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Invisible Majority Teaching Women in the News: Exposing the "Invisible Majority" independent producer. The work from any Rohmer, Eric, and Claude Charbol 1988. one of these periods alone would have es- References Hitchcock: the First Forty Four Films. tablished him as a major figure in film his- (Trans. Stanley Hochman) New York: tory. Unfortunately, the most comprehen- Dutelbaum, Marshall, and Leland Poague, Continuum Publishing. sive current biography of this fascinating eds. 1986. A Hitchcock Reader. Ames: Rothman, William. 1982. Hitchcock: The character (Spoto 1983) is marred by an un- Iowa State University Press. Murderous Gaze. Cambridge: Harvard pleasant (and unfulfilled) agenda. Hitchcock, Alfred. 1948. "Let 'Em Play University Press. 2. "Alfred Hitchcock Dies," Los Angeles God." Hollywood Reporter 100:47 (11 Spoto, Donald. 1983. Dark Side of Genius: Times, April 29, 1980, p. 1. The second October). Reprinted in Sidney Gottlieb, The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Boston: headline, in type half the size, is "Carter ed. 1995. Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Se- Little, Brown. • Picks Muskie to Be Secretary of State." lected Writings and Interviews. Berkeley: Truffaut, Frangois. 1984. Hitchcock. New 3. The most casual computer search will University of California Press. York: Simon and Schuster. yield scores of recent papers and books on Hitchcock, Alfred. 1965. "Motion Pictures," Hitchcock's films. Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 15. Re- 4. Hitchcock's 1936 classic Sabotage, printed in Gottlieb 1995. adapted from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Hitchcock, Alfred. 1973. "The American Agent, should not be confused with two Cinematheque." Interview and documen- About the Author other Hitchcock films, The Secret Agent, or tary. 1942's Saboteur. Leff, Leonard J. 1987. Hitchcock and Jonathan Kirshner is assistant professor of 5. Hitchcock's technique also made it dif- Selznick: the Rich and Strange Collabo- government at Cornell University and au- ficult for producers to reedit his work by ration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. thor of Currency and Coercion: The Politi- using extra footage and master shots rou- Selznick in Hollywood. New York: Wei- cal Economy of International Monetary tinely called for in the studio system (Leff denfield and Nicholson. Power (Princeton University Press, 1995). 1987, 215). Robello, Stephen. 1990. Alfred Hitchcock His research focuses on the relationship be- and the Making of Psycho. New York: tween political economy and national secu- Dembner Books. rity, and international monetary relations. Teaching Women in the News: Exposing the 'invisible Majority" Penny M. Miller, University of Kentucky Suppose your local newspaper, or discussion sections of large lecture names, not pronouns), byline, or the New York Times, or the college courses. photo of a woman and, using the daily, became an exclusively fe- In each of these courses, the ex- other highlighter, to do the same male domain—that every expert ercise has had the same impact on for men. Then they were asked to source, byline, photograph, quota- students, who are consistently tabulate male and female totals for tion, and evaluation were female. stunned by the results. The conclu- the different categories. Each stu- Most readers might wonder why sion in every class has been clear: dent presented his or her findings women deserve 100% of the cover- when it comes to front-page report- orally, and the results were enu- age when they represent 52% of the ing, Kentucky's major newspapers, merated on the blackboard. population. By contrast, an all-male the New York Times, and the col- Overall, female bylines on the front page might not register as lege daily significantly underrepre- newspaper pages averaged 25% of anything unusual, for it is a regular sent coverage of women and are the totals. Women amounted, on occurrence in many publications often unflattering in the coverage average, to 20% of those shown in (Aprile 1993, H8). they do provide. photographs. But the most extreme In October 1994, I conducted this result had to do with textual refer- exercise in a class on women and ences to females. On average, fe- A Dramatic Lesson politics. Armed with the sectional males were the subject of only 10% front pages of the Lexington Her- of front-page references. The following hands on exercise ald-Leader, the Louisville Courier- Some students had front pages has been conducted several times Journal, the New York Times, and that contained no female bylines, at the University of Kentucky in the University of Kentucky Kernel, photographs, or references to courses on American government, I distributed 90 newspapers ran- women. Even stories on topics of introduction to political science, domly to 45 students. I also distrib- unusual concern to women, such as political behavior, campaigns and uted two different-colored marking abortion, often contained more ref- the media, women and politics, and pens to each class member. erences to