Premium Essay

Homosexuality in Advertising and Mass Media.

In: Business and Management

Submitted By niamhls
Words 357
Pages 2
Homosexuality in advertising and mass media.

The growing momentum worldwide considering gay rights issues and gay marraige legislation shows that there is growing mainstream accaptance of homosexualtiy. The demand for change came to light in the 1970s. Since then much of the world has become more accepting of homosexuality between same sex partners of a legal age. In 2007 the Pew Research Centre carried out a Global Attitudes Survey. They found that while people in Africa and the Middle East had strong objections to homosexual behaviour, its acceptance was much higher in Western and Northern Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Northwestern United States and much of Latin America. This groundbreaking survey found that 70% of ‘Millennials’ which are people in the 18-32 age demographic are in favour of same sex marraige. This is significant as Millennials take up 27% of the adult population today compared to just 9% in 2003. (http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2013/06/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Homosexuality-Report-FINALJUNE-4-2013.pdf) The growing numbers of the population in support of gay marraige legislation has spurred television producers to include charachters of a homosexual nature in their programmes and broadcasts. Modern Family is one of the most viewed programmes in the sought after 18-49 demographic. (http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2010/09/28/tv-ratings-broadcast-top-25-sunday-night-footballglee-greys-anatomy-dancing-with-the-stars-top-premiere-week/65498/ ) It was on the groundwork laid by Will and Grace that Modern Family came to be. These were such huge successes thatother networks strove to build gay friendly shows that could compete. Glee was to come shortly after and featured homosexual themes, charachters and storylines. It even managed to out do Modern Family in the ratings. Milk, Brokeback Mountain and Aleksandr’s Price, are to name a few of the

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Mass Media Significantly Contributes to the Socialization Process

...The media has a lot of control over the socialization process. When one looks at the values of a society and one sees that the media has changed significantly over the past thirty years in terms of sexual content, sexual undertones, and violence. People have become numb to programs and reports that in the past would have created a stir. The media has helped to mold our social mores. When the media presents homosexuality in a more pleasant tone, persons have become more accepting of the stands. Rosie O'Donnell was aware of this when she aired her program about families of gay people on a cruise ship. It was addressed at helping to alter public opinion of what constitutes a family in the 21st century. News shows only present the information that will sell. The media operates on the support of sponsors. If an issue is not going to draw public interest, the media will not present it. The news media also reflects the opinions of the person's who create the news as a team. The fashion industry and product market functions on the media attitude that if the public identifies with a product it will sell. In order to sell products sexuality and music serve to entice the public. Yes, the media has a significant impact on the social values and mores in a society. AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION IN U.S SOCIETY There are four major agents of socialization in the life of many people today. Those major agents are family, school, peers, and mass media. There are also two other agents called religion...

Words: 1064 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Media Bias Issues

...Media bias is studied at schools of journalism, university departments (including Media studies, Cultural studies and Peace studies) and by independent watchdog groups from various parts of the political spectrum. In the United States, many of these studies focus on issues of a conservative/liberal balance in the media. Other focuses include international differences in reporting, as well as bias in reporting of particular issues such as economic class or environmental interests. One high profile academic survey of American journalists is The Media Elite. The survey found that most journalists were liberal Democratic voters.[citation needed] Martin Harrison's TV News: Whose Bias? (1985) criticized the methodology of the Glasgow Media Group, arguing that the GMG identified bias selectively, via their own preconceptions about what phrases qualify as biased descriptions. For example, the GMG sees the word "idle" to describe striking workers as pejorative, despite the word being used by strikers themselves.[4] Herman and Chomsky (1988) proposed a propaganda model hypothesizing systematic biases of U.S. media from structural economic causes. They hypothesize media ownership by corporations, funding from advertising, the use of official sources, efforts to discredit independent media ("flak"), and "anti-communist" ideology as the filters that bias news in favor of U.S. corporate interests. Many of the positions in the preceding study are supported by a 2002 study by Jim A. Kuypers:...

