
be thoroughly examined to determine men’s and women’s emotional responses and implicit as well
as explicit shifts in self and other perceptions following exposure. Attitudinal moderators should
also be studied; how do individuals who endorse more sexist attitudes respond to traditional vs.
non-traditional media content? To keep in mind the larger ecological niche in which individuals
develop and maintain their gender-role attitudes, interactions among media use, peer, and family
influences should also be assessed systematically. Further, researchers should attend not only to
shifting representations of various social groups but to the media habits of and effects on audiences
that are diverse with respect to age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and nation of origin.
Finally, research on gender and media must be informed by ongoing dialogue between scholars
in communication studies and in psychology, between quantitative and qualitative assessments, and
among content, uses, and effects studies. Just as our assumptions about gender difference (vs. sim-
ilarity) can limit the kinds of research questions we ask and conclusions we draw, the assumptions
we make about disciplinary and methodological differences can obscure constructive opportunities
for intellectual and empirical collaboration.
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Gender and Media: Content, Uses, and Impact

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Dara N. Greenwood and Julia R. Lippman

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Media Content: Quantity and Quality of Gender Representation

Gender and Media Use: Video Games, Internet, Sexual Material,

Sexually Explicit Content

Key Areas of Impact: Aggression, Self/Sexual Objectification, and Stereotypes

Stereotyping: Media Threats and Solutions

Conclusion and Future Directions

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