men, and few or no ref- state and local politics. It takes at First, students were instructed to erences to women. least 40-45 minutes to complete, highlight in one color every textual Secondly, to gain further insight and it is particularly successful in reference to persons (noting proper into the problem of the "invisible September 1996 513 The Teacher majority," students were instructed Some Kernel reporters in the Scholarly Information to be to look for positive, negative, neu- class later convened a special ses- Provided After the Exercise tral, and mixed images of the roles sion of newspaper staffers and con- in which women were portrayed. due .ed a similar exercise with After the hands on lesson, stu- Negative images were identified ar, in'1 n. Several students expressed dents can be directed to in-depth those that depicted women as vic- their outrage to some Lexington research studies on reserve at the tims, perpetrators, or discredited and Louisville newspaper reporters library. These materials can be- sources. Positive images focused and editors and wrote letters to the come the subject of stimulating fu- on women in positions of power editor for publication. A follow-up ture group discussions. and authority or as attainers of class discussion was scheduled af- Several national studies have in- noted achievement. Neutral images ter the students read assigned ma- vestigated this issue. Bridge (1996), were basic, nonevaluative refer- terials by M. Junior Bridge (1993) in a survey sponsored by Women, ences (i.e., wife, mother) or those and FAIR (1992). Two local media Men and Media1 (cochaired by where no significance was attached experts were invited to the next Betty Friedan and Nancy Wood- to the reference. Mixed images class session to discuss exposing hull), examined 20 daily newspa- were defined as a combination of the "invisible majority"; students pers (10 major market, 10 small to positive and negative roles (i.e., a were required to prepare relevant medium markets) for a one-month state senator charged with bribery). questions. period.2 The print-media analysis Overall, the portrayals of women in examined bylines, photos, and ref- stories were approximately 45% erences by and about women on positive, 25% neutral, and 30% the front page, the first page of the negative or mixed. when it comes to local news section, and the opinion/ Stories about females were often front-page reporting, editorial pages. about their victimization (rape, In the content analysis of the 20 murder, domestic violence). De- Kentucky's major dailies, including the Washington scriptions of women, no matter newspapers, the New Post and the New York Times, the what the female had done—a cou- Women, Men and Media study rageous act, a major exploit, an York Times, and the showed that men rather than intellectual accomplishment—al- women were referred to or solicited most always included a physical college daily significantly for comment 85% of the time in description and a familial relation- underrepresent coverage front-page stories. Men wrote 65% ship. Even female candidates for of the front-page stories and 74% of national political office were de- of women and are often the opinion pieces. Women ap- scribed in terms of their physical peared in 33% of the front-page attire, personal feminine attributes, unflattering in the photographs. References to and and family relationships. Men sel- coverage they do provide. comments from women leaders and dom were described in this fashion. experts consistently appeared to- In fact, it was rare that a male's ward the end of stories and com- marital or parental status was In the context of this women and mentaries, or did not appear at all. mentioned. politics course, future discussions Even when the issues commented The students also noticed that and follow-up materials (see appen- on had more direct impact on certain front-page stories focused dix) also related media coverage to women, such as breast implants, on the gender of women in nontra- electoral success and failure, to the sexual harrassment, abortion, and ditional roles (e.g., a female state relative effectiveness of female of- domestic violence, men's voices trooper and a female construction ficeholders, to female voting behav- dominated front pages. Although worker). This emphasis on gender ior, and to gender variations in in- "six percent of the front pages ex- implies oddities, and the focus on terest and participation in political amined carried no female refer- gender diminishes other qualities. issues and processes. ences, there were no front pages In scanning the inside pages of The same exercise in five Ameri- devoid of male references" (Bridge their particular newspaper sections can government discussion sections 1996, 3). for gender references, the students in February 1995 was followed by The same patterns cropped up in observed that women were under- extending the lessons concerning an examination of five nightly news represented everywhere except in invisible women to the invisible (or shows3 by Bridge (1995).
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