Words: 1474 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Outline the Ways in Which the Media in Britain Are Regulated

...Outline the ways in which the media in Britain are regulated. Is there enough regulation? The history of mass communication is rather short in the broad context of the world’s progress. Despite the fact that in all times people felt the urge to share their significant experiences in more durable than verbal form – like the prehistoric paintings on cave walls and invention of writing by Sumerians later – relatively modern forms of communication, reaching large audiences, originated only in the past five hundred years. The importance of sharing information and even more – deciding what to share and what to withhold – was understood from the moment people learned to write. As Tom Clancy put it: ‘Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people’ and that is why since the beginning of times that precious knowledge was divided only between the chosen few: from high priests of the ancient civilizations to the nobility and servants of God in the middle ages; from the dictators like Stalin and Hitler to modern moguls like Rupert Murdoch. In our times mass media became a super-power: it has a colossal impact on society as a whole and its political, economic, cultural constituents, therefore it must be governed and regulated aiming to ensure a freedom to communicate, diversity and universal provision as well as secure communicative and cultural ends chosen by the people for themselves (McQuail, 2010). The obligatory argument that always emerges...

Words: 3431 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

Persuasion

...Study Guide, Fall 2015 Media/Society, Ch. 6: Social Inequality & Media Representation · Comparing Media Content and the “Real World”: four issues raised by this comparison (pp. 188-189) o First – literature in media and cultural studies reminds us that representation are not reality, even if media readers or audiences may sometimes be tempted to judge them as such. § Representations are the result of process of selection that invariably mean that certain aspects of reality are highlighted and others neglected. § All representations re-present the social world in ways that are both incomplete and narrow. o Second – the media usually do not try to reflect the “real” world. o Creators of media products use entertainment media to comment on the real social world. Readers and audiences develop at least some sense of the social world through their exposure to both entertainment media and news media. · Third – Concerns the troublesome term real. o The concept of a “real” world may seem like a quaint artifact from the past. o Social constructionist perspective. § No representation of reality can ever be totally “true” or “real” because it must inevitably frame an issue and choose to include and exclude certain components of a multifaceted reality. o Fourth- Seems to imply that the media should reflect society. o For many people, media are an escape from the realities of daily life. o Therefore, how “real” media products are is irrelevant...

Words: 5179 - Pages: 21

Free Essay

Was Permissive Legislation in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s a Response to Social Change or Did It Create It?

...Was permissive legislation in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s a response to social change or did it create it? In 1959, six years before becoming Labour’s Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins said that ‘the state should not impinge excessively on peoples private lives and personal morality’. Permissiveness is routed in this idea of a new relationship between society and the individual, representing ‘striking changes in public and private morals’. According to Andrews, social change began in 1956 with a ‘class initiative’, caused by rapidly growing affluence. The affluence of the 1950s is proven by the proportion of homeowners in England and Wales rising from 31% to 44% between 1951-60, representing vast economic growth. Many politicians, particularly those on the Left, believed that ‘the affluent society was directly responsible for the permissive society’. Rising affluence occurred amid the re-emergence of Conservative values in the post-World War Two period, with Brown claiming that ‘the 1950s were about perfecting Victorian values’. The conservatism of the 1950s gave the 1960s a cause for rebellion, creating the unique conditions for permissive legislation to be passed. This paper will focus on acts passed between 1967-1970, including the Abortion, NHS (Family Planning) and the Sexual Offences Acts of 1967, the Divorce Reform Acts (1969), and in 1970 the Matrimonial Property Act. These permissive acts symbolised the breakdown of Victorian and Christian morals, particularly surrounding...

