1 Changing the Discourse: the Fight for Gender Equality in Pop Culture
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Changing the discourse: The fight for gender equality in pop culture blogs 1 Changing the discourse: The fight for gender equality in pop culture blogs MASTERS THESIS By Jaclyn Obie 0646891 Prepared for Dr. DeNel Rehberg Sedo & Dr. Tracy Moniz Mount Saint Vincent University February 15, 2017 Changing the discourse: The fight for gender equality in pop culture blogs 2 ABSTRACT Gender inequality in modern, Western society is problematic and strengthened by media reinforcement. The negative representations of women in media can actively prevent gender equality. Media, and entertainment media in particular, treat women unequally and represent them in harmful ways. Albert Bandura’s Social cognitive theory of mass communication (2001) established that the examples presented in media have a lasting impact on the audience’s values, opinions and behaviours. Using Bandura’s theory as a theoretical framework, this study is grounded in the consequence of media’s unequal representation of women. This study looks at two blogs that treat women, and people of colour, as equals, and actively point out inequality in other media. Lainey Gossip and Awards Daily are challenging a tradition of unequal gender representation in entertainment media. I did a two-case case study of Lainey Gossip and Awards Daily, which included Critical Discourse Analysis of their blog posts, and interviews with the founders of those blogs, Elaine Lui and Sasha Stone respectively. From the research, several solutions to the existing inequality in media emerged, chiefly that of representation – having women writing about entertainment media, producing media content, and shown on screen, is the first key step in achieving equality in media. Changing the discourse: The fight for gender equality in pop culture blogs 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to DeNel for the endless encouragement, laughs, assistance and answering of silly questions; Thank you to Tracy for the positivity and affirmation, and for making my work better; Thank you to Elaine Lui and Sasha Stone, for inspiring this paper with your visionary work, and then for participating; Thank you to my parents for always encouraging me, and telling me I’m brilliant; Thank you to my husband for doing more than your share so I could do endless homework; And thank you to my baby for cooperating and not being born early, as per the schedule. Changing the discourse: The fight for gender equality in pop culture blogs 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................3 Chapter One: Introduction ...............................................................................................................6 Research Questions ......................................................................................................................7 Purpose of Research .....................................................................................................................8 Chapter Two: Literature Review .....................................................................................................9 Gender Role Expectations in Society ...........................................................................................9 Gender Representation in Media ................................................................................................11 Celebrity Gossip Media ..........................................................................................................13 Portrayal in Film and Television ............................................................................................17 Influence of Blogs ......................................................................................................................19 Theoretical Framework for Study ..............................................................................................20 Gaps in the Research ..................................................................................................................22 Chapter Three: Research Design ...................................................................................................23 Worldview and Qualitative Research .........................................................................................23 Methodology ..............................................................................................................................24 Case Study Analysis ...................................................................................................................24 Critical Discourse Analysis .......................................................................................................29 Participants and Blog Post Sample ............................................................................................33 Challenges and Limitations .......................................................................................................34 Impact of the Study ...................................................................................................................35 Chapter Four: Findings and Discussion .........................................................................................36 Challenging the Tradition of Sexism in Entertainment Media ..................................................38 Blog Posts: Decoding the Text ...............................................................................................38 Blog Posts: Recurring Themes ...............................................................................................40 Women’s roles ...................................................................................................................40 Conventional beauty ..........................................................................................................42 Age .....................................................................................................................................44 Women of colour ...............................................................................................................45 “Women shouldn’t be” ......................................................................................................47 Representation ....................................................................................................................49 Television ...........................................................................................................................53 Women’s rights ..................................................................................................................54 Blog Posts: Purpose of Posts ..................................................................................................56 Interviews: Challenging Gender Inequality ............................................................................62 Interviews: The Implementation of Gender Equality on the Blogs .......................................64 Changing the discourse: The fight for gender equality in pop culture blogs 5 The Motivation for Addressing Gender Inequality ....................................................................64 Interviews: The Choice to Address Gender Inequality ..........................................................65 Interviews: The Consequences of Addressing and Promoting Gender Equality ...................67 The Future of Gender Inequality in Media .................................................................................68 Interviews: Ending the Tradition of Gender Inequality .........................................................69 Chapter Five: Conclusion .............................................................................................................73 References ......................................................................................................................................81 Appendices .....................................................................................................................................87 Appendix A: Blog Post Analyses ...........................................................................................87 Appendix B: Signed Permission Forms ...............................................................................149 Appendix C: Interview Questions .......................................................................................153 Changing the discourse: The fight for gender equality in pop culture blogs 6 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Gender inequality in modern, Western society is problematic. While men and women have the same legal rights, research shows that gender equality does not yet exist (Fitzgibbons Shafer & Malhotra, 2011; Matud, Bethencourt, & Ibáñez, 2014). Amy Parziale (2008) argues that “gender inequality can be defined as allowing people different opportunities due to perceived differences based solely on issues of gender. Gender discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual or group due to gender” (p. 977). Men and women are often expected to act according to prescribed, disparate gender roles (Matud, Bethencourt, & Ibáñez, 2014). Changing persisting gender role expectations is key to promoting gender equality in our society (Fitzgibbons Shafer & Malhotra, 2011). This is important because inequality leads to such