Media Literacy Project

Wordle: Media Lit Proj
Ever day, we read, see and listen to messages from others. We are reached through music, movies, magazines, newspapers, television, video games and advertisements. In this unit, our goal was to become aware of the messages created by others and the values imbedded in those messages. In this blog, we each examined one area of media and looked at how that media might be influencing our values and how it might be contributing to inequity in our society. Each entry describes what we learned from our research and our thoughts about what we learned. Each entry is a thoughtshot: a window into our thinking.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

MEN AND WOMEN IN MAGAZINES



INTRODUCTION: For my media project I studied how men and women are portrayed differently in magazine ads. My results came quite close to what I expected but there were surprises in there. I really enjoyed doing my media project and I hope you enjoy reading about it.



INVESTIGATION: I studied this topic by looking though two mens magazines (GQ and Mens Health) and three women's ( Marie Claire, Vogue and Elle) I compared these magazines and how the models looked in them then I put them into categories. These categories were powerful, sexy, happy and thoughtful. I looked at how men and women fit into these categories in the women's magazines and the same in the mens magazines here are my overall results:

MENS MAGAZINES

1. powerful
  • 1 woman
  • 18 men

2. sexy
  • 6 women
  • 3 men

3. happy
  • 12 women
  • 19 men

4. thoughtful
  • 8 men
  • 2 women

WOMEN'S MAGAZINES

1. powerful
  • 21 women
  • 2 men

2. sexy
  • 19 women
  • 3 men

3. happy
  • 30 women
  • 0 men

4. thoughtful
  • 26 women
  • 5 men
What surprised me about this data I collected was that the men and women's data were much closer in the mens magazine then in the women's so kudos to the people at mens health and GQ. Of course there is room for improvment but we have to keep in mind who these magazines are aimed towards.

CONCLUSION

The people in the magazines and at the companies who make them are trying to make you feel less beautiful than you really are. This can lead you to spending way more money that you need to on a usless product. That's why I've decided that the hidden message in the magazine ads is that "you'll always look better if you buy this product" we just have to always remember that in the women's magazines they are trying to make women look like the better gender. And in mens magazine men are always going to look like the better gender. This can lead to fights and inequality. We always have to try to remember this and also to remember that the models in the magazine are not you average person. They are covered in make up and clothes that are meant to make them look absolutly perfect. But none of them really are. We all have flaws and thats what makes us... us.

CITATIONS

Marie Claire: June 2010

GQ: May 2010

Elle: May 2010

Vogue: May 2010

Mens Health: May 2010
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1 comment:

  1. Gretchen HovanJune 15, 2010 at 11:52 AM

    You chose interesting categories to examine in your research into the ads. Your analysis has some thought provoking points-- you had some really interesting comments in class about what you found that didn't make it onto this page. Adding them to this would have strengthened your conclusion.

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