Words: 3580 - Pages: 15

Premium Essay

Text Analysis Provides Some Insight Into Media Messages but Only a Critical Political Economy Approach Can Adequately Explain How the Media Work Today

...insight into media messages but only a critical political economy approach can adequately explain how the media work today * * Whoever Controls the media, controls the mind. This is an interesting quote by Jim Morrison that shows the power of the media and its messages at the present day. Media has played a huge role in the cultures it inhabited. Starting from the Printing Press, and then evolving into the radio, the television till the World Wide Web. The evolution of the mass media took many different shapes and with this evolution, it shaped our cultures and understandings differently, which caused its effects to be more influential. Throughout the history the mass media molded our ideologies by its messages and changed the way we look at things around us. “When we consume mass media, there are a lot of physical and mental activities going on” (Fourie, 2001, p.283). At the present time when we decide to sit and watch a movie, there are millions of messages being interpreted to us as audiences that shape how we speak, dress, and behave. It is believed that the media determines what we should know and how we should think. But the vital question is who controls the media and controls its messages, and how does the media work today. This essay will therefore attempt to discuss the different approaches that are used to analyze and evaluate media messages, and how these various approaches operate. Firstly, there are different methods to analyze the different media messages...

Words: 2372 - Pages: 10

Free Essay

Anticommunism and Mccarthyism

...Left-feminism, the consumer movement, and red scare politics in the united states, 1935-1960. Journal of Women's History, 18(3), 40-40-67,148. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/203248794?accountid=35812 In the United States, right-wing hostility to female consumer advocates who held federal jobs or had the ear of federal officials was an important source of the crusade against "Communists in government," a primary engine of the Second Red Scare. The hunt for communists in the U.S. government, which began in the 1930s and reached a fever pitch in the 1950s, reshaped the terrain of party politics and halted expansion of the American welfare state. Conservatives' attack on the New Deal-often seen as triggered by the rise of mass production unionism-also was a reaction to the emergence of a consumer movement that was feminist, anti-racist, and pro-labor. That movement was predominantly female and wielded more influence over federal policy than scholars have recognized. Focusing on the League of Women Shoppers, the Consumers' National Federation, and the fate of their members who obtained positions in such government agencies as the Office of Price Administration, this article argues that conservative anticommunists' gendered animosity to the consumer movement was critical to the pre-history of the federal employee loyalty program created in 1947, and that civil servants with ties to consumer groups were prominent among that program's casualties. In May 1939, a front-page...

Words: 6635 - Pages: 27

Free Essay

Why Is Men’s Fashion Photography Redefining the Image of the Contemporary Male and How Does It Use Diverse Male Sexualities as a Tool in Advertising?

...Why is men’s fashion photography redefining the image of the contemporary male and how does it use diverse male sexualities as a tool in advertising? The works of renowned photographers such as Hedi Slimane have a heavy impact on prevailing images of male sexualities in fashion advertising, eventually affecting the image of the ideal male in fashion. Male sexualities in high fashion photography can oscillate between the homoerotic or a dominant hetero-masculinity, thus there is usually no middle ground in fashion advertising, especially where artistic direction takes over. Such advertising targets niche “high fashion” audiences and responds to the popularization of sexual themes in other forms of advertising (and indeed wider media), whilst associating diverse sexualities with artistry. Coding in high fashion advertisements affect, but also respond intuitively to, audience sexual ideologies by deconstructing the concepts of femininity and masculinity that have undergone rapid change in our self-reflective and deconstructing postmodern world. Hedi Slimane’s penchant for androgynous men has significantly heightened popularity for thin male models in the fashion industry. His work usually incorporates explicit concepts of homo-eroticism and femininity inspiring many leading contemporary designers and photographers who saw his designs as radical and surprisingly persuasive” [1]. Indeed, Hedi’s influence on modern fashion aesthetics suggests that “designers everywhere started...

Words: 2699 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

How Society Works Notes

...How Society Works – Lecture Notes Sep, 11, 2012 Introduction to Classical Social theory * “Theories in sociology are abstract, general ideas that help organize and make sense of the social world” (attempt to link idea’s with actual events) * Classical social theory (1840s – 1920s) – The enlightenment, political revolution (American revolution, French revolution), the industrial revolution * American and French revolution inspired more widespread adoption of democratic principle and rights of citizens * Industrial revolution caused dramatic, rapid urbanization, changes in family relations, gender relations, increased secularization * Classical social theorist and macro and micro theorists – macro are interested are in social theory that can explain huge social phenomenon’s (past and future), micro are interested in smaller scale phenomenon’s * Emile Durkheim was a positivist, saw society as analogous to a body, concerned with social solidarity, and developed the idea of the ‘social fact’ * Social Solidarity: division of labour Organic: present in modern societies, high dynamic density, high degree of labour specialization (works like a human body, everything works together with high specialization) Mechanical: present in traditional societies, low dynamic density , low degree of labour specialization (works like gears, works together to complete society) * Similarities of Social Solidarity: Conscience collective similar ideas...

Words: 7026 - Pages: 29

Premium Essay

Gender

...role attitudes. Jennifer Garst; Galen V. Bodenhausen. Author's Abstract: COPYRIGHT 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation We posited that media images of men influence the gender role attitudes that men express soon after exposure to the images. A total of 212 men (87% European American, 7% Asian or Asian American, 3% African American, and 3% other) viewed magazine advertisements containing images of men that varied in terms of how traditionally masculine vs. androgynous they were and whether the models were the same age or much older than the viewers. Men who had initially been less traditional espoused more traditional attitudes than any other group after exposure to traditionally masculine models, although they continued to endorse relatively nontraditional views after exposure to androgynous models. These findings suggest that nontraditional men's gender role attitudes may be rather unstable and susceptible to momentary influences such as those found in advertising. Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation In the average American household, the television is turned "on" for almost seven hours each day, and the typical adult or child watches two to three hours of television per day. It is estimated that the average child sees 360,000 advertisements by the age of eighteen (Harris, 1989). Due to this extensive exposure to mass media depictions, the media's influence on gender role attitudes has become an area of considerable interest and concern in the past quarter...

Words: 7988 - Pages: 32

Premium Essay

Paper

...TOPIC SUBJECT HEADINGS For use in Online Catalog (OPAC) SUBJECT HEADINGS For Sample Database Searches Abortion Abortion; Pro-Choice Movement; Pro-Life Movement Abortion Acid rain SEE ALSO Pollution Acid Rain Acid Rain Adoption (interracial, unmarried persons, gays) Adoption; Gay parents; Interracial adoption Adoption AIDS AIDS (Disease); AIDS (Disease) in children AIDS (Disease); Pediatric AIDS (Disease) Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease Animal rights Animal experimentation; Animal rights Animal experimentation; Animal rights Anorexia and Bulimia SEE Eating disorders Athletes and drugs Doping in Sports Drugs and Athletes Banking Bailout (2008) Bailout Battered women SEE ALSO Wife Abuse Abused women Conjugal abuse Birth control Birth control; Contraception Birth control; Contraception Black Reparations Movement Reparations; Slavery--Law and legislation Reparations Body language Body language; Gesture; Nonverbal communication Nonverbal communication Bullying Bullying Bullying; Cyberbullying Business ethics Business ethics; Corporations - Corrupt practices Business ethics; Business enterprises, Corrupt practices Capital punishment (Death Penalty) Capital punishment; Death row Capital punishment Cancer Cancer--Prevention SEE ALSO types of cancer, such asBreast--Cancer Neoplasms--Prevention and Control;Cancer Treatment Censorship SEE ALSO Freedom of the Press Censorship; Prohibited...

Words: 1762 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Effect of Sexual Scene in Ex Movie

...Research Method in Communication The effect of sexual scene in EX movie to Dasein and TAR college student from age 18 to 24 Lim Bee Yee DMC 102- 054 Suzie Lagis 1 August 2011 Content 1. Introduction 3 2. Background to Research 3 3. Problem Statement 4 4. Research Objective 4 5. Research Question 4-5 6. Significance of Research/ Contribution to the Body of Knowledge 5 7. Literature Review 6-8 8. Methodology 8-9 9. Finding 9-19 10. Discussion 19-20 11. Conclusion ...

Words: 3884 - Pages: 16

Free Essay

The Feminine Mystique

...Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique Angelina C. Cosentino JRNL B1 Media and Society – Professor Garcia April 9th 2014 In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to publish an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish her article. In Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan wrote about women's inequality from men to women's equality to men. She also wrote about women accepting the inequality to women fighting for equality. Friedan comes across as a woman with strong beliefs that filled her book with a lot of effort and information. Her writing style proves that she has been in a feminist movement and that she has a passion for every word she put into this book. She also writes in a way that makes a person interested in what her beliefs are. Friedan has a mass amount of information to prove every point she has. She once stated that “Feminine Mystique” was her favorite work to write about. Her writing style proves each point she responds to. In Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan is attempting to persuade the reader to understand what she is trying to say. She wants people to know exactly what occurred...

Words: 2710 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Socio-Cultural Marketing

...MARKETING IS ALL ABOUT UNDERSTANDING SOCIO CULTURAL FACTORS 05/12/2013 MARKETING IS ALL ABOUT UNDERSTANDING SOCIO CULTURAL FACTORS Compiled By- (17/2013) Arun Kumar (20/2013) Amandeep Singh Mehta (33/2013) Nishant Dahiya (36/2013) Manish Kumar Singh (41/2013) Priyanka Singh (52/2013) Ashim Gupta To Be Received By- Dr. Joyeeta Chatterjee ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We would like to thank Dr. Joyeeta Chatterjee for giving us the opportunity to study the importance of socio cultural factors in marketing. It gave us an insight how the different socio cultural factors affect the marketing strategies of different companies. We would also like to thank our class-mates whose valuable insight about socio cultural factors helped us to analyze and develop a broad perspective of how these factors affect the way companies market and sell their products. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL December 05, 2013 To Dr. Joyeeta Chatterjee Associate Professor, Marketing  Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management Delhi From Group number-1 We, group number-1 are submitting a report “Marketing is all about understanding socio cultural factors”. We hereby declare that the work presented in this project report entitled “Marketing is all about understanding socio cultural factors” is original and correct to the best of our knowledge and has been carried out taking...

Words: 2725 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Cmns Paper

...Themes in the Course 2 Week 2- Theoretical Approaches to Media, Culture and Chinese Society 3 Outline of Class 3 State and Market Framework 4 Negotiable State market Framework 4 Political Economy Approach 5 Presentation 5 WEEK 3- Media Systems and the Party State (Mao-Reform Era) 6 Anti-capitalistic and anti-imperialistic revolution (1921-1949) 6 Legitimacy 7 Maoist Socialist Practice (1949-1976) 7 Deng (1978-1992) 8 Jiang Zemin’s era- 1992-2002 10 Market Economy and Scientific Outlook on Development (2002-2012) 11 The 5th Generation 2012-2022 11 WEEK 4 11 The Shifting Role of the media: Between the party line and the bottom line 11 Focus on the Bottom line 12 State Control 12 “Popular Culture” in the context of China in post-Mao market reform era 13 The Chinese state (The Party-state) 14 The media-government/state relationship 14 The Media System and Media-State Relationship 15 Maoism/Mao Zedong Thoughts 16 Week 4- Commercial Media and Reconfigured Power Relations 16 The Party/State Structures 16 Different Party Committees 17 Ministries (under the state council) 17 Media System: 18 Central Media Outlets 18 Provincial Media Outlets 18 Universal Values: Two views 18 Week 5- Popular Culture and Cultural Industry 19 Mass Media and Popular Culture in Mao Era 19 Popular Culture 20 Popular Culture in the Mao Era 20 Broadcasting/Radio in Mao Era 20 Week 7- Media Culture in China’s Global Reintegration 21 Shifting...

Words: 10371 - Pages: 42